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TWO:Happily, the prevalence as well as the acerbity of party spirit was restrained by the prosperous state of the country in the winter of 1835-36. There were, indeed, unusual indications of general contentment among the people. Allowing for partial depression in agriculture, all the great branches of national industry were flourishing. The great clothing districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire, both woollen and cotton, were all in a thriving condition. Even in the silk trade of Macclesfield, Coventry, and Spitalfields, there were no complaints, nor yet in the hosiery and lace trades of Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester, while the potteries of Staffordshire, and the iron trade in all its branches, were unusually flourishing. Of course, the shipping interest profited by the internal activity of the various manufactures and trades. Money was cheap, and speculation was rife. The farmers, it is true, complained, but their agricultural distress to a certain extent was felt to be chronic. Farming was considered a poor trade, its profits, on the average, ranging below those of commerce. Most of the farmers being tenants at will, and their rents being liable to increase with their profits, they were not encouraged to invest much in permanent improvements.

TWO:During this period, St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, was built by Thomas Archer. The churches of Greenwich, of St. George's, Hanover Square, and St. Luke's, Middlesex, were designed by John James. To this time likewise belong St. Giles's-in-the-Fields; St. Olave's, Southwark, and Woburn Abbey, by Flitcroft; Chatsworth House and Thoresby, by Salmon; Montagu House, by the French architect, Pouget; All Saints' Church, and the Peckwater Quadrangle of Christ Church, Oxford, by Dean Aldrich; and the library of Christ Church, designed by Dr. George Clarke, M.P. for Oxford, in the reign of Anne. After these the Earl of Burlington, a worshipper of Palladio and Inigo Jones, became a very fashionable architect, and built the dormitory at Westminster School; Petersham House, and other noblemen's mansions. The fine colonnade in the courtyard of Burlington House is also his work. Burlington was essentially a copyist, as was his prot��g�� Kent, who built Holkham, in Norfolk, and the Horse Guards, but acquired as much reputation by his landscape gardening as he gained little by his architecture. Towards the end of this period several foreign artists were employed in England. We have already named Pouget; Giacomo Leoni was much employed; and Labelye, a Swiss, built Westminster Bridge, which was completed in 1747. Thomas Ripley, originally a carpenter, built the Admiralty.Both Pitt and Fox died in 1806, and a circumstance occurred in the following year which showed the inveterate obstinacy of the king regarding the Catholics. Lord Howick, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, obtained leave to bring in a Bill to enable Catholics to hold the higher offices in the army and navy; but the king soon let him know that he should not ratify any such Bill, and he agreed to withdraw it. But this did not satisfy George; he demanded from the Ministers a written engagement to propose no further concessions to the Catholics, and as they declined to do this, he dismissed them, and placed the Duke of Portland at the head of a new Cabinet.

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TWO:By these violent and arbitrary means was passed on the 4th July, 1776, the famous Declaration of Independence. The original motion for such a Declaration, on the 8th of June, had been supported by a bare majority of seven States to six; and now the whole thirteen States were said to have assented, though it is perfectly well known that several signatures were not supplied till months afterwards by newly chosen delegates. The Declaration contained the following assertions of freedom:��1. That all men are born equally free, possessing certain natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive their posterity; 2. That all power is vested in the people, from whom it is derived [but it was voted in Congress that the blacks made no part of the people]; 3. That they have an inalienable, indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish their form of government at pleasure; 4. That the idea of an hereditary first magistrate is unnatural and absurd.

