sir Hugh Gough from Agra with fourteen thousand troops ; and on
the 2pth of December he fought the battle of Maharajpoor, when
the Mahrattas were defeated with great loss. On the same day
Major-General Grey also defeated the Mahrattas at Punniar. The
usurping government immediately submitted, and the strong for-
tress of Gwalior was occupied by a British governor. These war-
like proceedings, however brilliant and successful, were not accept-
able to the majority in the direction of the East India Company.
In Parliament, on the 21 st of April, 1844, sir Robert Peel, in an-
swer to a question put to him by Mr. Macaulay, said, " I beg to
state that on Wednesday last Her Majesty's Government received
a communication from the Court of Directors, that they had exer-
cised the power which the law gives them to recall at their will and
pleasure the Governor-General of India." There were loud cheers
from the Opposition benches. Mr. Macaulay then stated that he
should not now bring forward a motion of which he had given
notice, respecting the occupation of Gwalior. In the House of
Lords the duke of Wellington declared that the Government had
not concurred in the measure adopted. There was a prevailing
opinion in Parliament and in the country that the recall of a Gover-
nor-General upon their sole authority was a dangerous power to be
entrusted to the Court of Directors ; nevertheless there was a
feeling that India would be safer under sir Henry Hardinge, who
had seen too much of war to be inflated by its " pride, pomp, and
circumstance."
When the Session of Parliament was opened by the Queen on
the istof February, 1844, there was a State trial proceeding in
Ireland, which excited more attention throughout the country evea
* Sir W. Napier.
362 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
than the royal speech. This speech could not avoid an indirect
reference to the circumstances which had placed Daniel O'Connell
and seven others at the bar of their country. It was the fifteenth
day of this trial in the Court of Queen's Bench, in Dublin. At this
remarkable juncture her Majesty said to the Lords and Commons
and she uttered these words with a marked emphasis " At the
close of the last Session of Parliament, I declared to you my firm
determination to maintain inviolate the Legislative Union between
Great Britain and Ireland. I expressed at the same time my
earnest desire to co-operate with Parliament in the adoption of all
such measures as might tend to improve the social condition of
Ireland, and to develope the natural resources of that part of the
United Kingdom. I am resolved to act in strict conformity with
that declaration." It was the I2th of February, the twenty-fourth
day of the trial, when O'Connell and the other traversers were,
under various counts of the indictment, found guilty of conspiracy.
As the Queen's speech could not offer "observations on events in
Ireland, in respect to which proceedings are pending before the
proper legal tribunal," so the attack upon the policy of the govern-
ment, which was inevitable, could not be opened with propriety
whilst the great legal issue was in suspense. But on the I3th of
February the question was raised in both Houses. The marquis
of Normanby moved a resolution pledging the House of Lords to
examine into the causes of the discontent prevalent in Ireland, and
to carry into effect the true principles of Union by securing to that
country equal rights. After two nights' debate the resolution was
rejected by 175 votes against 78. In the House of Commons, lord
John Russell moved for a Committee of the whole House on the
state of Ireland. The debate was continued for nine nights, Mr.
O'Connell himself taking a part in it. It would be wearisome to at-
tempt to follow its course, even in the barest outline. Perhaps
the most impressive as well as the most truthful sentiment uttered
was contained in the conclusion of sir Robert Peel's speech : "I
do earnestly trust that the influence of public opinion, as well as
that of the laws, may control this agitation may convince those
who are concerned in it, that they are prejudicing the best interests
of Ireland impeding its improvement, preventing the application
of capital, and hindering the redress of those grievances which can,
I think, be better redressed by the application of individual enter-
prise than by almost any legislative interference. I have the firm-
est conviction that, if there were calmness and tranquillity in Ire-
land, there is no part of the British dominions which would make
such rapid progress as that country ; for I know that there are fa-
TRIAL OF O'CONNELL. 363
cilities for improvement, opportunities for improvement, which
would make that advance more rapid than that of any other part of
our empire. I do hope and I will conclude by expressing that
earnest hope, that this agitation and all its evil consequences may
be permitted to cease." * On the division on the 23rd of February
the numbers for lord John Russell's motion were, 225, against it
324. The sentence against Mr. O'Connell was not pronounced till
the 3oth of May, when he was adjudged to be imprisoned for
twelve months ; to be fined 2ooo/. ; and to be bound in his own
recognizances, and by two sureties, to keep the peace for seven
years. The other persons convicted, with the exception of one
not brought up for judgment, were sentenced to nine months' im-
prisonment, and to a fine of 5o/., with smaller sums for their own
recognizances, with sureties, to keep the peace for the like terms of
seven years.
