tion for the Berlin and Milan decrees. Brougham con ducted the lengthened inquiry which took place at the bar of the House, and he displayed on this occasion a mastery over the true principles of political economy and interna tional law which at that time no one else possessed. It saems incredible (though even now the delusion is not entirely dissipated) that the Government of a great com mercial nation should ever have thought that one of the most effectual and essential modes of carrying on war and destroying an enemy is to shut out the trade of neutrals, not perceiving that such measures rea.t with at least equal force against ourselves, and destroy the very sinews by which the burden of war can be sustained. The trade of the country was in truth suffering more from these fatal restrictions than from the war itself ; and nothing in the whole collection of Lord Brougham s harangues is more forcible or more ably reasoned than the speeches in which he described those sufferings, and denounced the cause of
them.Nevertheless, in 180S, he was unsuccessful. Neither the evidence taken during a six months inquiry nor the eloquence of the impassioned advocate prevailed. It was not until 1812, when Brougham was himself in Parliament, that he resumed his attack on the Orders in Council with increased authority and vigour, aided by Mr Baring, and still more, perhaps, by the peril and disgrace of the quarrel with America, and he ultimately conquered. No answer was made to his great speech on that occasion, except an intimation from the Treasury bench that the Orders in Council would be revoked. Of this great triumph Brougham afterwards said : " It was second to none of the efforts made by me, and not altogether without success, to ameliorate the condition of my fellow-men. In these I had the sympathy and aid of others, but in the battle against the Orders in Council I fought alone."
It was considered imprudent and impossible that a man so gifted and so popular as Brougham hail now become should remain out of Parliament, and by the influence of Lord Holland, the duke of Bedford was induced to return him to the House of Commons for the borough of Camelford. He took his seat early in 1810, having made a vow that he would not open his mouth for a month. The vow was kept, but kept for that month only. He spoke on the fifth March in condemnation of the conduct of Lord Chatham at Walcheren, and he went on speaking for the rest of his life. In four months, such was the position he had acquired in the House that he was regarded as a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal party, then in the feeble hands of George Ponsonby. Some little time before a squib of infinite drollery was published in the New Whig Guide, by Lord Palmerston, under the significant title of "Trial of Harry Brougham for Mutiny." The mutiny consisted in his calling the Plight Honourable George Ponsonby an "old woman." When the negotiation took place in 1812 between the Prince Regent and Lords Grey and Grenville for the formation of a Whig Government, it was expected that the presidentship of the Board of Trade would be accepted by Brougham, who was not unwill ing to quit the bar altogether for political office. But this gleam of parliamentary success and official anticipation soon vanished. The Tories continued in power. Parliament was dissolved. Camel- ford had passed into other hands. Brougham was induced to stand for Liverpool with Mr Crecvy against Canning and General Gas- coyne. The Liberals were defeated by a large majority, and what made the sting of defeat more keen was, that another seat was speedily provided for Creevy, whilst Brougham was left out in the cold. He remained out of Parliament during the four eventful years, from 1812 to 1816, which witnessed the termination of the war, and he did not conceal his resentment against the AVhigs.
Brougham s position at this time was difficult and anomalous. Burning with political ambition, and conscious that he had no superior in the arena of the House of Commons, he had lost his seat in Parliament ; he was distrusted and feared by some of the leading members of the Liberal party, and, as he said himself in a letter to Lord Grey, "it is their pleasure to consider me as flung overboard to lighten the ship." Yet he stood aloof, not only from the extreme views of demagogues like Hunt and Cobbett, but also from the milder radicalism of Hobhouse and Burdett. Indeed, it deserves to be remarked, that fond as Brougham was of popular applause, and deeply imbued as he was with Liberal opinions, he never conde scended to flatter the Radical party or to ally himself with them ; but, on the contrary, when in later years differences arose between himself and the Whigs, he leaned rather to the Conservative side, and he was uniformly opposed to any measure which might over throw the balance of the constitution.
