-containing considerably upwards of four millions of square geographical miles of land; that is, nearly a ninth part of the whole terrestrial surface of the globe!*-besides nearly a million and a half miles of water-five hundred thousand of these square miles being capable, and in rapid progress, of profitable cultivation ! at more than three thousand miles' distance from the mother country, and in immediate juxtaposition to the territory of our distinguished but jealous descendants and rivals-a rising nation-the United States! Pausing here in the long catalogue of our foreign possessions, let our fancied observer turn back his eye towards the little island that owns them; will he not be filled with wonder, possibly with a conviction that Great Britain is destined by Almighty God to be the instrument of effecting His sublime but hidden purposes with reference to humanity? Assume, however, our observer to be actuated by a hos tile and jealous spirit, and to regard our foreign possessions, and the national greatness derived from them, as only nominal and apparent--to insinuate that we could not really hold them, or vindicate our vaunted su premacy if powerfully challenged and resented. Let him then meditate upon the authentic intelligence which we have just received from the East: what must then be his real sentiments on this the 1st day of January 1843? Let us ask him, in all manly calmness, whether England has not done what he doubted or denied her ability to do? whether she has not shown the world that she may, indeed, do what she pleases among the nations, so long as her pleasure is regulated and supported by her accustomed sagacity and spirit? She has, however, recently had to pass through an awful ordeal, principally occasioned by the brief ascendency of incompetent councils; and while expressing, in terms of transport, our conviction that, “out of this nettle danger, we have plucked the flower safety "-we cannot repress our feelings of indignation against those who precipitated us into that danger, and of gratitude towards those who, under Divine Providence, have been instrumental in extricating us from it, not only rapidly, but with credit; not merely with credit, but with glory. To appreciate our present position, we must refer to that which we occupied some twelve or eighteen months ago; and that will necessarily involve a brief examination of the policy and proceedings of the late, and of the present Government. We shall speak in an unreserved and independent spirit in giving utterance to the reflections which have occurred to us during a watchful attention paid to the course of public affairs, both foreign and domestic, in the interval alluded to; though feeling the task which we have undertaken both a delicate and a difficult one. After a desperate tenacity in retaining office exhibited by the late Government, which was utterly unexampled, and most degrading to the character and position of public men engaged in carrying on the Queen's Government, Sir Robert Peel was called to the head of affairs by her Majesty, in accordance with the declared wishes of a triumphant majority of her subjects-of a perfectly overwhelming majority of the educated, the thinking, and the monied classes of society. When he first placed his foot upon the commanding eminence of the premiership, the sight which presented itself to his quick and comprehensive glance, must have been, indeed, one calculated to make What appalling evidence in every direction of the ignorance and madness of his predecessors! An exchequer empty, exactly at the moment when it ought to have been fullest, in order to support our tremendous operations in the East and elsewhere: in fact, a prospect of immediate national insolvency; all resources, ordinary and extraordinary, exhausted; all income anticipated: an average defieiency of revenue, actual and estimated, in the six years next preceding the 5th of January 1843, of L.10,072,000! Symptoms of social disorganization visible on the very surface of society: ruin bestriding our mercantile interests, palsied every Malte Brun, xi. 179. Alison, x, 256, 1843.] Great Britain at the Commencement of the Year 1843. where by the long pressure of financial misrule: credit vanishing rapidly: the working-classes plunged daily deeper and deeper into misery and starvation, ready to listen to the most de-perate suggestions and a Government bewildered with a consciousness of incompetency, and of the swiftly approaching consequences of their misrule, at the eleventh hour-on the eve of a general election-suddenly resolving (in the language of their own leader) to stir society to its foun, dations, by proposing a wild and ruinous alteration in the Corn-Laws, declaring that it, and it only, would bring cheap bread to the doors of the very poorest in the land:-after the manner of giving out ardent spirits to an already infuriated mob. land, crime and sedition fearfully in In Ire the ascendant; treasonable efforts made to separate her from us; threats even held out of her entering into a foreign alliance against us. So much for our domestic-now for our foreign condition and prospects. He would see Europe exhibiting serious symp. toms of distrust and hostility: France, irritated and trifled with, on the verge of actual war with us: our criminally neglected differences with America, fast ripening into the fatal bloom of war: the very existence of the Canadas at stake. In India, the tenure by which we hold it in the very act of being loosened; our troops shedding