people.
Many years afterwards, during the State trials at Clonmel which
followed the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, evidence was brought
forward by the counsel for the defence of Mr. Smith O'Brien and his
fellow-prisoners to prove that the Whig nobles during the reform crisis
in England had been in communication with Sir Charles Napier, the great
soldier, for the purpose of ascertaining how the army would act if
there should come to be a struggle between the sovereign claiming
despotic rights and the people standing up for constitutional
government. All this, however, is now merely a question of interesting
historical speculation. The King had tried Wellington, had tried Peel,
had sent for Wellington a second time, and found that Wellington,
though he dared do all that might become a man, saw nothing to be
gained for sovereign or State by an attempt to accomplish the
impossible, and William at last gave way. It was about time that he
did so. William was becoming utterly unpopular with the great mass of
his subjects. He who had been endowed with the title of the Patriot
King was now to be an object of hatred and contempt to the crowds in
the streets with whom from day to day he could not avoid being brought
into contact. When his carriage appeared in one of the great London
thoroughfares it was followed again and again by jeering and furious
mobs, who hissed and groaned at him, and it was always necessary for
his protection that a strong escort of cavalry should interpose between
him and his subjects. Even in the London newspapers of the day, those
at least that were in favor of reform, and which constituted the large
majority, language was sometimes used about the King which it would be
impossible to use in our days about some unpopular Lord Mayor or member
for the City.

All this told heavily upon poor King William, who was a good-natured
sort of man in his own way if his ministers and others would only let
him alone, and who rather fancied himself in the light of a popular
sovereign. He therefore made up his mind at last to accept the advice
{180} of his Whig ministers and grant them the power of creating as
many new peers as they thought fit, for the purpose of passing their
importunate Reform Bill. The consent was given at an interview which
the King had with Lord Grey and Lord Brougham, Lord Brougham as keeper
of the royal conscience taking the principal conduct of the
negotiations on behalf of the Gov