events that fell within the period to which we are limited. In the first of the two sessions of 1847, Mr. Fielden and Lord Ashley succeeded in restricting the factory working-day to ten hours. The Poor-law Commission was re-established, with a modification of the law of settlement. Military flogging was the subject of animated debates, reflecting the excitement out of doors, in consequence of the death of a soldier from the effects of the lash: the House of Commons declined to prohibit the practice, but an order from the War Office limited the number of lashes to fifty.-County Courts, for the cheap and speedy administration of equity, long advocated by Lord Brougham, were established: three years' experience of their operation, induced, in 1850, a considerable extension of their powers. In the latter year, a bill was carried by Mr. Ewart, empowering town-councils to establish public libraries and museums on the vote of two-thirds of the burgesses. In 1848, about eighty members of the House of Commons, including the leaders of the disbanded League, formally constituted themselves "the People's party;"-in the same session, Mr. Hume introduced his annual resolution for household suffrage, the ballot, triennial elections, and a re-distribution of the representation. The only Governmental measure of electoral reform was a bill for the enlargement of the Irish county and borough franchise; the Lords raised the qualification from £8 to £15, and the Commons consented to a Ministerial compromise, fixing it at £12. The necessity of sanitary laws had been for some years urged upon the Legislature by public associations. In the summer of 1849 came the cholera, to enforce these appeals and punish the neglect of its former warnings. As before, its coming was foreseen, and its progress hither from the East anxiously watched. Its appearance in London was chronicled in the last week in June; on the 10th of September, it had reached its maximum-about 450 deaths per diem; on the 18th of October only five deaths were registered. The total number of its victims was nearly 15,000 in the metropolis alone. Days of public prayer and thanksgiving were kept, in conformity with a royal proclamation and the resolutions of religious bodies. Some of the measures taken to avert or mitigate the infliction were made permanent, and many more were promised. The establishment of a Board of Health and of Commissioners of Sewers, with extensive powers, and the passage of the Metropolitan Interment Act, is all that was accomplished in fulfilment of these promises up to the close of our period: the last-named measure encountered considerable opposition, on account of the lavish compensation it awarded to the clergy, and its investing the Board of Health with the functions of the undertaker.-In the department of finance, the incapacity or misfortunes of former Whig administrations seemed to have descended on this. The budget for 1848 showed a deficiency of nearly three millions; yet the Ministry proposed

an increase of armaments to the amount of £385,000, and not only a renewal of the income-tax, but its augmentation from three to five per cent. The proposition raised a storm of opposition such as no budget since that of 1816 had excited. The City of London and the metropolitan parishes took the lead in petitioning and memorializing; and the scheme was abandoned within a fortnight of its introduction. The Financial Reformers took advantage of the prevalent indignation to obtain a select committee upon the estimates; and on their reports, the expenditure was reduced to the amount of £5,600,000; but Ministers were permitted to contract another loan of two millions, and the property and income-tax was renewed for a third term of three years. In the next session, Mr. Cobden took the opinion of the House on a proposition for reducing the national expenditure to its amount in 1835; since which period the expense of the naval, military, and ordnance departments had risen from eleven to seventeen millions. He also submitted in this year the first of his annual motions in favour of international arbitration and mutual disarmament.-Notwithstanding the different temperaments of the two men, Lord Grey succeeded no better than Lord Stanley in the administration of colonial affairs. He inherited a feud with the Australian states on the ground of convict transportation; but in a year or two the feud had become a personal quarrel, and a question of kept or broken faith. In 1849, a shipload of convicts was sent to the Cape of Good Hope; and the colonists, previously irritated by delay in the establishment of a constitution granted them by letters patent from the Crown, absolutely prevented the "Neptune" touching their shores. In 1850 a South Australian Colonies' Act-a partial concession of self-governmentwas passed, after a series of debates indicating the rapid growth of interest among politicians in these settlements, and the presence in Parliament of a colonial party. The administration of Lord Torrington in Ceylon, and of Sir Henry Ward in the Ionian islands, were the subjects of repeated debate in 1849 and '50. Both were charged with arbitrariness and extreme severity in the suppression of rebellion; upon the Ceylon charges a committee sat two sessions-inquiry into the Cephalonian grievances was refused. The slaughter of some fifteen hundred Dyaks, on the North-west Coast of Borneo, on the presumption of piratical habits and intentions, by a force under the command of Rajah Brooke [July, 1849], was repeatedly brought before Parliament by Messrs. Hume and Cobden; but without effect. The excited state of the continent naturally reflected itself in the debates of the British Parliament. The suppression of the Republic of Cracow, in 1846, was protested against by Lord Palmerston; both Houses sanctioned the protest; and it was proposed by Mr. Hume to enforce it by withholding an annual payment to Russia, under the same treaty which guaranteed the independence of Cracow; but the Government would not go that length. In