their blood in vain, in the prosecution of as mad and wicked an enterprise as ever was undertaken by a civilized nation; the glory of our hitherto invincible arms tarnished; the finances of India deranged and wasted away in securing only fresh accessions of disgraceful defeat. In China, we were engaged, in spite of the whisper of our guardian angel, Wellington, in a little war, and experiencing all its degrading and ruinous consequences to our commerce, our military and naval reputation, our statesmanship, our honour. Did ever this great empire exhibit such a spectacle before as that which it thus presented to the anxious eye of the new Premier? Having concluded the disheartening and alarming survey, he must have descended to his cabinet oppressed and desponding, enquiring who is sufficient for these things? With no disposition to bestow an undue encomium on any one, we cannot but say, happy was 3 He Queen Victoria in having, at such a moment, such a man to call to the head of her distracted affairs, as Sir eminently distinguished by caution, Robert Peel. He was a man preby remarkable clear-sightedness and sobriety, and firmness of characterstrength of intellect-thoroughly practical in all things-of immense knowledge, entirely at his command-of consummate tact and judgment in the conduct of public affairs-of indefatigable patience and perseverance-of imperturbable self-possession. seemed formed by nature and habit to be the leader of a great deliberative assembly. Add to all this-a personal character of unsullied purity, and a fortune so large as to place him tation. Such was the man called upon beyond the reach of suspicion or tempby his sovereign and his country, in a most serious crisis of her affairs. He rounded by political friends eminently was originally fortunate in being surqualified for office; from among whom he made, with due deliberation, a selection, which satisfied the country the instant that their names were laid before it. We know not when a British sovereign has been surrounded by a more brilliant and powerful body of ministers, than those who at this moThey constitute the first real GOVERNment stand around Queen Victoria. the last twelve years; and they inMENT which this country has seen for stantly addressed themselves to the discharge of the duties assigned to them with a practised skill, and energy, all departments of the State. In conand system, which were quickly felt in tenting himself with the general superintendence of the affairs of his governharassing office of Chancellor of the ment, and devolving on another the Exchequer, which, till then, had been conjoined with that of the First Lord with his usual judgment, and secured, of the Treasury, Sir Robert Peel acted in particular, one capital object-unity of action. As soon as the late Ministry and their Peel's advent to power was inevitable, adherents perceived that Sir Robert they clamorously required of him a full preliminary statement of the policy he intended to adopt on being actually installed in office! By those who had floundered on, session after session, from blunder to blunder, from folly to folly-each more glaring and de structive than the preceding one-he was modestly expected to commit himself instanter to some scheme struck off, to please them, at a heat! A cut-and-dried exposition of his plans of domestic and foreign policy, before it was even certain that he I would ever be called on to frame or act on them; before he had had a glimpse of the authentic and official data, of which none but the actual adviser of the crown could be in possession. This was doubtless their notion of statesmanship, and faithfully acted on from first to last; but Sir Robert Peel and his friends had been brought up in another school, whose maxim was—priusquam incipias, consulta―sed ubi consulueris, mature facto, opus est. The Premier stood unmoved by the entreaties, the coaxings, and the threatenings of those wriggling before him in miserable discomfiture and restlessness on the abhorred benches of Opposition; calmly demonstrating to them the folly and injustice of which they were guilty. Yet the circumstances of the country made his adherence to this first determination exquisitely trying. He relied, however, on the cautious integrity of his purposes, and the necessity of the case; and amidst the silent agitation of friends, and the frenzied clamour of opponents, and with a dreadful prospect before the country in the ensuing winter-maintained the silence he had imposed upon himself, and, with his companions, entered forthwith on a searching and complete investigation of the affairs of the nation. Not seduced by the irrepressible eagerness of friends, or dismayed by the dark threats and dismal predictions of enemies, who even appealed direct to the throne against them, Ministers pursued their course with calmness and determination, till the legitimate moment had arrived for announcing to the country their thoroughly considered plans for the future. Sir Robert Peel is undoubt edly entitled to the credit of resuscitating and re-organizing the great party all but annihilated by the passing of the Reform Bill. It is under vast obligations to him; but so is he to it. What fortitude and fidelity have been theirs! How admirable their conduct on the occasion we are alluding to! And here let us also pay a just tribute of respect to the Conservative newspaper press, both in the metropolis and in the country. To select particular instances, would be vain and invidious; but while the