to have contributed to indispose that powerful party still further towards the principles and policy of Mr. Huskisson.

The events which had occurred in the House of Commons created a very general impression, that something must be done before the reassembling of Parliament, towards repairing the weakness which had been occasioned to the Government by the loss of Mr. Canning; and it was soon understood that this impression was not unfounded. The indifference with which Mr. Huskisson regarded his own situation has been already touched on. To his active mind, indeed, its comparative ease did anything but compensate for the-to him—irksome character of the duties belonging to it. Accordingly, in the course of this year several communications seem to have taken place, with a view to a change. Among other suggestions, the Secretaryship of Ireland was once more named, but rejected without hesitation on the part of Mr. Huskisson; who, having already, in 1809, consented to decline that office, in compliance with the urgent representations of the ministers of that day,-having been again designated for it, united with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer in 1812 (an arrangement which failed it is true, but from no fault of his), and which had been once more tendered and once more declined on Mr. Peel's resignation in 1818,-felt that he should be unmindful of what he owed to himself, and his own character, if he

submitted to become the successor of those, who though his juniors, both in years and in the public service, were now, from circumstances not within his controul, placed, or to be placed, in higher situations at home. Other arrangements were then proposed; but to these either the same objection applied, or the still greater one of their pointing to offices which had too much the appearance of sinecures, and the acceptance of which might have been construed into an exchange of a place of some business for one without any, from the unworthy motive of adding a thousand a year to his official income Fresh difficulties arising to any alteration satisfactory to himself, Mr. Huskisson determined to sacrifice his own fair pretensions for the desirable object of attaining an increase of strength to the Government, and abandoned his intention of immediate resignation; but he did not do so without having recorded his strong sense of the injustice which had postponed for a time the reward to which he was so well entitled, both from his long and zealous exertions in support of the Government, and from his acknowledged efficiency as a man of business; or without making it known to the Minister, that in consenting to retain his present appointment, he had unwillingly deferred to the judgment of his friends, and to the fear that an invidious and unfair construction,-a construction possibly injurious to others,-might, and probably would, be put upon his resignation.

All these ministerial discussions and negotiations terminated, as is well known, in the appointment of Mr. Peel to the Home office in the room of Lord Sidmouth, and in that of Mr. Wynn to the Board of Control; which latter, with some minor changes, secured the support of the Grenville party; and the new arrangement was announced about Christmas 1821.

The debates on the distress which pressed heavily upon the Agricultural interest, and which, in its consequences, affected the whole country, were renewed, shortly after the reassembling of Parliament in February 1822; when Lord Londonderry moved the revival of the Committee of the preceding year, and gave notice, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would, without loss of time, bring forward a proposal for enabling the Bank to issue four million of Exchequer Bills in loans to different parishes, and also a reduction of the Malt tax.

In the debate which followed upon this notice of the noble Marquis, Mr. Huskisson's speech must be deemed one of the most important; embracing as it does a variety of those topics, with which he was, perhaps, more conversant than any other statesman of his time. In consequence of what passed on this occasion, and, subsequently, on the motion for the appointment of the Committee, it became necessary for him to explain the part which he had taken in preparing the Agri

cultural Report of the preceding year. Having done so, and vindicated himself from the charges of having mystified the members of that Committee, he signified his intention to abstain from all attendance at the present one; in which determination Lord Londonderry declared that he regarded him as perfectly justified. On the 1st of April, the new Committee made their Report, and on the 29th, Lord Londonderry proposed a string of Resolutions, declaratory of the views which he, as the leading minister of the Crown in the House of Commons, entertained for the purposes of relief. These having been read, Mr. Ricardo brought forward another set, and late in the debate, Mr. Huskisson laid before the House those which he had prepared on the same subject; giving notice at the same time, that it was his intention, on the next discussion, to state the cause of the difference which would appear between his resolutions and those of the noble Marquis. On the 6th of May, Lord Londonderry moved his first, and most important resolution: it was combated by Mr. Huskisson, and, after a short debate, withdrawn.

He now felt that, having as an official servant of the Crown opposed, and successfully opposed, a proposition brought forward by the leading member of Government in the House of Commons, it was due to the chief of that Government to place his office at his disposal. Accordingly, he waited upon Lord Liverpool, and after

explaining to him what had passed, did that which he afterwards, in 1828, repeated in respect to the Duke of Wellington; namely, placed in his hands the decision, whether the penalty of such an act of insubordination was to be enforced against him. The result, as all the world knows, was as different, as the other circumstances of the case were similar; except, indeed, that Mr. Huskisson's conduct in 1822 was marked with a character of official independance, or rather mutiny, infinitely stronger than anything which arose on the case of the East Retford disfranchisement.

Connected with this topic of Agricultural distress was the motion brought forward by Mr. Western, in the month of June, for a Committee to consider of the effects which had been produced by the Act for the resumption of Cash Payments. Mr. Huskisson undertook to reply to Mr. Western; and, after a speech of singular power and effect-a speech which may be ranked among those of the first class for soundness of political principle, and conclusive reasoning-moved as an amendment, the substitution of the famous resolution of 1696, "that this House will not alter the standard of gold or silver, in fineness, weight or denomination ;" an amendment which was carried by an overwhelming majority.

While Mr. Huskisson invariably and firmly resisted all attempts at tampering with the Currency, we discover, in almost all his speeches, the same