[ [!-- Note Anchor 188 --][Footnote 188: "Lives of the Chief-justices," iii., 171.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 189 --][Footnote 189: In a letter on the subject to Lord Liverpool, the Duke goes the length of calling the proposed bill "an experiment which, should it fail, must entail the dreadful alternative of the entire ruin of the landed interests of the empire, with which he is decidedly of opinion that the nation must stand or fall."—Life of Lord Liverpool, iii., 434.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 190 --][Footnote 190: At one time it was the fashion with writers of the Liberal party to represent Lord Liverpool as led by Lord Castlereagh in the earlier, and by Canning in the later, part of his administration; but Lord Liverpool's correspondence with both these ministers shows clearly that on every subject of foreign as well as of home policy he was the real guide and ruler of his cabinet. Even the recognition of the independence of the South American provinces of Spain—which is so often represented as exclusively the work of Canning—the memorandum on the subject which Lord Liverpool drew up for the cabinet proves that the policy adopted was entirely his own, and that as such he adhered to it resolutely, in spite of the avowed disapproval of the Duke of Wellington and the known unwillingness of the King to sanction it; and it may be remarked (as he and Lord Castlereagh have sometime been described as favoring the Holy Alliance), that the concluding sentence of his letter to the Duke on the subject expresses his hostility, not only to that celebrated treaty, but to the policy which dictated and was embodied in it. (See Lord Liverpool's memorandum for the cabinet and letter to the Duke of Wellington, December 8, 1824.)—Life of Lord Liverpool, iii., 297-305.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 191 --][Footnote 191: See ante, [p. 222].]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 192 --][Footnote 192: "With much prudence or laudable disinterestedness," says Hallam ("Constitutional History," ii., 532).]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 193 --][Footnote 193: The last time had been in 1790, when there had been a majority of 187 against it.—Peel's Memoirs, i., 99.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 194 --][Footnote 194: 237 to 193.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 195 --][Footnote 195: "Peel's Memoirs," i., 68.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 196 --][Footnote 196: "Wellington's Civil Despatches," iv., 453.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 197 --][Footnote 197: See his letter to Peel, March 23 ("Peel's Memoirs," i., 92-100).]