rough bad repute, and that I
was never prevented from rendering them by any cry which was excited
against me at the moment. Then, I am accused by a noble and learned
friend of mine, (the Earl of Eldon) of having acted with great secresy
respecting this measure. Now I beg to tell my noble and learned
friend--and I am sorry that, in the course of these discussions,
anything has passed which has been unpleasant to my noble and learned
friend,--I beg to tell him, I say, that, he has done that to me in the
course of this discussion which he complains of others having done to
him;--in other words, he has, in the words of a right honourable friend
of his and mine, thrown a large paving stone, instead of throwing a
small pebble stone. I say, that if my noble and learned friend accuses
me of acting with secresy on this question, he does not deal with me
altogether fairly. He knows, as well as I do, how the Cabinet was
constructed on this question; and I ask him, had I any right to say a
single word to any man whatsoever on this measure, until the person most
interested in the kingdom upon it had given his consent to my speaking
out? I say, that before my noble and learned friend accused me of
secresy, and improper secresy too, he ought to have known the precise
day upon which I received the permission of the highest personage in
this country; and he ought not to have accused me of improper conduct,
until he knew the day on which I had leave to open my mouth upon this
measure. There is another point also upon which the noble Earl accused
me of misconduct, and that is that I did not at once dissolve the
parliament. Now, I must say, that I think noble Lords are mistaken in
the notion of the benefits which they think they would derive from a
dissolution of parliament at this crisis. I believe that many of them
are not aware of the consequences and of the inconveniences of a
dissolution of parliament at any time. But when I knew, as I did know,
and as I do know, the state of the elective franchise in Ireland in the
course of last summer,--when I knew the consequences which a dissolution
would produce on the return to the house of commons, to say nothing of
the risk which must have occurred at each election,--of collisions that
might have led to something little short of civil war,--I say, that
knowing all these things, I should have been wanting in duty to my
Sovereign, and to my country, if I had advised his Majesty to dissolve
his p