Part 12

Jackson's first Cabinet was headed by Van Buren, with Samuel D. Ingham for Secretary of the Treasury. The President also encouraged a set of confidential advisers, among whom Kendall, Lewis and Hill were the most influential. They came to be known as the "Kitchen Cabinet." The regular members of the Cabinet were treated as mere head clerks. In one week Jackson vetoed more bills than any of his predecessors had done in four years. Other bills he held back until after the adjournment of Congress, and then failed to sign them. The bills remained, as it were, in the President's pocket. This new method of vetoing became notorious as the "Pocket Veto." In other respects Jackson's first administration was stormy. International relations were repeatedly threatened by the long-standing controversy over the indemnity for French spoliations. An adjustment of the indemnity claims with Denmark was likewise forced to an issue. At home, Jackson's abandonment of the principle of extreme protection and his hostility to the United States Bank lost him the support of the loose constructionists. As a Freemason, the President was likewise opposed by the new anti-Masonic party in politics. In a quarrel over the character of the wife of Secretary Eaton, the beautiful Peggy O'Neill, all Washington was involved. It was commonly believed that the subsequent break-up of Jackson's Cabinet was caused by the social bickerings among the wives of the members. Van Buren was the first to resign. Soon he was appointed Minister to England, but the Senate rejected him through the vote of Vice-President Calhoun. Jackson afterward took his revenge by defeating Calhoun's aspirations to the Presidency through Van Buren. The new Cabinet consisted of Livingston, McLean, Cass, Woodbury, Tracy and Berry. By reason of the new protective tariff, the States of Georgia and South Carolina, toward the close of 1829, returning to the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799, affirmed the right of any State to declare null and void any act of Congress which the State Legislature deemed unconstitutional. This was the doctrine of nullification which grew to secession in 1860.

The industrial progress of the United States was little affected by the political dissensions during Jackson's first Presidential year. On July 4, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was opened. The first trip of an American locomotive was made on the Carbondale and Honesdale road. Throughout the country many canals were opened; to wit, the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal, the Delaware and Hudson, and the Oswego in New York; the Farmington in Connecticut, and the Cumberland and Oxford Canal in Maine. Among the literary productions of the year were a collection of minor poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Parkman's earlier essays, Cooper's "Wept of the Wish-ton-Wish," Sparks's "John Ledyard," and Washington Irving's "Granada."

In England the first successful experiments with steam-propelled stage coaches were made by Sir Goldsworth Gurney. These machines were the precursors of the latter-day automobile vehicle. This account of a ride in the Gurney stage coach was published by the "United Service Journal":

"We numbered four in a coach attached to the steam carriage, and we had travelled without difficulty or mishap as far as Longford, where they were repairing the bridge over the Cambria. On this was a large pile of bricks, so high as to conceal what was happening on the other side. Precisely at the moment we began to cross the bridge the mail-coach from Bath arrived on the other end. As soon as we perceived it we shouted to the driver to take care; but, as he was not aware of the extraordinary vehicle he was going to meet, he did not slacken speed. To avoid a collision, Mr. Gurney guided our steam carriage into the pile of bricks. Some damage to our apparatus resulted, but was repaired in less than a quarter of an hour. As to the horses of the coach, they had taken the bit between their teeth and had to be cut loose.

"Upon our arrival at Melksham, we found that there was a fair in progress, and the streets were full of people. Mr. Gurney made the carriages travel as slowly as possible, in order to injure no one. Unfortunately, in that town the lower classes are strongly opposed to the new method of transportation. Excited by the postilions, who imagined that the adoption of Mr. Gurney's steam carriage would compromise their means of livelihood, the multitude that encumbered the streets arose against us, heaped us with insults, and attacked us with stones. The chief engineer and another man were seriously injured. Mr. Gurney feared we could not pursue our journey, as two of his best mechanics had need of surgical aid. He turned the carriage into the court of a brewer named Ales, and during the night it was guarded by constables."

To have assisted at the experiment of Gurney's steam carriage was, in those days, almost a title to glory. These carriages became speedily one of the curiosities of London. Foreign travellers who printed accounts of their journeys, did not fail to devote a chapter to the new means of locomotion. Jobard, the Belgian savant and economist, was of the number, and so were Cuchette, St. Germain Leduc and C.G. Simon, three prominent scientific writers of that time. Jobard's impressions noted down at the time are worthy of record: "My first visit in England was to the starting station of Sir Goldsworth Gurney's steam omnibus, running between London and Bath. This carriage does not differ materially from other stage-coaches, nor has it had any serious mishap as yet. For my benefit it manoeuvred back and forth over the street pavement and later on the smooth macadam of the highway, without any apparent difficulties of guiding. The drivers of other stage-coaches are agreed that the thing is a success, and that before long it will do them much harm."

Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, a forerunner of Charles Darwin died in this year. As early as 1801 Lamarck had outlined his ideas of the transmutation of species and attempted to explain the manner in which that transmutation had been brought about. There is no such thing as a "species," he held; there are only individuals descended from a common stock and modified in structure to suit their environment. Lamarck was scoffed at in his own time; he was respected as a naturalist, but unrecognized as a prophet.

1830

Early in the year, Bartholemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, took out a patent for his invention of a sewing machine. It was an invention destined to revolutionize the manufacture of clothing and the matter of dress in all civilized countries. Thimonnier's device was a chain stitch sewing machine worked with a treadle. It had taken the inventor, ignorant as he was of mechanics, four years of painful application to perfect it. The first to recognize the real value of the invention was M. Beunier, supervisor of mines at Paris. He took Thimonnier to Paris and installed him as a partner and manager of a large clothing firm that manufactured army uniforms. They set up eighty machines and did so well with them that the workmen of Paris, profiting by the revolutionary disturbances of the times, wreaked their vengeance on the new labor-saving device by wrecking the establishment. The inventor was compelled to flee for life. During the same year, another Frenchman, Charles Barbier, invented the system of raised printing for the blind.

Sir Thomas Lawrence, the celebrated English portrait painter, died at the outset of the year. In his early youth at Bristol and Oxford, this artist showed marked talent for portraiture, and became a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds at the Royal Academy. His delicate pastel portraits obtained great vogue in the most aristocratic circles of London. On the death of his master, Lawrence was appointed painter to the King. He became the fashionable portrait painter of the age. As such, Lawrence was summoned to Aix-la-Chapelle during the International Congress of 1818 to paint the various dignitaries of the Holy Alliance. While at Vienna he painted the famous pastel of Napoleon's son, the little King of Rome--by all odds the most charming of all the many likenesses of that unfortunate eaglet. Lawrence returned to England a few days after the death of Benjamin West, and was immediately elected to succeed him as President of the Royal Academy. He held this office for ten years, until his death. Among the most noted works of Lawrence, executed during this time, were the portraits of Master Lambton and of the Duke of Wellington. Lawrence's ambitious essays beyond the limits of portrait painting, such as his once celebrated "Satan," obtained no lasting success. After the artist's death a number of his best known canvases were collected for permanent exhibition in the Waterloo Gallery of Windsor.

In this year Joseph Jackson Lister, an English amateur optician, contributed to the Royal Society the famous paper detailing his recent experiments with the compound microscope. Aided by Tully, a celebrated optician, Lister succeeded in making of the microscope a practical scientific implement rather than a toy. With the help of his own instrument Lister was able to settle the long mooted question as to the true form of the red corpuscles of the human blood.

In the face of the menacing attitude of the liberal elements of France, which had been rendered more acute by the King's increase of the Chamber of Peers to the detriment of the Deputies, the French Government launched forth upon the conquest of Algiers. It was believed to be an auspicious moment. The Sultan's reluctant acknowledgment of the independence of Greece, April 25, showed how powerless he was. The Dey of Algiers had insulted France by his discourteous treatment of a French consul. He refused the satisfaction demanded by France. On the failure of a blockade to reduce the city of Algiers, an expedition commanded by Bourmont set out for Africa in spring. A landing was successfully effected by the middle of June. Early in July, Algiers was taken. Immense spoils, valued at 48,000,000 francs, were seized by the French. England grew apprehensive. George IV. had just died (June 26), and the Duke of Wellington, who was retained in power by the new king, William IV., demanded from the French Government an engagement to retain none of its new conquests. "Never," said Lord Alverdon to Lavel, the French Ambassador, "never did France, under the Republic or under the Empire, give England such serious ground of complaint as she has been giving us for the last year." It was in vain. The seething spirit of the people in France seemed to demand an outlet. The victories of French arms in Africa were cast before the French people as a sop. The permanent annexation of Algiers was announced. It was too late.