TWO:The chiefs of the Tory party were at this time sanguine in their expectation of being speedily called to office. Their hopes were founded mainly upon the dissensions that were known to exist in the Cabinet. These dissensions were first revealed by O'Connell's motion for a committee to inquire into the conduct of Baron Smith, when presiding as a judge in criminal cases, and especially with reference to a charge addressed by him to the grand jury of Dublin, in which he said: "For the last two years I have seldom lost an opportunity for making some monitory observations from the Bench. When the critical and lawless situation of the country did not seem to be generally and fully understood, I sounded the tocsin and pointed out the ambuscade. Subsequent events deplorably proved that I had given no false alarm. The audacity of factious leaders increased from the seeming impunity which was allowed them; the progress of that sedition which they encouraged augmented in the same proportion, till on this state of things came, at length, the Coercion Bill at once to arrest the mischief, and consummate the proof of its existence and extent." As there was no doubt that these shafts were aimed at O'Connell, this last charge afforded him a fair opportunity of putting a stop to the abuse by bringing the conduct of the talented but eccentric judge before Parliament; for, as there was no political case in the calendar, there was no excuse for the attack. Mr. Littleton declared it impossible to refuse his consent to the motion. Mr. Stanley, Lord Althorp, and Lord John Russell expressed a similar view. Sir James Graham briefly but warmly dissented from his colleagues. He had come down to the House with the understanding that they meant to oppose the motion. He for one still retained his opinion, and had seen no reason to change it. As one who valued the independence of the judges and his own character, he must declare that if the motion were carried, and if, as its result, an Address was presented to the Crown for the removal of Baron Smith, it would be a highly inexpedient��nay, more, a most unjust proceeding. The present would be the most painful vote he had ever given, since he felt it incumbent upon him to sever himself from those friends with whom during a public life of some duration he had had the honour of acting; but feeling as he did the proposition to be one dangerous in itself, he conceived he would be betraying the trust committed to him if he did not declare against it. Baron Smith was ably defended by Mr. Shaw, by Sir J. Scarlett, and Sir Robert Peel. On a division, the motion for a committee of inquiry was carried by 167 to 74, Sir James Graham and Mr. Spring-Rice voting in the minority. Next morning Sir James tendered his resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty, which was declined, and in the following week the vote was rescinded by a majority of six.The party which, under the guidance of Mr. Disraeli, Lord Stanley, and Lord George Bentinck, was destined to present so formidable an opposition to the Minister's policy, and to render his labours in the interests of the people so full of pain and anxiety, as yet only marked its existence by murmurs along the Conservative benches. As usual, the somewhat revived prosperity of the country was the chief pretext for resisting change. People with this view did not see the danger of opposing reforms until a sudden storm compelled the Legislature to face them with mischievous haste. It had again and again been shown that the evils of the old system of restrictions lay chiefly in the fact that they led to violent fluctuations in the circumstances of the people. Nothing, therefore, could be more certain than that, even had the prosperity been tenfold greater, one of those alternations of depression which brought so much misery to the people would not be long in making its appearance. The monopolist party, however, seldom looked beyond the day or the hour. There had been rick-burning in the country, and an agricultural labourer, named Joseph Lankester, had declared that his object in committing this crime was to raise the price of wheat, and so bring about those high wages which the political farmers and landlords were always saying came from good prices in the corn market. The Protectionist lords declared, nevertheless, that the Anti-Corn-Law League, with their mischievous agitation, their models of the big and the little loaf, their lectures and meetings, their music and banners, their poisonous tracts and pamphlets, were at the bottom of these disturbances. In the towns, however, political agitation was comparatively silent. To some agriculturists it appeared a fair compromise to maintain the protective laws in consideration of their being content to put up with the low prices of the day. Any way, the dreaded League seemed to them to be checked.

