row of his power by any
attempt to thwart the wishes of the house. The Peelites resigned,
and the cabinet had to be reconstructed. On the 22nd of February the
secession was publicly announced.

Lord Palmerston obtained Sir Charles Wood--a man of inferior talents,
but superior moral weight--in place of Sir G. Graham. Sir G. Cornewall
Lewis became chancellor of the exchequer, who was much inferior to Mr.
Gladstone in that post, but a man of more direct and reliable opinions.
Mr. Vernon Smith was made president of the board of control. Lord John
Russell, who was (as before noticed) nominated to the Vienna conference,
accepted the colonial-office, which Sir George Grey occupied _ad
interim_, as well as the home-office, which he accepted _en permanence_.
The secession of those men from the cabinet, to whom our military
disasters were mainly attributable, was a gain to its moral influence,
and saved the premiership of Lord Palmerston from an extinction,
probably, as signal as that of his predecessor. In the month of March
the ministry was modified in its inferior offices in a way calculated
to improve its strength. Generally, throughout the united kingdom, it
inspired confidence and received support.

One of the last acts of the Aberdeen ministry was to establish an order
of military merit for bravery--the Victoria Cross.

Upon the resignation of the Aberdeen ministry, the court paid signal
attention to its members; and the fallen premier received the highest
badge of honour the queen could bestow--the Order of the Garter.
This excited loud murmurs throughout the country, and impaired public
confidence in the vigour of will possessed by the premier, when the will
of the court was expressed apart from the great and leading principles
of his policy.

The estimates for the service of 1855 were much discussed in the house,
and were generally considered far below the exigencies of the country.
The estimates for the army were L13,721,158; for the navy, L10,716,388;
for the transport service, L5,181,465; for the ordnance, L7,808,042. The
whole nearly equalling thirty-seven millions and a half sterling.

With the discussions of March, and the consolidations of the cabinet,
ended the parliamentary events, of the year most worthy of note;
although various discussions, full of interest and importance, arose
from time to time throughout the whole of the session. Those which were
most vital to the government arose out of the negotiat