The heated spirit of the rising generation had already been revealed in the hysterical demonstrations that occurred on the occasion of the first performance of Victor Hugo's "Hernani" on February 25. Conspicuous among the leaders of the literary tumult was Théophile Gautier, then a youth of eighteen, but already an author and an Hugolâtre intransigeant, who led the claque on this first night resplendent in a rose-colored doublet and streaming long hair. With him was young Balzac, who had just won renown and notoriety by his "Physiologie du Mariage," and the first of his "Contes Drôlatiques." In March, the Liberals in the Chambers declared their want of confidence in the government by a majority of forty votes. Charles X., staking all on the success of his Algerian campaign, dissolved the Chambers. "No compromise, no surrender," was the motto of the Royalists as they appealed to the people. The result was an overwhelming majority against the government. No less than 202 deputies pledged to opposition were elected. The whole of France was now waiting for the coup d'état, and Europe waited with France. "Your two weakest points are the electoral law and the liberty of the press," said Metternich to the French Ambassador in Vienna, "but you cannot touch them except through the Chambers. A coup d'état would ruin the dynasty." The Czar, in St. Petersburg, spoke in a like strain to the Duc de Mortemart. Charles X. could not be restrained. "There are only Lafayette and I who have not changed since 1789," said the King. On July 24, a Sunday, after attending mass, Charles X. signed the orders that were to rid him of his Chambers. All his Ministers signed with him. "For life and for death, gentlemen," said the King. "Count upon me as I count upon you."

The Orders in Council appeared in the "Moniteur" the next day. It was said that Sauvo, the editor of the "Moniteur," as he gave the order to go to press, exclaimed: "God protect the King." The publication of the edict caused an instant extraordinary fall in stocks. Thiers thundered against it in the "Journal des Débats." Government troops seized the printing presses of the leading journals. Murmuring crowds gathered on the streets. The King appointed Marshal Marmont commandant of Paris. It was the last stroke, for Marmont was popularly execrated as the betrayer of Napoleon. The National Guards brought forth their old tricolor cockades of the Revolution and the Empire. Though military patrols tramped the streets, the night passed quietly. Next morning all work stopped, and the people fell to building barricades. Whole streets were torn up. The pupils of the Polytechnic School broke open the gates and the tricolor flag floated on the towers of Notre Dame. Marshal Marmont reported to the King: "Sire, it is no longer a riot, but a revolution. There is urgent need for your Majesty to take means of pacification. Thus the honor of the Crown may yet be saved. To-morrow it will be too late." The King's answer was to declare Paris under a state of siege. The so-called "Great Week," or "three days' revolution," had begun. The bourgeoisie or middle class and all the students joined the revolt. Before nightfall 600 barricades blocked the streets of Paris. Every house became a fortress. "Where do the rebels get their powder?" asked the King in astonishment. "From the soldiers," was the curt reply of the Procureur-General.

In the evening the Hôtel de Ville was captured. That evening the Ministers tried to enlighten the King, but he only replied: "Let the insurgents lay down their arms." While the discharges of artillery shook the windows of the palace the King played whist. Next day two line regiments openly joined the revolt. The Louvre was stormed. Still the King at St. Cloud would not yield. "They exaggerate the danger," said he. "I know what concessions would lead to. I have no wish to ride like my brother on a cart." Instead of concessions he vested the command in the Dauphin, having grown suspicious of Marmont. The mob sacked the Tuileries and hoisted the tricolor flag on the clock tower. At the Hôtel de Ville a municipal commission was installed, composed of Lafayette, Casimir Périer, General Lobau and Audry de Puyraveau. At last, when it was too late, the King countermanded his obnoxious orders and dismissed Polignac with his Ministry. The people no longer paid attention to the King's acts. He was declared deposed. A republic was proclaimed and its presidency offered to Lafayette. But the old hero declined the honor. With Thiers he threw his influence in favor of the Duke of Orleans. The Duke of Orleans, the son of Philip Egalité, of Revolutionary fame, was invited to Paris to exercise the functions of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The deposed King at St. Cloud hastened to confirm the appointment. The Duke of Orleans respectfully declined the royal appointment. "You cannot receive things from everybody," said Dupont. General Lafayette soon came to pay his respects. "You know," said he, "that I am a republican, and consider the Constitution of the United States as the most perfect that has been devised." "So do I," replied the Duke; "but do you think that in the present condition of France it would be advisable for us to adopt it?" "No," answered Lafayette; "what the French people must now have is a popular throne, surrounded by republican institutions." "That is just my opinion," said Prince Louis Philippe.