But in the years he spent out of Parliament occurrences took place which gave ample employment to his bustling activity, and led the way to one of the most important passages in his life. He had been introduced in 1809 by Lord Dudley and Sir William Drummond to the society of the Princess of Wales, whose house at Kensington, and afterwards at Blackheath, was the resort of the most agreeable society in London. Canning, Granville Leveson, Dudley, Rogers, and Luttrell were constantly there. But it was not till 1812 that the princess consulted him on her private ail airs, alter the rupture between the Prince and the Whigs had become more decided. From that time Brougham, in conjunction with Mr Whitbrcad, became one of the princess s chief advisers ; he was attached to her service, not so much from any great liking or respect for herself, as from an indignant sense of the wrongs and insults inflicted upon her by her husband. We shall not attempt to follow the details of these deplorable transactions, which are fully related elsewhere, but one memorable scene, as related by Lord Brougham, cannot be passed over in silence. The Princess Charlotte, irritated and alarmed by her father s threats to break up her household and to marry her to the Prince of Orange, escaped in July 1814 from Warwick House, flung herself into a hackney coach in Cockspur Street, and drove to her mother s residence in Connaught Place. Mr Brougham, who was dining with a friend, was imme diately sent for, and on his arrival, half asleep from fatigue, found with extreme surprise what had occurred. The duke of Sussex, tho duke of York, Lord Chancellor Eldon, the bishop of Salisbury, and others subsequently arrived, but except the royal dukes, none of these personages were admitted to an audience. Brougham, a young barris ter of thirty-six, became and remained the chief adviser of this young princess of eighteen, the heiress to the crown . H is advice to her was, "Return at once to Warwick House orCarlton House, and on no account pass a night elsewhere." The debate was long and painful ; the grievances of the princess were numerous. At length, as day began to dawn, Brougham took her to the window, and pointing to the empty street and park, said, "In a few hours these, thorough fares will be crowded. I have only to show you from this window to these multitudes, they will rise in your behalf ; Carlton House will be attacked ; troops will be called out ; blood will be shed ; and whatever be the result, it will be known that your running away was the cause of this mischief. You would never get over it." This remonstrance prevailed, and the princess returned to Carlton House with her uncle the duke of York at five in the morning. This anecdote is so graphically told by Lord Brougham in several places that we preserve it. But it has not been corroborated by any of the other persons present ; and in a letter written by Brougham himself to Earl Grey on the following day, he said nothing of this touching appeal, but relates that the princess went back be cause the duke of York came, armed with full powers from the Regent to fetch her away. It is not improbable that the scene thus described is apocryphal, or at least embellished by Lord Brougham s imagination, for in his later years he was apt to mis take for actual occurrences the creations of his own fancy.
In 1814, the Princess of Wales, having been prohibited by Queen Charlotte from attending the drawing-rooms given to the allied sovereigns on their visit to England, resolved to go abroad. This unfortunate scheme was strongly opposed by the Princess Charlotte, and not less so by Mr Whitbread and Mr Brougham. The latter addressed a letter to the Princess of Wales on the eve of her departure, in which he pointed out with great sngacity and good sense the fatal consequences of her withdrawal from England. "As long as you remain in this country," he said, "I will answer for it that no plot can succeed against you. But if you are living abroad, surrounded by the base spies and tools who will always be planted about you, ready to invent and swear as they may be directed, who can pretend to say what may happen ? I declare, I do not see how a proposition hostile to your Royal Highness s marriage could be resisted if you continued living abroad." How completely these predictions were fulfilled is sufficiently known. Brougham appears to have had but little correspondence with the princess during her residence in Italy. But in 1820, when she resolved to return to England on the accession of George IV., he was sent by the Government conjointly with Lord Hutchinson, to dissuade her from that step and to offer her terms. Brougham certainly disapproved of her return ; but for some mysterious reason he withheld the proposed terms of compromise until it was too late, and when they were laid before the queen at St Omer she rejected them with scorn. The death of Mr Whitbread and of the Princess Charlotte, which had occurred in the interval, had removed two important checks on the rashness of the queen ; and Brougham, who had failed to prevent her from going away, was equally unable to prevent her return. It has even been surmised that, from a love of mischief and of power, he desired it.
Meanwhile Brougham had at length, in 1816, been again returned
