Page:Australian views of England.djvu/115

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X.]
OF ENGLAND.
103

me, while he was speaking, but he couldn't stand it for more than five minutes. As a specimen of Mr. Lindsay, both of his logic and his ingeniousness, he argued laboriously that the North were not fighting to put down slavery; ignoring altogether that, so far as slavery had to do with the quarrel, it was the South who had broken up the Union for the extension and preservation of slavery, and that the North were simply fighting to preserve the constitution. The speakers on his side were Lord Vane Tempest, Mr. Whiteside, and Mr. Gregory. The speakers against the motion were Mr. Taylor (of Leicester) and Mr. W. E. Forster. Lord Palmerston deprecated any decision by the House on the matter, and contended with much spirit that the Government ought to be left free to act in the way which the course of events might point out The motion was eventually withdrawn.

The House shewed itself in a strange and not very creditable temper during this debate. All the clamour was in favour of the South. Members, lying on their backs, lustily shouted "bosh" during the speeches of Mr. Taylor and Mr. Forster, but the loudest sympathisers evidently shrunk from