essary by lowering duties to look round for
new markets on the continent of Europe? And was it not Fox, Burke,
Sheridan, and the minor whig luminaries, who opposed him, while not a
single member of his own government in the House of Lords was willing or
able to defend him? But even reminiscences of Mr. Pitt, and oracular
descriptions of Lord Shelburne as the most remarkable man of his age,
brought little comfort to men sincerely convinced with fear and
trembling that free corn would destroy rent, close their mansions and
their parks, break up their lives, and beggar the country. They
remembered also one or two chapters of history nearer to their own
time. They knew that Lord John had a right to revive the unforgotten
contrast between Peel's rejection of so-called protestant securities in
1817 and 1825, and the total surrender of emancipation in 1829. Natural
forebodings darkened their souls that protectionism would soon share the
fate of protestantism, and that capitulation to Cobden was doomed to
follow the old scandal of capitulation to O'Connell. They felt that
there was something much more dreadful than the mere sting of a
parliamentary recrimination, in the contrast between the corn bill of
1842 and Peel's panegyrics in '39, '40, and '41 on the very system which
that bill now shattered. On the other side some could not forget that in
1840 the whig prime minister, the head of a party still even at the
eleventh hour unregenerated by Manchester, predicted a violent struggle
as the result of the Manchester policy, stirring society to its
foundations, kindling bitter animosities not easy to quench, and
creating convulsions as fierce as those of the Reform bill.

A situation so precarious and so unedifying was sure to lead to strange
results in the relations of parties and leaders. In July 1843 the
Speaker told Hobhouse that Peel had lost all following and authority;
all but votes. Hobhouse meeting a tory friend told him that Sir Robert
had got nothing but his majority. 'He won't have that long,' the tory
replied. 'Who will make sacrifices for such a fellow? They call me a
_frondeur_, but there are many such. Peel thinks he can govern by
Fremantle and a little clique, but it will not do. The first election
that comes, out he must go.' Melbourne, only half in jest, was reported
to talk of begging Peel to give him timely notice, lest the Queen might
take him by surprise. On one occasion Hobhouse wished a secondary
minister