members. After this act of mutiny against the collective
authority of the cabinet Grey's ministry was doomed.

Its ruin was consummated by a motion of Henry Ward, member for St.
Albans, which expressly affirmed the right of the state to regulate the
distribution of Church property and the expediency of reducing the Irish
establishment. This motion was supposed to have been instigated by
Durham, who had never been loyal to his colleagues. The government was
notoriously divided upon it; Brougham suggested a commission of inquiry,
by way of compromise; other ministerialists were in favour of meeting
the difficulty by moving the previous question. Peel was prepared to
support the conservative section of the government, and deprecated in
strong terms "all manoeuvring, all coquetting with radicals" in order
to snatch a temporary party triumph.[119]

Ward's resolution was introduced on May 27, 1834, and seconded by Grote,
but Althorp, instead of replying, announced the receipt of sudden news
so important that he induced the house to adjourn the debate. This news
was the resignation of Stanley, Graham, Richmond, and Ripon, whose views
on appropriation, as afterwards appeared, were shared by Lansdowne and
Spring Rice. The ministry was reconstructed by the accession of Lord
Conyngham as postmaster-general, without a seat in the cabinet, and of
Lord Auckland, son of Sidmouth's colleague, as first lord of the
admiralty, by the appointment of Carlisle (already in the cabinet) to be
lord privy seal, and the substitution of Spring Rice for Stanley at the
colonial office. Edward Ellice, the secretary at war, was included in
the cabinet, and James Abercromby, afterwards Lord Dunfermline, a son of
the famous general, Sir Ralph Abercromby, became master of the mint with
a seat in the cabinet. Poulett Thomson became president of the board of
trade, and minor offices were assigned to Francis Baring, and other whig
recruits. Grey himself, sick of nominal power, was dissuaded with
difficulty from retiring; Althorp, conscious of failing authority, was
retained in his post only by a high sense of duty. Unfortunately, he was
very soon entangled by his colleague Littleton in something like an
intrigue with O'Connell, which precipitated the final resignation of
Grey together with his own temporary secession.

The details of this affair may be passed over in a few words. What is
clear is that Brougham and Littleton, without the knowledge of Grey,