When sir Robert Peel met the House of Commons in the Ses-
sion of 1844, he was enabled with justice to take a favourable view
of the condition of the country as the best justification of his finan-
cial policy of 1842. There had been a disposition, he said, to draw
too hasty a conclusion as to the operation of the great change in
the Customs' Duties. The Government had asked for time
properly to judge what would be the effect of that alteration. It
was now admitted that there was a material improvement in some
branches of manufacture. With regard to Revenue, he was en-
abled to state that the course of deficiency had been suspended,
and that the revenue of the current year would be amply sufficient
to meet the existing charges. He explicitly declared that he had
not contemplated, and did not contemplate, an alteration in the
present Corn-Laws. Neither on account of the price of corn, nor
on account of variations in that price, was he led to form a more
unfavourable opinion with respect to the operations of the existing
law, than he entertained at the time when he proposed it.
The improvement in the condition of the people was attributed
by members of the Opposition less to the measures of the Govern-
ment than to the effects of a plentiful harvest. To this cause may
be ascribed the diminished agitation for the repeal of the Corn-
Laws. But the League held firmly together, and continued its
salutary course of endeavouring to enlighten the public upon the
permanent results of those laws. During the Session there were
two formal discussions on the subject of Protection to Agriculture.
Mr. Cobden, on the I2th of March, moved for a Committee to in-
quire into the effects of protective duties on agricultural tenants
* Hansard, vol. Ixxiii. col. 254.
364 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
and labourers. The motion was negatived by a majority of 91.
On the 25th of June, Mr. Villiers proposed Resolutions which
contemplated the total repeal of the Corn-Law. These Resolu-
tions, after a debate of two nights, were rejected by a majority of
204. In this debate, as at the beginning of the Session, sir Robert
Peel maintained his determination to stand by the existing law.
He avowed himself an advocate for protection to agriculture, not
for the sake of the landlords, but from a conviction of the evils
which the sudden removal of protection would inflict upon general
interests, domestic and colonial. He looked to those general in-
terests ; he looked especially to Ireland, of which agriculture was
the great staple.
The principles avowed and the measures proposed by sir
Robert Peel in his legislative career must be viewed under two
aspects. He is the minister of expediency, holding a party to-
gether by deference to the opinions of the majority that placed
him in power, and in this capacity we may always trace in his
speeches some evasion of the logical points of a controversy some
inclination to skirmish on the outside of the field of debate instead
of encountering the risks of a general conflict of principles. Thus
he always deals with the question of Protection, and especially of
Protection to Agriculture. His adversaries tell him again and
again that he is speaking against his own convictions. Mr. Villiers
closed the debate of the 25th of June, by saying that sir Robert
Peel had just made a speech with which the agriculturists were
well pleased ; but he had made the same sort of speech for them
in 1839, and had thrown them overboard afterwards, because the
state of the season and the distress of the people had made it
indispensable to give some relief to the country: the same thing
would happen again. Mr. Milner Gibson averred that sir Robert
Peel would not say that he meant to make Protection permanent,
but his will must give law to his party, for they could not make a
Ministry without him. As a party-leader we must therefore regard
the First Lord of the Treasury when he deals with questions upon
which the majority appeared to be irrevocably committed. Now
and then, indeed, there was a slight indication that the powerful
minister, under some pressure of circumstances, might think for
himself and risk the consequences of an independent judgment.
