e of thanks of the West-India body for his exertions.
He said more than once, that with a weak government, a parliamentary
committee properly worked might do wonders. He said he would have a
committee on import duties next year, and have all the merchants to show
what share the foreigners had obtained of the reductions that had been
made of late years. He maintained, that, quite irrespective of the
general arrangements of the new commercial system, Sir Robert Peel had
thrown away a great revenue on a number of articles of very inferior
importance, and he would prove this to the country. He said our colonial
empire ought to be reconstructed by a total abolition of all duties on
produce from her Majesty's dominions abroad.

All his ideas were large, clear, and coherent. He dwelt much on the
vicissitudes which most attend all merely foreign trade, which, though
it should be encouraged, ought not to be solely relied on, as was the
fashion of this day. Looking upon war as occasionally inevitable, he
thought a commercial system based upon the presumption of perpetual
peace to be full of ruin. His policy was essentially imperial and not
cosmopolitan.

About to part probably for many months, and listening to him as he
spoke, according to his custom, with so much fervour and sincerity, one
could not refrain from musing over his singular and sudden career. It
was not three years since he had in an instant occupied the minds
of men. No series of parliamentary labours had ever produced so much
influence in the country in so short a time. Never was a reputation so
substantial built up in so brief a period. AH the questions with which
he had dealt were colossal questions: the laws that should regulate
competition between native and foreign labour; the interference of the
state in the development of the resources of Ireland; the social and
commercial condition of our tropical colonies; the principles upon which
our revenue should be raised; the laws which should regulate and protect
our navigation. But it was not that he merely expressed opinions
upon these subjects; he came forward with details in support of his
principles and policy, which it had before been believed none but a
minister could command. Instead of experiencing the usual and almost
inevitable doom of private members of Parliament, and having his
statements shattered by official information, Lord George Bentinck on
the contrary, was the assailant, and the successful as