the session of 1849, the Hungarian war of independence was characterised, incidentally, by the Premier, as a "rebellion;" but the Foreign Secretary held a different language-abetted the Sicilians at the commencement of their struggles, and endeavoured to mediate between them and the King of Naples consented with reluctance to the intervention of France in Italy and of Russia in Hungary-protested, with successful energy, against the demand of the allied Emperors upon Turkey for the extradition of the refugees-and was honoured by a subscription of five hundred guineas among the Liberal members of the House of Commons for the presentation of his portrait to Lady Palmerston. In the next session, however, there was an accumulation of charges to answer. Our representative (Sir Henry Bulwer) had been expelled from Madrid for presumed interference with the domestic policy of Spain; and the appearance of a British fleet in the Piræus, to enforce demands which had already been settled by a convention of diplomatists in London, had angered France and Russia, the parties to that convention. In both cases, mortifying concessions had to be made. The House of Lords censured the Minister whose policy had led to these results, on the motion of Lord Stanley, and by a majority of thirty-seven. It was felt that unless a counter resolution could be obtained from the Commons, that Minister must retire. Such a resolution was proposed by Mr. Roebuck, in general terms [June the 24th, 1850], and carried, after an exciting debate of four nights, by a majority of forty-six. It was on this motion Sir Robert Peel delivered his last speech. We transcribe a few of its sentences, as alike memorable from the occasion of their delivery, and as elucidatory of the whole question :-" The hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. Roebuck) says there shall be no mistake as to the purport and import of my vote; that it is not a resolution simply of approval of the policy of the noble lord, but a resolution the intention and meaning of which is this:-we are to tell the people of all foreign countries with whom we have any relations, that our power, so far as it is physically concerned, is not to be employed to coerce their rulers; but that in so far as the moral influence of this country and of this Government is concerned, the world shall know that we are friendly wheresoever we find a large endeavour, on the part of any body of men, to vindicate to themselves the right of self-government. I am asked, what is the antagonistic principle? I have been challenged over and over again to declare it. I will declare it. The principle for which I contend is the principle for which every statesman for the last fifty years has contendednamely, non-interference with the domestic affairs of other countries without some clear and undeniable necessity arising from circumstances affecting the interests of your own country. That is the antagonistic principle for which I contend. I affirm that the principle for which you contend is the

principle contended against by Mr. Fox, when it was employed in favour of arbitrary government; which was resisted by Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning at the Congress of Verona; the principle which was asserted by the Convention of France on the 19th of November, 1792, and was abandoned by that same Convention on the 13th of April, 1793, because France found it utterly impossible to adhere to it consistently with the maintenance of peace. It is my firm belief that you will not advance the cause of constitutional government by attempting to dictate to other nations. If you do, your intentions will be mistaken-you will rouse feelings upon which you do not calculate - you will invite opposition to government; and beware that the time does not arrive, when, frightened by your own interference, you withdraw your countenance from those whom you have excited, and leave upon their mind the bitter recollection that you have betrayed them. If you succeed, I doubt whether or no the institutions that take root under your patronage will be lasting. Constitutional liberty will be best worked out by those who aspire to freedom by their own efforts. You will only overload it by your help, by your principle of interference. . . For these reasons, I give my dissent, my reluctant dissent, from the motion of the honourable gentleman. I would not evade the difficulty by silence or absence—I have stated the grounds upon which I protest against the resolution -the carrying of which, I believe, will give a false impression with respect to the dignity and honour of this country, and will establish a principle which you cannot carry into execution without imminent danger."