The extreme Protectionists were occasionally restless and suspi-
cious under his reserved and cautious demeanour. There were men
amongst them quite ready to become their leaders in the character
of advocates ; but the doubt always arose could they govern as
statesmen ? The nation forbade the experiment in its support of
RENEWAL OF THE BANK CHARTER. 365
the temperate Conservatism of sir Robert Peel. Those who sus-
pected more than ever that he was losing the " undoubting mind "
of a party-leader, could not affirm that he was acting against a
secret conscientious belief that should have urged him forward
with or without his following. For him, the abandonment of Pro-
tection was not a purely scientific question. Representative Gov-
ernment imposed upon him, for a time at least, the inevitable
distinction between speculation and action. Essentially different
was the course of the minister when some great policy could be
safely treated without reference to the chances of a division.
When such an occasion arose, the timid partisan threw off his
trammels and became the confident legislator.
The question of the renewal of the Bank Charter furnished
such an opportunity, which real statesmanship knew how to seize.
He was now consistently acting upon principles which he had
tardily adopted upon conviction a quarter of a century before.
Considering, he said, the part which he took in 1819 in terminating
the system of inconvertible paper-currency, and in re-establishing
the ancient standard of value, it would be to him a source of great
personal satisfaction, if he should obtain the assent of Parliament
to proposals, which were in fact the complement of these measures,
which were calculated to guarantee their permanence and to facil-
itate their practical operation. He chiefly looked forward as the
result of these proposals to the mitigation or termination of evils
such as had at various times afflicted the country, in consequence
of rapid fluctuation in the amount and value of the medium of ex-
change. The leading proposals which he submitted to the House
of Commons on the 6th of May, were, briefly, as follows : to con-
tinue for a limited time, under certain conditions, the privileges of
the Bank of England ; to provide by law that the Bank should be
divided into two departments, one confined to the issue and circu-
lation of notes, the other to the conduct of banking business ; to
limit the amount of securities upon which it should be lawful for
the bank to issue Promissory Notes payable upon demand ; to
provide that a weekly publication should be made by the Bank of
the state both of the circulation and the banking departments.
With regard to other banks the issue of promissory notes payable to
bearer on demand was prohibited to any bank not then issuing such
notes, or to any bank hereafter to be established ; and the banks
of issue that were to continue were to be subject to limitations of
the extent of issue, and to various regulations, including the weekly
publication of the amount of notes issued. The bill founded on
sir Robert Peel's Resolutions was carried, with very slight opposi-
366 HISTORY OP ENGLAND.
tion, through both Houses. M. Guizot says, he keenly enjoyed
that success ; and delighted to speak of his Bank act as one of
the most important achievements of his public life. Perhaps
because it was one of those in which he most fully succeeded in
obtaining the object which was ever present to his mind the
union of scientific truth with practical efficiency." * Eighteen
years have gone by since the passing of this measure ; and un-
questionably its " practical efficiency " has often been tested in
times of improvident speculation. On the other hand, whilst the
advocates for unlimited paper currency maintained that the " scien-
tific truth " shackled all the operations of industry, which would
have flourished with less risk under a perfectly free system of
banking, more sober economists could not suppress their belief
that, in a season of commercial collapse, the Bank Act increased
the difficulties of the crisis, and made a season of pressure become
a season of ruin to a far wider class than that of rash speculators.