TWO:Toryism had now lost two of its main pillars, the Marquis of Londonderry and the Duke of York. They had worked together for many years, one directing the foreign policy of the country while sustaining the chief burden of a great war against France, the other at the head of the British army, whose valour ultimately triumphed at Waterloo. A third of those pillars, Lord Liverpool, was now struck down; and the fourth, Lord Eldon, was not destined to survive very long. On the 17th of February a stroke of paralysis terminated the public life of the Prime Minister, though he survived till December 4th in the following year (1828). He was born in 1770, and as Mr. Jenkinson and Lord Hawkesbury had been a firm supporter of Mr. Pitt; his Premiership commenced on June 9th, 1812. He had acquired from his father an extensive knowledge of monetary and commercial affairs, and this, combined with the experience of a protracted official career, gave him a great advantage in Parliament, making him master of the leading principles and facts. Amiable, exemplary, frank, and disinterested in his private character, he secured the attachment of his friends, and conciliated the good-will of his political opponents. He was not distinguished for superior statesmanship, power in debate, or originality of mind; but as a political leader he was what is called a safe man��cautious, moderate, plausible, and conciliatory. His Cabinet was weakened by division, the most agitating topic of the day being an open question with its members��Eldon, Wellington, and Peel voting with him on one side, Canning and his friends on the other. His practical wisdom was shown in so far yielding to the spirit of the times as to admit Mr. Canning into the Cabinet on the death of Lord Londonderry, though he found great difficulty in overcoming the repugnance of the king to this arrangement. In the same spirit he had admitted the Grenvilles to a responsible share in the Administration. Had he been a man of more decision of character and more energetic will, he would have been more one-sided and straightforward, and that would not have suited a time of great transition and changes of political currents. During his long tenure of office new ideas were fermenting in the public mind. The people had become impatient of class legislation, and were loudly demanding greater influence in the legislation of the country, greater security for their rights, and freer scope for their industry. They had the most powerful advocates in the press and in Parliament, where Henry Brougham stood foremost among their champions, incessantly battling for their cause. The Conservatives were entrenched behind the bulwarks of monopoly, which were assailed with a frequency and determination that, it was foreseen by the wisest of their defenders, nothing could ultimately resist. Lord Liverpool, with great tact and prudence, managed to postpone the hour of surrender so long as he was in command of the fortress. He had yielded one outwork after another, when resistance was no longer possible, but the value of his services in retaining the rest was not fully appreciated till he was disabled and placed hors de combat. Without any far-reaching sagacity, he could estimate the relative value of existing social and political forces, and, weighing all the circumstances, determine what was the best thing to be done, the best of several courses to adopt here and now. He felt that Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform might be still safely resisted, and here he was loyal to his party; but on questions of currency, Free Trade, and navigation, he went readily with his Liberal supporters.There was an energetic debate in each House as the Bill passed through. It was opposed in the Peers by Lords Lansdowne, Holland, and Erskine, but was carried by ninety-three against twenty-seven. Ten peers entered a strong protest on the journals against the measure, denying the traitorous conspiracy or the extensive disaffection to the Government alleged, affirming that the execution of the ordinary laws would have been amply sufficient, and that Ministers were not entitled to indemnity for causeless arrests and long imprisonments which had taken place, for the Bill went to protect them in decidedly illegal acts. In the House of Commons the Bill was strongly opposed by Brougham, Tierney, Mr. Lambton��afterwards Lord Durham��and Sir Samuel Romilly. They condemned the conduct of Ministers in severe language, while the Bill was supported by Canning, by Mr. Lamb��afterwards Lord Melbourne, who generally went with the other side��by Sir William Garrow, and Sir Samuel Shepherd, Attorney-General.

TWO:During this year little was done in America. General Bradstreet defeated a body of the enemy on the River Onondaga, and, on the other hand, the French took the two small forts of Ontario and Oswego.

TWO:The Covent Garden meeting became thenceforth an annual feature in the political events of the metropolis, and the effects of this movement in the chief city of the kingdom were seen in the election of Mr. Pattison, the Free Trade candidate, for the City of London. Another sign of the times was the accession to the ranks of the Anti-Corn-Law League of Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd, the wealthy banker, a conspicuous City man, and a great[509] authority on financial matters. This gentleman addressed a letter to the council of the League in October, 1844, in which, after mentioning his reluctance to join a public body, for whose acts he could not be responsible, he said, "The time is now arrived when this must be overruled by other considerations of overwhelming importance. The great question of Free Trade is now fairly at issue, and the bold, manly, and effectual efforts which have been made by the League in its support command at once my admiration and my concurrence." Still more remarkable was the progress of the League in its scheme of converting the agriculturists themselves to their views. The truths which they had always maintained��that the tenant farmer had no real interest in maintaining the Corn Laws, the agricultural labourer, if possible, less, and that even the landed proprietor, on a far-seeing view of his interest, would be on the same side as themselves��were based upon arguments easily understood by calm reasoners, and were even beginning to make way with these classes themselves. Not a few great landowners and noblemen had openly classed themselves among their supporters. Foremost among these was Earl Fitzwilliam, who was one of the most effective speakers at Anti-Corn-Law meetings by the side of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright. Among the noblemen openly supporting their cause were the Marquis of Westminster, Lord Kinnaird, Earl Ducie, the Earl of Radnor, Lord Morpeth, and Earl Spencer.