awback was properly pointed out to him, he achieved the
desired result. No one bore criticism more gently and kindly, so long as
it was confined to his personal and intellectual characteristics, for he
was a man absolutely without vanity or conceit, who thought very humbly
of himself, in respect of abilities, and deemed no labour too great to
achieve even a slight improvement. But though in these respects the very
child of simplicity, he was a man of almost unexampled pride, and chafed
under criticism, when his convictions or his conduct were questioned. He
was very tenacious of his opinion, almost inexorable; and it required
a courage nearly equal to his own, combined with a serene temper,
successfully to impugn his conclusions.

Not, therefore, excited by vanity, but sustained by self-respect, by
an overpowering feeling that he owed it to himself and the opinions he
held, to show to the world that they had not been lightly adopted and
should not be lightly laid aside, Bentinck rose, long past the noon of
night, at the end of this memorable debate, to undertake an office
from which the most successful and most experienced rhetoricians of
Parliament would have shrunk with intuitive discretion. But duty scorns
prudence, and criticism has few terrors for a man with a great purpose.
Unshaken by the adverse hour and circumstances, he proceeded to
accomplish the object which he had long meditated, and for which he was
fully prepared.

Reminding the House, while he appealed to their indulgence, that, though
he had had the honour of a seat for eight parliaments, he had never once
ventured to trespass on its time on any subject of great debate, he
at once took a clear and comprehensive ground of objection to the
government scheme. He opposed it not only because he objected to the
great change contemplated with respect to the agricultural interest,
but, on principle, to the entire measure, 'a great commercial
revolution, which we are of opinion that the circumstances of the
country do not by any means require.'

Noticing the observation of the Secretary at War, that the agricultural
interest, in submitting to this great change, might now accept it with
honour, instead of its being eventually extorted by force, he happily
retorted, that vicious as he thought the measure, he should feel it
deprived of half its vice if it could be carried without loss of honour,
damage to reputation, and forfeiture of public character to a vast