direction of so important a business in such feeble, in such incompetent hands? Indeed, if there was a likelihood that the difficulty of conducting the military operations of an injured people would force them from the employments they disgrace, it would be actually worth our while to commence a war, merely for the purpose of gaining a fresh administration. But while the baneful influence of the Northern Star continues, peace or war must be equally indifferent, the public will be plundered and betrayed; the glory of the British Crown will be eclipsed and the queen of nations made an object of ridicule to every potentate in Europe."[1]
The above speech gives no inadequate idea of the violence which party-spirit had reached, on one occasion nearly bringing the two Houses into collision. A motion had been carried, in the midst of general confusion and in the teeth of a fierce opposition, to clear the Upper House of strangers, in order to prevent the weakness of the fortifications of Gibraltar—the subject of debate—being made known to the world. The members of the House of Commons were removed with the other strangers. On returning to their own House they carried a retaliatory motion. Mutual forbearance ultimately smoothed the difficulty, but the occasion is still recollected owing to the caricature of Lord Marchmont and Lord Denbigh, given by Barré in the House of Commons when describing the scene in the Upper House. "I could not suppose," he said, "that a single Peer remained. It seemed as if the mob had broke in, and they certainly acted in a very extraordinary manner. One of the heads of this mob—for there were two—was a Scotchman. I heard him call out several times: Clear the Hoose! Clear the Hoose! The face of the other was hardly human; for he had contrived to put on a nose of enormous size, that disfigured him completely." [2]
While, however, the determined attitude of the country and of the Opposition ultimately forced the Government
