t, that the
orders of the day should not be postponed, which he supported in a
spirited address, mainly on the ground of the great inconvenience that
must be suffered from the postponement of the Corn Bill. The motion of
the Secretary of State would produce a long, exciting, and exasperating
debate. Time would be lost--for what? To advance one stage of a measure
which it was avowedly not the intention of the government to press at
the present moment. Sir William concluded with a very earnest appeal
to Lord George Bentinck and his friends, who might at no very distant
period have the government of Ireland entrusted to them, not, for the
sake of a momentary postponement of the Corn Bill, to place themselves,
by voting for this measure of coercion, in collision with the Irish
nation.' He called upon Lord George Bentinck to weigh the position in
which he was placed.

This amendment was seconded by Mr. Smith O'Brien, the member for the
county of Limerick, who warned the government that they 'were entering
on a contest which would continue for months.' He taunted the minister
with governing the country without a party. What chance was there of
reconciliation with his estranged friends? After the treatment of that
'disavowed plenipotentiary,' the Secretary of the Treasury, who would be
again found willing to undertake the mission of patching up a truce?
He was not present when the terms of the treaty were exposed: but he
understood, that if the government introduced this Coercion Bill before
Easter, then that Lord George Bentinck would deem it wise, proper, and
expedient; but if after Easter, then the complexion and character of the
bill were, in the noble lord's judgment, utterly transformed, and it was
declared to be quite untenable and unconstitutional. Was that the kind
of support on which the government calculated for passing this measure?

The Secretary of State made a dexterous, conciliatory, almost humble
address, in reply to the taunts of Mr. Smith O'Brien. He said that he
was well aware of the fact of which he had been just reminded, that, in
the present state of parties, the declared adherents of the government
were a small minority; he even, while excusing the delay in the progress
of the Irish measure, reminded the House of the curious fact, that since
the meeting of Parliament, two successive Irish secretaries had lost
their seats in the House of Commons in consequence of supporting the
administration of which t