Lafayette's conversation with the prince led to the so-called programme of the Hôtel de Ville. "I shall not take the crown," said the Duke of Orleans, "I shall receive it from the people on the conditions it suits them to impose. A charter will henceforth be a reality." At last Charles X. abdicated in favor of his grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux. The Duke of Orleans refused to recognize the claims of Henri V., and France and Europe were with him. Charles X. relinquished further hopes.

The Dauphin, formerly Duke of Angoulême, in like manner resigned his rights to his nephew. The act was signed on the 2d of August. Charles X. now set out for Normandy with his guards, commanded by Marmont, and, on August 16, embarked at Cherbourg in two American vessels, with the Dauphin and Dauphiness, the Duchess of Berry, the Duke of Bordeaux, and a numerous suite of attendants. The ships sailed for England, and, anchoring at Spithead, the royal fugitives took up their residence at Lulworth Castle, in Dorsetshire, but eventually removed to Holyrood Castle at Edinburgh, which was placed at their disposal by the British Government. On August 9, Louis Philippe, on the formal request of the two Chambers, accepted the crown of France with a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution.

The overthrow of the Bourbons was not a revolution in the sense of the great French Revolution of the previous century. It resulted chiefly in the transfer of government from one political faction to another. Louis Philippe, raised to the throne by reason of his supposed democratic principles, rather than for his royal lineage, was a Republican only in name. His early education, together with that of his brothers, was directed by the Countess of Genlis. On the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, the young Prince, then Duke of Chartres, fought with distinction by the side of Kellermann and Dumouriez at Valmy and Jemmapes. He accompanied the latter when he took refuge in the camp of the imperialists in April, 1793. After the death of his father, Philippe Egalité, refusing to bear arms against France, he joined his sister and Madame de Genlis in Switzerland, where they lived for some time under an assumed name. In 1795 he travelled into the north of Germany, Sweden and Norway, and in the following year sailed from Hamburg for the United States of America. Here he was joined by his two brothers, and after some years in America, during which they were often in distress, the three princes went to England in 1800. The Duke of Orleans now obtained a reconciliation with the heads of his family, Louis XVIII. and the Count of Artois. Subsequently he became a guest at the court of Ferdinand IV., the dispossessed King of Naples, at Palermo; and here was celebrated, in November, 1809, his marriage with the Princess Marie Amelie, daughter of that monarch. Upon the restoration of Louis XVIII. he re-entered France, and took his seat in the Chamber of Peers; but having fallen under suspicion of disaffection, he once more retired to England and did not reappear in France till 1817. During the remainder of the reign of Louis he took no part in public affairs and lived in tranquillity at his favorite villa of Neuilly. He was a "citizen king," only in so far as he sent his children to the public schools and walked about the streets of Paris with an umbrella under his arm. The most lasting effect in France of the July revolution was the obliteration of clerical influences in the administration and public education. The Royalist nobility likewise lost what political ascendency they had regained during the Restoration. Henceforth the party in power was that of the bourgeoisie or great middle class of France, of which Louis Philippe himself was the self-constituted representative.

Outside of France, on the contrary, the effects of the short revolution were far-reaching. In the Netherlands ever increasing friction between the Dutch-speaking Protestants of Holland and the French Catholics of Belgium had excited the country to the point of revolution. Recent repressive measures on the part of the Dutch Government made matters worse. On August 25, the performance, at the Brussels Opera House, of Auber's "La Muette di Portici," with its representation of a revolutionary rising in Naples, gave the signal for revolt. From the capital the insurrection spread throughout Belgium. The King summoned the States-General to The Hague and agreed to an administrative separation of Belgium and Holland; but the storm was not quelled. On the appearance of Dutch troops in Brussels, barricades were erected and the insurgents drove the soldiers out of the city. For several days fighting continued in the outskirts. A provisional government declared the independence of Belgium. Mediation by a conference in Holland was frustrated by the bombardment of Antwerp by its Dutch garrison. The French Liberals were burning to give assistance. Austria and Russia stood ready to prevent their intervention by force of arms. Louis Philippe, while holding the French war party in check, felt constrained to look about him for an ally. In this extremity Prince Talleyrand, the old-time diplomat of the Bourbons, the Republic, the Empire and the Restoration, now in his eightieth year, was sent to London. He approached Wellington and the new King with such consummate address that an understanding was soon reached with England, which set at naught all projects of European armed intervention on behalf of the Prince of Orange. Such intervention could not have failed to drag the French into war. Now it was agreed that the regulation of Belgian affairs should be submitted to a conference at London. In the interim Belgian independence was accepted in effect and hostilities ended.