In the Session of 1843 tne Ministry had brought forward a
measure for the Regulation of Labour in Factories, which em-
braced a comprehensive plan for the education of the children em-
ployed in the large and increasing establishments where the cot-
ton, flax, wool, and silk manufactures were carried on. These
education clauses produced an outcry throughout the kingdom,
equally strong from Churchmen and from Dissenters ; so that the
Government was compelled by the hostility of sects and parties to
make no provision at all for the proper training of a class of chil
dren who, with a very few exceptions in the case of some enlight-
ened millowners, were left in their ignorance and evil habits to
grow up into brutalized and dangerous men and women. Sir James
Graham, who had assiduously laboured in the construction of an
efficient plan of factory education, was thus compelled, after his
measure had been four months under discussion in Parliament, to
announce that he would not in that Session press the education
clauses in the Factories Bill. He had made alterations, he said,
which had not abated the hostility of the Dissenters ; the Church
had not given him any very cordial support ; and without general
concord and co-operation the Bill would be inoperative, and would
engender religious strife and animosity. Early in the Session of
1844 sir James Graham again introduced a Bill for the Regulation
of Labour in Factories ; but the education clauses of the former
Bill were now dropped ; and, without any provision whatever for
education, the sole object aimed at was a proper limitation of the
hours of employment for women and children. The House was in
* " Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel," i. p. 191.
LORD ASHLEY'S TEN-HOURS' CLAUSE REJECTED. 367
Committee on this Bill on the ith of March, when upon the
discussion of the interpretation clause which denned the word
" Night," and the word " Meal-time," lord Ashley proposed an
amendment, " that the word ' night ' shall be taken to mean from
six o'clock in the evening to six o'clock in the following morning ;
and that the word meal-time ' shall be taken to mean an interval
of cessation from work, for the purpose of rest and refreshment,
at the rate of two hours a day ; with a view to effect a limitation
of the hours of labour to ten in the day." Sir James Graham op-
posed this amendment, which he asserted would seriously affect
the commercial prosperity of the country, reducing the returns on
capital, and involving a diminution of wages to the amount of
twenty-five per cent. The government Bill proposed to retain the
existing term of twelve hours of factory labour, extending protec-
tion to females and young persons. Sir Robert Peel maintained
that the opposite suggestion for the limitation of labour to ten
hours for females and young persons, would produce a limitation
to ten hours for male adults also. The most urgent argument that
sir Robert Peel used was founded upon statistical facts. The ex-
ports of the cotton, linen, silk, and woollen manufactures of the
country amounted to thirty-five millions sterling out of forty-four
millions of all British manufactures exported ; so that five-sixths
of the exported manufactures of this country would be subjected
to a new law, which was to provide that it would not be legal to
labour at them for more than fifty-nine hours instead of sixty-nine
hours a week ; the Saturday being proposed by lord Ashley to re-
main without alteration. There would thus be two hundred and
fifty days in a year, of which the working hours being reduced from
twelve to ten, there would be five hundred hours less labour dur-
ing fifty-two weeks, which would be equivalent to a loss of seven
weeks' working time. Singular were some of the arguments by
which lord Ashley's proposal was supported. Lord John Russell,
for example, would vote for it in the hope that a limitation in the
hours of labour would compel us to resort to additional supplies
of foreign corn to counteract the effect of falling wages. The gov-
ernment were defeated, lord Ashley carrying his amendment by
one hundred and seventy-nine votes against one hundred and
seventy. Sir James Graham said that the proposed alteration,
when the eighth clause came to be discussed, could be considered
in a more substantive form. The next night lord Ashley stated
that he should so word his clause, that for two years the limitation
should be for eleven hours, and that after that period the ten
hours' restriction should take effect. On the 22nd, when the gov-
368 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
ernment strongly opposed the amendment of their Bill in this
modified shape, the debate was terminated by two divisions, one of
which was contradictory of the other. Upon the proposal to fill
up the blank in the clause with the word " twelve," one hundred
and eighty-three voted in favour of the motion, and one hundred
and eighty-six against it. The House again dividing on the mo-
tion that the blank be filled up with the word " ten," for the motion
there were one hundred and eighty-one votes, against it one hun-
dred and eighty-eight. In various and complicated shapes this
question continued to be discussed for two months, till on the I3th
of May, sir Robert Peel, having declared that, estimating that a
ten hours' Bill would strike off thirty-six thousand pounds a week
from the wages of those employed, and believing it was the duty
of the government to take a comprehensive view of all the great
interests, commercial, political, social, and moral, of all classes, he
would resist the wishes of the factory operatives in order to pro-
mote their welfare. " I protest," he said, "against the doctrine,
that we are to concede because it is the popular will. If we are
satisfied that it is not for the popular interests, then it is our pain-
ful but necessary duty to resist. If this House be of a different
opinion if you are satisfied that you must make this great experi-
ment on labour or if you think concession is inevitable, and that
you must give way to the wishes and feelings of the people be it
so ! But if you take that course, and if you resolve (as you cannot
but do in consistency) to pursue it, you must I say it with all re-
spect you must do so under other auspices, and under guides
who can trace a clearer and a better way than can the present ad-
ministration." This very plain intimation, which the biographer of
sir Robert Peel describes as " using his right with a somewhat un-
gentle haughtiness," produced its natural effect. The House re-
jected the ten hours' clause by a majority of one hundred and
thirty-eight, and the government Bill was passed.
