es may compel him to adopt.

[Page Head: CAUSES OF THE RETIREMENT OF LORD GREY.]

Thus Littleton has been the instrument of breaking up this
Government; a man powerless to serve his party has contrived to
destroy it. It is curious to trace this matter from the outset.
When Hobhouse threw up his office and his seat, it was extremely
difficult to find a successor to him in the Irish Office,
principally because not one man in fifty could procure a seat in
Parliament, or his re-election if already there. In this
emergency Littleton volunteered his services; he was sure of his
seat, and he wanted eventually a peerage, so he wrote to Lord
Grey, and said that if he thought him capable of filling the
place he would undertake it.[6] Nothing better suggested itself;
it was a way out of the difficulty, and they closed with his
offer. No man could be less fit for such a situation; his talents
are slender, his manners unpopular, and his vanity considerable.
When warned against O'Connell he said, 'Oh, leave me to manage
Dan,' and manage him he did with a vengeance, and a pretty Tartar
he caught. His first attempts at management were exhibited in the
business of Baron Smith. When the Coercion question came to be
agitated, he thought himself very cunning in beginning a little
intrigue without the knowledge of his colleagues, and he wrote to
Lord Wellesley for the purpose of prevailing upon him to
recommend to the Cabinet that the Bill should pass without the
strong clauses, and most unaccountably Lord Wellesley did so.[7]
He stated that this omission was desirable on account of
circumstances connected with the Government in England, and Lord
Wellesley replied that if it was necessary on that account he
would contrive to manage matters without the clauses. Upon this
he put himself in communication with O'Connell, and never
doubting that his and Lord Wellesley's advice (in accordance as
it was with the opinions of certain members of this Cabinet)
would prevail, he gave O'Connell those expectations the
disappointment of which produced the scene between them in the
House of Commons. Lord Grey, however, was equally astonished and
dissatisfied with this last recommendation of Lord Wellesley's,
which was directly at variance with the opinion he had given some
time before, and he accordingly asked him to explain why he had
changed his mind, and requested him to reconsider his latter
opinion. He still replied that if it was necessary, he wo