DISSOLUTION OF THE CABINET.
Before parliament was prorogued the weakness and vacillation of the ministry had been very apparent. From the moment of Earl Grey’s resignation, indeed, the want of intrinsic power had rendered them dependent on O’Connell and his faction. And this very support was vouchsafed to them in such a way as tended to bring their government still more into contempt: while the Irish demagogues supported them, they expressed the utmost contempt for them. Thus, in the month of October, O’Connell wrote a series of letters to Lord Duncannon, in which every species of abuse was heaped upon the ministry and the Whigs.
Another circumstance which contributed to lower the reputation of the ministry was the hostility evinced to them by the public press. There was scarcely a daily newspaper, except the Morning Chronicle, which did not occasionally express contempt for them; and as for the Times, its columns perpetually exposed their feebleness and incapacity to carry on government on any fixed set of principles. The conduct of Lord Brougham also tended to bring his colleagues into contempt. During the autumn he traversed different parts of Scotland, making speeches wherever hearers were to be found, in which at one time he would go the utmost lengths of ultra-radicalism, and at another, would speak in such a way as would have induced the Conservatives to hail him as their own. The dissolution of the ministry, however, was especially aided by the death of Earl Spencer, which took place on the 10th of November. As that event moved Lord Althorp to the house of lords, it was requisite to find a new chancellor of the exchequer, and a new leader of the house of commons.
On the 14th of November Lord Melbourne waited on the king at Brighton, to submit to his majesty the changes in official appointments which the death of Earl Spencer had rendered necessary, Lord John Russell being the individual selected as leader of the house of commons; but the king thought that business could not be carried on by such a ministry as it was proposed to construct, and he expressed his opinion that Lord Brougham could not continue chancellor, as well as his dissatisfaction with the selection of the members of the cabinet who were to frame the Irish church bill. The king, in fact, announced that he should not impose upon Lord Melbourne the task of completing the official arrangements, but would apply to the Duke of Wellington.