whole country has daily opportunities of judging of the assistance afforded to the Conservative cause by the powerful and independent metropolitan press, few are aware, as we are, of the very great ability generally displayed by the provincial Conservative press. Their resolute and persevering exposure of the dangerous false doctrines of our unscrupulous adversaries, and eloquent advocacy of Conservative principles, are above all praise, and are appreciated in the highest quarters. The winter was at length nearly passed through when Parliament assembled. The distress which the people had suffered, and continued to suffer, no pen can adequately describe, or do justice to the touching fortitude with which those sufferings were borne. It wrung the hearts of all who had opportunities of personally observing it. They resisted, poor famishing souls! all the fiendish attempts that were systematically made to undermine their loyalty, to seduce them into insubordination and rebellion. Let us, by and by, see how far the result has justified this implied confidence of theirs in the power, the wisdom, and the integrity of the new Government. After all the boasting of the Opposition-in spite of their vehement efforts during the recess, to concert and mature what were given out as the most formidable system of tactics ever exhibited in parliament, for the dislodgement of a Ministry denounced as equally hateful to the Queen and to the country, the very first division utterly annihilated the Opposition. So overwhelming was the Ministerial majority, that it astonished their friends as much as it dismayed their enemies and to an accurate observer of what passed in the House of Commons, it was plain that the legitimate energies of the Opposition were paralyzed thenceforth to the end of the session. Forthwith, there sprung up, however, a sort of conspiracy to annoy the triumphant Ministers, to exhaust their energies, to impede all legislation, as far as those ends could be attained by the most wicked and vulgar faction ever witnessed within the House of Commons! The precise seat of Sir Robert Peel's difficulty at home was, that his immediate predecessors had (whether wilfully or otherwise signifies nothing for the present) raised expectations among the people, which no party could satisfy; while their measures had reduced the people to a state in which the disappointment of those expectations seemed to excuse, if not justify, even downright rebellion. They arrayed the agricultural and manufacturing interests in deadly hostility against each other; they sought to make the one responsible for the consequences springing only from the reckless misconduct of the other. The farmers must be run down and ruined, in order to repair the effects of excessive credit and over-trading among the manufacturers; the corngrower must smart for the sins of the cotton-spinner. Such were some of the fierce elements of discord in full action, when the affairs of the nation were committed by her Majesty to her present Ministers, on whom it lay to promote permanent domestic tranquillity, amidst this conflict between interests which had been taught that they were irreconcilable with each other; to sustain the public credit at once, without endangering our internal peace and safety, or compromising the honour of the nation in its critical and embarrassing foreign relations. How were they to effect these apparently incompatible objects? "See," said the enemies of the Ministry, see, by and by, when Parliament assembles, a cruel specimen of class legislation the unjust triumph of the landed interest-the legitimate working of the Chandos clause in the Reform Bill!" But bear witness, parliamentary records, how stood the fact! 66 That the present Ministry are mainly indebted for their accession to power, to the prodigious exertions of the agricultural interest during the last general election, is, we presume, undeniable. It was talked of as their mere tool or puppet. Their first act is to lower the duties on the importation of foreign corn, and then to permit the importation of foreign cattle! "We are ruined!" cried the farmers in dismay; and the Duke of Buckingham withdrew from the Cabinet. "This is a step in the right way," said the opponents of Ministers, "but it will clearly cost Peel his placethen we return, and will go the rest of the journey, and quickly arrive at the goal of free-trade in corn, and every thing else, except those particular articles in which we deal, and which must be protected, for the benefit of the country, against foreign competition." Then the Radical journals teemed with joyful paragraphs, announcing that Sir Robert Peel's ministry was already crumbling to pieces! The farmers, it would seem, were every where up in arms; confusion (and something a vast deal worse!) was drunk at all their meetings, to Peel! Nevertheless, these happy things came not to pass; Sir Robert Peel's Ministry would not fall to pieces; and the curses of the farmers came not so fast or loud as their eager disinterested friends could have wished! To be serious, the alteration of the Corn-Laws was undoubtedly a very bold one, but the result of most anxious and profound consideration. A moment's reflection on the character and circumstances of the Ministry who proposed it, served first to arrest the apprehensions entertained by the agricultural interest; while the thorough discussions which took place in Parliament, demonstrating the necessity of some change the moderation and caution of the one