at the end of the year had been
regarded by all as inevitable.

[Pageheading: _THE TAMWORTH MANIFESTO._]

In anticipation of this event, Peel issued an address to his
constituents which became celebrated as the "Tamworth manifesto". It is
somewhat cumbrous in style, but it embodies with sufficient clearness
the new conservative policy of which Peel was the real author and
henceforth the leading exponent. It opens with an appeal to his own
previous conduct in parliament, as showing that, while he was no
apostate from old constitutional principles, neither was he "a defender
of abuses," nor the enemy of "judicious reforms". In proof of this, he
cites his action in regard to the currency and various amendments of the
law; to which he might have added his adoption of catholic emancipation.
He then declares, absolutely and without reserve, that he accepts the
reform act as "a final and irrevocable settlement of a great
constitutional question," which no friend to peace and the welfare of
the country would seek, either directly or indirectly, to disturb. He
approves of making "a careful review of institutions, civil and
ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper," with a view to "the
correction of proved abuses, and the redress of real grievances," and
that "without mere superstitious reverence for ancient usages". He lays
stress on his recorded assent to the principle of corporation reform,
the substitution of a treasury grant for Church rates, the relief of
dissenters from various civil disabilities (but not from university
tests), the restriction of pensions (saving vested interests), the
redistribution of Church revenues and the commutation of tithes, but so
that no ecclesiastical property be diverted to secular uses. After these
specific pledges, the Tamworth manifesto concludes with more general
professions of a progressive conservatism equally removed from what are
now called "advanced radicalism" and "tory democracy".[129] It was, of
course, too liberal for the followers of Eldon, and was ridiculed as
colourless by extreme reformers, but its effect on the country was
great, and it did much to win popular confidence for the new ministry.
If such a policy must be called opportunism, it was opportunism in its
best form; and opportunism in its best form, under the conditions of
party government, is not far removed from political wisdom.

FOOTNOTES:

[117] If all the bishops present had not merely abstained, but a