In Greece, the government of Capodistrias was beset with such difficulties that it was decided to invite some European prince to set up a constitutional monarchy. The throne was offered to Prince Leopold of Coburg, the husband of the late Princess Charlotte of England. Leopold accepted, but when he learned that the Powers would not grant complete independence to Greece, without restoring Ætolia, Thessaly and the fertile islands of Samos and Candia to the Sultan, he withdrew his acceptance.

Peace had scarcely been restored in the Netherlands when the spirit of revolt, travelling northward, seized the ardent people of Poland. Alexander's recognition of home rule in Poland had given the Poles a parliament and army of their own. After the Polish conspiracies at the outset of Nicholas's reign, Alexander's successor would no longer invoke the Polish Diet, and Russian troops and officers were sent into Poland. Of course this was bitterly resented. Plans for an uprising had already been made in 1828 during the Turkish war. The example of the successful risings in Paris and Brussels now brought matters to a head. On November 29, the revolt broke out in Warsaw. The Polish regiments of the garrison joined the insurgents. The Russian troops, finding the odds against them, withdrew. Grandduke Constantine narrowly escaped with his life. A provisional Polish Diet was convoked. Prince Czartoryski was elected President. The Poles, in remembrance of the late Czar's kindly attitude toward them, flattered themselves that the fruits of their revolution might be left to them. Lubecki, the former chief of the Imperial Council in Poland, with two associates, set out for St. Petersburg to voice the Polish demands for constitutional government before the Czar. It was even proposed that constitutional government should be conceded to those Russian provinces that had formerly belonged to Poland. On the way to St. Petersburg the eyes of the envoys were opened as they met the formidable columns of Russian troops marching to the Polish frontier. Forthwith, Lubecki forsook the cause of Poland. His colleagues found difficulty in obtaining a hearing from the Czar. When they were finally admitted to the imperial palace, Nicholas gave them clearly to understand that Poland had but two alternatives, unconditional submission or complete subjugation. When this answer reached Warsaw it was too late to swing the outside Polish provinces and Lithuania into the movement. Yet the Polish Diet, in a spirit of patriotic frenzy amounting to national suicide, passed a resolution declaring that the House of Romanoff had forfeited the Polish crown. Feverish preparations were made for a life and death struggle with Russia.

The fall of the Bourbons in France had once more raised the hope of the Spanish Liberals. On the other hand, King Ferdinand's abolition of the Salic law of succession in Spain, so as to assure the throne to his new wife, raised up a party of absolutists against him. His brothers, Don Carlos and Francisco, became the heads of this movement and rallied their supporters around them, in the Basque provinces. In Portugal kindred dissensions rent the land in twain. Dom Miguel's claims to the crown were disputed on behalf of the constitutional government by the Duke of Palermo. Across the seas, Dom Pedro of Brazil proclaimed himself the legitimate heir to the throne of Braganza.

Like other South American States, Brazil was itself a prey to internal dissensions and civil strife. To put an end to the recurrent revolutions of South America, Simon Bolivar conceived a scheme for a Pan-American Congress to weld together all the quasi-republican governments of the Southern Hemisphere and Central America. Unfortunately for this project, Bolivar's own aspirations to dictatorial rule told against him. His chief opponents were those who were striving for a disruption of the Colombian Union. His own States, Peru and Bolivia, had already declared against him. The Congress finally voted to give Bolivar a pension of $3,000 a year on condition that he should leave America forever. Bolivar's pride was stung to the quick. He resigned all public offices and honors, and went to Caracas to sail for England. He died at Santa Marta, on the sea-shore, on December 17. His last words were: "The people send me to the tomb, but I forgive them."

In Bolivar, South America lost the most fiery of her liberators. Born at Caracas, in 1783, he was pre-eminently a child of the modern spirit engendered by the French Revolution of 1792. He saw Spain in the days of its quasi-medieval darkness, and was in Paris at the close of the great revolution. Later he was a witness of Napoleon's coronation as King of Italy, and saw for himself the benefits of republican institutions in North America. The turning-point in his career was the loss of his young wife after two years of domestic happiness. As he said himself: "I loved my wife so much that at her death I made a vow never again to marry. I have kept my oath. Perhaps, had I not lost her, my career would have been different. I might not, then, have been General of the Liberators. My second visit to Europe would never have been made. The ideas which I imbibed during my travels would not have come to me, and the experience I have had, the study of the world that I have made, and of men and things--all this, which has so well served me, would never have been. Politics would never have attracted me. But the death of my wife caused the love of my country to burn in my heart, and I have followed the chariot of Mars rather than Ceres' plow."