proposed-several undoubted and very great improvements in details, and, above all, a formal recognition of the principle of agricultural protection, still further allayed the fears of the most timorous. To us it appears, that the simple principle of a scale of duties, adapted to admit foreign corn when we want it, and exclude it when we can grow sufficient ourselves, is abundantly vindicated, and will not be disturbed for many years to come, if even then. Has this principle been surrendered by Sir Robert Peel? It has not; and we venture to express our confident belief, that it never will. He cannot, of course, prevent the subject from being mooted during the ensuing session, because there are persons, unfortunately, sent to Parliament for the very purpose; but while he is listening with a calm smile, and apparently thoughtfully, to the voluble tradesmen who are haranguing him upon the subject, it is not improbable that he will be revolving in his mind matters much more personally interesting and important to them; viz. how he shall put a stop to the monstrous joint-stock banking system frauds, as exhibited at this moment at Manchester, in the Northern and Central Banking Company, and other similar establishments, blessed with the disinterested patronage of the chief member of the "Anti-Corn-Law League." The mention of that snug little speculation of two or three ingenious and enterprising Manchester manufacturers, forces from us an observation or two, viz. that the thing will not do, after all. There is much cry, and little wool; very little corn, and a great deal of cotton. They have a smart saying at Manchester, to the effect, that it is no use whistling against thunder; which we shall interpret to mean, that all their "great meetings," speechifyings, subscriptions, and so forth, will fail to kindle a single spark of real enthusiasm in their favour, among those who are daily becoming more and more personally sensible, first, of the solid benefits conferred by the wise policy of the present Administration; secondly, of the want of personal respectability among the leaders of the League; and lastly, the necessity and vast advantage of supporting the agriculture of Old England. The recent discussions on the Corn-Laws, in Parliament and elsewhere, the masterly expositions of the true principles on which they are really based, have thrown a flood of light on the subject, now made visible and intelligible to the lowest capacity. That some further alteration may not erelong be made on the scale of duties, no one can assert, though we have no reason to believe that any such is at present contemplated; but that the principle of the sliding scale," as it is called, will be firmly adhered to, we entertain no doubt whatever. The conduct of the agricultural interest, with reference to subjects of such vital importance to them as the Corn-Law Bill and the Tariff, has been characterized by signal forbearance and fortitude; nor, let them rest assured, will it be lost upon the Ministry or the country. The next step in Sir Robert Peel's bold and comprehensive policy, was to devise some method of recruiting forthwith its languishing vital energies -to rescue its financial concerns from the desperate condition in which he found them. With an immediate and perspective increase of expenditure that was perfectly frightful-in the meditation and actual prosecution of vast but useless enterprises-of foreign interference and aggrandizement, to secure a little longer continuance of popular favour, they deliberately destroyed a principal source of revenue, by the reduction of the postage duties, in defiance of the repeated protests and warnings of Sir Robert Peel, when in Opposition. They had, in fact, brought matters to such a pitch, as to render it almost impossible for even "a heaven-born minister" to conduct the affairs of the nation, with safety and honour, without inflicting grievous disappointment and sufferings, and incurring thereby a degree of obloquy fatal to any Ministry. They seemed, in fact, to imagine, as they went on, that the day of reckoning could never arrive, because they had resolved to stave it off from time to time, however near it approached, by a series of desperate expedients, really destructive of the national prosperity, but provocative of what served their purposes, viz. temporary popu lar enthusiasm. What cruelty! what profligacy! what madness! And all under the flag on which were inscribed "Peace! Retrenchment! Reform!" Acting on the salutary maxim, that the knowledge of the disease is half the cure, Sir Robert Peel resolved to lay before the nation the whole truth, however appalling. Listen to the following pregnant sentences which he addressed to the House of Commons, within a few moments after he had risen to develope his financial policy, we mean on the 11th of March 1842: "It is sometimes necessary, on the occasion of financial statements of this kind, to maintain great reserve, and to speak with great caution. A due regard for the public interest, may impose on a Minister the duty of only partially disclosing matters of importance. But I am hampered by no fetters of official duty. I mean to lay before you the truth-the unexaggerated truth, but to conceal nothing. I do this, because in great financial difficulties, the first step towards improvement is to look those difficulties boldly in the face. This is true of individuals-it is true also of nations. There can be no hope of improvement or of recovery, if you consent to conceal from |