nmore's recollections--The
mistakes of the Melbourne Cabinet--The Duke of Wellington's opinion
of Lord John--The agitation against the Corn Laws--Lord John's view
of Sir Robert Peel--The Edinburgh Letter--Peel's dilemma--Lord
John's comment on the situation.

THE truth was, Lord John could not be spared, and his strong sense of
duty triumphed over his personal grief. One shrewd contemporary observer
of men and movements declared that Melbourne and Russell were the only
two men in the Cabinet for whom the country cared a straw. The opinion
of the man in the street was summed up in Sydney Smith's assertion that
the Melbourne Government could not possibly exist without Lord John, for
the simple reason that five minutes after his departure it would be
dissolved into 'sparks of liberality and splinters of reform.' In 1839
the Irish policy of the Government was challenged, and, on the motion of
Lord Roden, a vote of censure was carried in the House of Lords. When
the matter came before the Commons, Lord John delivered a speech so
adroit and so skilful that friends and foes alike were satisfied, and
even pronounced Radicals forgot to grumble.

Lord John's speech averted a Ministerial crisis, and on a division the
Government won by twenty-two votes. A month later the affairs of Jamaica
came up for discussion, for the Government found itself forced, by the
action of the House of Assembly in refusing to adopt the Prisons Act
which had been passed by the Imperial Legislature, to ask Parliament to
suspend the Constitution of the colony for a period of five years; and
on a division they gained their point by a majority of only five votes.
The Jamaica Bill was an autocratic measure, which served still further
to discredit Lord Melbourne with the party of progress. Chagrined at the
narrow majority, the Cabinet submitted its resignation to her Majesty,
who assured Lord John that she had 'never felt more pain' than when she
learnt the decision of her Ministers. The Queen sent first for
Wellington, and afterwards, at his suggestion, for Peel, who undertook
to form an Administration; but when her Majesty insisted on retaining
the services of the Whig Ladies-in-Waiting, Sir Robert declined to act,
and the former Cabinet was recalled to office, though hardly with flying
colours.

Education, to hark back for a moment, was the next great question with
which Lord John dealt, for, in the summer of 1839, he brought in a b