In the new English penal colony of Van Diemen's Land in Australia, the Tasmania of latter days, the self-assertive and domineering traits of the Anglo-Saxon race were no less apparent among the convicts than among the few free settlers. A few years before this the colonists had proclaimed themselves independent of New South Wales and established a separate government. The Van Diemen's Land Company received a grant of twenty-five thousand acres; white population increased; religious, educational and commercial institutions were founded. The natives were all but exterminated. During this year Governor Arthur made an extraordinary attempt to settle the native problem. His idea was to catch all the aborigines of the island and pen them up on the narrow neck of land known as Tasman's Peninsula. Upward of three thousand five hundred white persons, including three hundred soldiers, turned out for the exciting operation of clearing Van Diemen's Land by means of a cordon across the island. All seemed to be going well until the line of beaters contracted, when it was found that the natives were in the rear, instead of in the front. The attempt proved a total failure; only two natives were captured. The total cost of the expedition amounted to £35,000. The individual measures of the settlers against the despised natives proved more efficacious. Within a few years, when the last of the Tasmanian aborigines were transferred from the mainland to Flinder's Island, by the instrumentality of George Augustus Robinson, it was found that but three hundred were left. The white population--largely of convict antecedents--by this time numbered more than 15,000 persons.

In North America the doctrine of nullification, newly put forth, emphasized the growing differences between the Northern and Southern States. The great debate between Hayne and Webster came about casually in the course of a discussion of the sale of public lands. The topic of nullification was dragged in by Southern speakers. Webster felt called upon to uphold the cause of the Northern States. Smarting under some of his animadversions of Southern sloth, Hayne made a two-day speech in which he inveighed against the spirit of the New Englanders. His own State, South Carolina, and her sister States in the South, he declared, would defend their sovereign rights, or "perish in the last ditch." Webster's reply to those prophetic words was the grandest oratorical effort of his life. He declared for the continued union of all the States in all their strength: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." Jackson's progressive foreign policy poured oil on the troubled waters. His repeal of the shipping acts of 1818 and 1823 brought about a resumption of direct trade with the West Indies. On October 5, Jackson was able to issue a proclamation announcing the opening of permanent trade with all ports of the West Indies, Bermudas, Bahamas, the Gulf of Mexico and South America.

This friendly treaty with America was the last satisfactory measure passed by Wellington's Ministry in England. As elsewhere in Europe the success of the sudden revolution in Paris created a great stir, and was brought home to Englishmen all the more forcibly by the deposed king's flight to English shores. In Ireland, matters were stirred up by Daniel O'Connell, who now commenced an agitation for the repeal of the union with England. His prosecution for treason became a State trial. O'Connell's ultimate conviction once more alienated the powerful Catholic Association of Ireland. The Duke of Wellington became so prejudiced against reform that he declared in Parliament: "I am not only averse to bringing forward any measure of this nature, but I will at once declare, so far as I am concerned, so long as I hold any station in the government of the country, I shall always feel it my duty to resist such a measure when proposed by others." After this declaration the fall of the Ministry was assured. Stocks fell in London from 84 to 77 points. Abuse and obloquy were heaped upon the Ministers from every quarter. Caricatures of them were stamped even on handkerchiefs and calico aprons. The Duke was mostly represented in the livery of an old hackney coachman, while Sir Robert Peel figured as a rat catcher. The King no longer concealed his dislike of Wellington, who in former days had mortally offended him by his support of Admiral Cockburn, resulting in the resignation of the Prince as Lord High Admiral of England. As soon as Parliament was reopened late in the year, a significant rebuff was administered to the Ministry by the Crown. The King preferred to deliver his speech in person. In the face of the Prime Minister's declaration against reform, Sir Harry Parnell, even before the delivery of the King's speech, announced a bill for the revision of the civil list. Parnell's motion was carried. Brougham followed this up with a motion for a reform of the rotten borough system. Rather than submit to another inevitable defeat Wellington's Ministry resigned. Earl Grey, leader of the Whig opposition, was made Prime Minister. Brougham was raised to the peerage, and accepted the post of Lord Chancellor. Palmerston was reappointed Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Lord Grey's appointment of six or seven of his relatives to administrative posts weakened his Ministry from the outset.

1831