It was the very next day after the delivery of these luminous and pacific sentiments, that the speaker, of whose character they were the natural expression, and whose long career gave them the added weight of experience, ceased for ever from his utterances and labours. On the evening of Saturday, June the 29th, Sir Robert Peel was thrown from his horse, and was borne to his house in Whitehall, insensible and mortally injured. None who were then of age to observe, will ever forget the thrill of incredulous alarm which ran through the metropolis with the circulation of the intelligence-how, the next day, church-goers whispered it to each other in the lobbies of their places of worship-how, from nearly every pulpit where extempore prayer was offered, supplication was made for the illustrious sufferer-how the usual gaiety of the parks on a summer Sunday's afternoon was overclouded-how the representatives of all classes, from the Sovereign to the labourer, crowded to the mansion of the dying statesman -how sad, solemn groups, kept their watch, almost as at the last hours of Mirabeau, till daybreak of Wednesday, the 2nd of July, when it was known that all was over. A sigh of affectionate grief, as at an unknown irreparable loss, seemed to burst from the heart of the nation. Since the commencement of this last period of our narrative, many whose names have

frequently recurred in its progress, had been more or less quietly withdrawn by the hand of Death; on others, that invisible but ever-busy hand was about to lay hold. Mackintosh died in 1832 from the effect of a chickenbone. In the following year, Earl Dudley, the friend and colleague of Canning, terminated a brilliant career under the dark cloud of insanity. Wilberforce lived to hear the abolition of colonial slavery decreed by the Imperial Parliament; and was borne to an honoured grave in Westminster Abbey by nobles and statesmen. In 1838, Lord Holland disappeared from the aristocratic council-chamber in which he had for half a century represented, with solitary consistency, the cause of civil and religious liberty; and from that princely mansion whose hospitalities, elegancies, and intellectual réunions, are commemorated in the brilliant pages of Macaulay. In the same year, Lord Eldon was taken from a world whose progress he had long helped to retard, but which had rolled past, leaving him scarce a partner in his fears and lamentations but his ancient colleague Sidmouth, who lived on till 1844;—both respected by many, but regretted by none. Burdett, having gradually revolved within ten years from Radicalism to Toryism, died in 1844, the whilom "pride of Westminster appropriately representing North Wiltshire;-in the next year, Alderman Sir Matthew Wood, as staunch a Liberal, though a wiser man, as in the days of the Piccadilly blockade. Earl Grey departed in 1845, with the posthumous glory of one who had finished ten years before a career of singular consistency-of fidelity to the service of the people and to the traditions of his order;-followed, three years later, by his successor in the Premiership, Lord Melbourne, leaving the narrower reputation of a refined gentleman and a humane ruler. On the 15th of May, 1847, died, at Genoa, Daniel O'Connell, as broken in spirit as in health, bequeathing, with a mournful significance, his heart to Rome and his body to Ireland. On the 22nd of September, 1848, Lord George Bentinck was smitten with a fatal spasm, in a morning walk; unrewarded for his sacrifices and uncongenial toils but by the gratification of honest prejudices. Sir William Follett was cut off in 1845, and Charles Buller in 1848;- theirs the saddest fate of all! withered in the maturity of manhood and the pride of youthful statesmanship; snatched from admiring friends and great hopes of public service. In the latter year, Ashburton bowed his grey hairs, wearing the added glory of a peace-maker. Within the six years 1843 and '49, died the Dukes of Sussex and Cambridge, and the Queen Dowager Adelaide; each with a separate reputation. In the last year of the half-century, the discrowned King of the French laid down the burden of an exile's life; and respectful compassion mingled with the sternest judgments. But none of these was honoured, or missed, or mourned, in comparison with Sir Robert Peel. Only to him were statues voted by Parliament, and eagerly subscribed for