The question of the Sugar Duties, which was formerly debated
lesson financial grounds than on moral and religious, has now lost,
in. the equalization of duties between colonial and foreign sugar, the
interest which once attached to the strong repugnance of a great
party to admit slave-grown sugar. Upon commercial grounds there
were also two parties, whose interests and principles were strongly
opposed. The West India interest resisted that enlargement of
the area of supply which would result from the admission of any
other than colonial sugar. With them went the formidable Anti-
slavery party. The Free-Traders, constantly protesting against
the preference of colonial over foreign sugar, had against them the
DEBATES ON SUGAR DUTIES. 369
great band of enthusiasts who regarded slave-grown sugar as the
abomination which every good housewife ought to resist, by sup-
porting that monopoly of the West India proprietors which was
quite insufficient to supply the demand in this country, and there-
fore kept all sugar dear. The government in 1844 still held to the
principle of a differential duty ; but the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, on the 3rd of June, proposed an abatement of the duty on
foreign sugar provided it was the produce of free labour. Upon a
proposition of Mr. Miles, a conservative member, for reducing the
duty upon British plantation sugar to 2os. per cwt. instead of 24^-.,
and foreign free-grown sugar to 30^., the government were defeated
by a majority of two hundred and forty-one against two hundred
and twenty-one. This division was a great crisis for the ministry.
The division took place on a Saturday morning. On the Sunday a
Cabinet Council was held, and on the Monday sir Robert Peel,
amidst intense excitement, called upon the House to reconsider its
decision, of which important consequences might be the result.
This was to declare, in words that could not be mistaken, that if
he were to continue in office he must have the full and untram-
melled support of the party he represented. The House did recon-
sider, reversing its decision by a majority of two hundred and fifty-
five against two hundred and thirty-three. It was on the occasion
of this debate that Mr. Disraeli, with a more marked hostility
towards sir Robert Peel than he had before displayed, adverted to
the former opinions of the Prime Minister, when he said that he
had never entered into the Anti-slavery cry, and would never enter
into the cry of " Cheap Sugar." " Now the right honourable
gentleman had adopted certain opinions of a very decided character
with respect to slavery ; and he told the House cheap sugar was of
such importance that the existence of his ministry depended upon
it, and that the character of his supporters must be sacrificed to
secure his ministry. Twenty-four months had only elapsed, and
the right honourable gentleman came forward with a detestation of
slavery in every place except in the benches behind him. If the
Anti-slavery repugnance were only a little more prevalent if the
right honourable gentleman did not expect upon every division, and
at every crisis, that his gang should appear, and the whip should
sound with that alacrity which he understood was now prevalent
it would be a little more consistent with the tone which he assumed
with respect to the slave-trade, and with that which was now the
principal subject of discussion."
The great questions, financial and social, whose decision was to
have a permanent influence upon the progress of improvement,
VOL. VIII. 24.
370 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
produced little excitement beyond the walls of parliament com-
pared with one ministerial act, which startled the nation for awhile
and then quickly passed into oblivion. The British people are, as
they ought to be, excessively jealous of any secret and apparently
despotic exercise of power by the executive government. The
power of issuing a warrant from the Secretary of State for the
opening of letters at the Post Office had been exercised, under the