FOOTNOTES:
[3] Hungered.
[4] Shah Sujah had been murdered shortly after the commencement of the British retreat.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).
Opening of 1843—Assassination of Drummond—The Quarterly on the League—Scene between Peel and Cobden—Mr. Villiers's Annual Motion—Peel's Free Trade Admissions—Progress of the League Agitation—Activity of its Press—Important Accessions—Invasion of the County Constituencies—The Free Traders in Parliament—Disraeli attacks Peel—Lord John Russell's Attitude—Debate on Mr. Villiers's Motion—Mr. Goulburn's Budget—The Sugar Duties—Defeat of the Government—Peel obtains a Reconsideration of the Vote—Disraeli's Sarcasms—The Anti-League League—Supposed Decline of Cobdenism—The Session of 1845—The Budget—Breach between Peel and his Party—The Potato Disease—The Cabinet Council—Memorandum of November 6—Dissent of Peel's Colleagues—Peel's Explanation of his Motives—Lord Stanley's Expostulation—Announcement in the Times—The Edinburgh Letter—Resignation of the Ministry—Russell Fails to Form a Government—Return of Peel—Parliament meets—Debates on the Queen's Speech—Peel's general Statement—Mr. Bright's Eulogium—The Corn Bill passes the Commons and the Lords—Defeat of Sir Robert Peel—Some scattered Facts of his Administration.
The year 1843 opened amid gloom and depression. The newspapers published the fact that the revenue for the quarter ending on the 5th of January, as compared with the corresponding quarter of the previous year, had decreased no less than £940,062, occasioned mainly by diminished consumption of articles used by the industrial classes of the community; and the Times remarked, "It appears to us very clear, whatever our Free Trade friends may say, that any alteration which may be made in the Corn Laws ought not to be made irrespective of financial considerations: we cannot at these times afford to throw away revenue." In the same paper appeared a statement that flour was 30 per cent. dearer in London than in Paris. The Queen opened Parliament on the 2nd of February, and the Speech delivered from the Throne regretted the diminished receipts from some of the ordinary sources of revenue, and feared that it must, in part, be attributed to the reduced consumption of many articles caused by that depression of the manufacturing industry of the country which had so long prevailed, and which her Majesty had so deeply lamented. But it suggested no measure of relief for the people.
A debate which took place shortly afterwards was characterised by a memorable scene. In the month of January, 1843, Mr. Edward Drummond, the private secretary of Sir Robert Peel, had been shot in the street at Charing Cross, by an assassin, named M'Naughten. The unfortunate gentleman died of the wound, and the wildest rumours agitated the town as to the motive which had prompted the deed. Many asserted that it was a political one. M'Naughten had been seen loitering in Whitehall Gardens, and had followed his victim from Sir Robert Peel's residence in that locality. It was at once rumoured that the Prime Minister was the intended victim. M'Naughten had come from Glasgow, and it was said that when the Queen was in Scotland Sir Robert Peel invariably rode in the royal carriage, and Mr. Drummond in Sir Robert's own carriage. If this were true, it was remarked, the assassin's confidence would have been complete when he saw Mr. Drummond actually leave the house of Sir Robert Peel. Although the assassin was afterwards proved to be insane, the fact, coupled with the political excitement of the time, made a painful impression upon the minds of public men.
In the eyes of the Conservatives the League was now the great cause of the political ferment that had spread throughout the land. In the Quarterly Review for December a long and elaborate indictment had been published against that body, and all who were in any way connected with them, in which it was attempted to show that the means by which the League sought to attain their objects were of the worst kind. The writer of the article hinted that the League's system of levying money for the avowed purpose of forcing Parliament to alter the law of the land was criminally punishable. A Mr. Bailey had stated, at one of the League meetings, that he had heard of a gentleman who, in private company, had said that if one hundred persons cast lots, and the lot should fall upon him, he would take the lot to deprive Sir Robert Peel of life. The teller of this injudicious anecdote added, that "he felt convinced that no such attempt ought to be made under any pretence whatever; but he was persuaded of this, that when Sir Robert Peel went to his grave there would be but few to shed one tear over it." The speaker was a minister of the Gospel, and there could be no doubt that he intended his anecdote only as an illustration of the frenzy to which some persons had been wrought by the political circumstances of the time; but this fact circulated by the great Tory organs, together with all the most violent and excited passages which could be found in the innumerable speeches delivered at League meetings, and in the pamphlets and other publications of that body, tended to create a vague horror of the Leaguers in the minds of that large class who read only writers on that side which accords with their own views.