As the bill for prohibiting the grant of offices in reversion was now about to expire, Mr. Bankes introduced a new bill in order to render the measure permanent. This was opposed on the second reading by Mr. Perceval, and thrown out; and then Mr. Bankes proposed a bill for the same purpose, but limited to two years. This met with no opposition in the commons, and it was carried through the lords after the rejection of an amendment proposed by Earl Grosvenor for continuing its operation to 1840. At a later date Mr. Bankes brought in a bill for utterly abolishing many sinecure places, and this was carried against ministers by a majority of one hundred and thirty-four against one hundred and twenty-three. On the 7th of May Mr. Creevey also called the serious attention to the tellerships of the exchequer, now held by the Marquess of Buckingham and Lord Camden, which offices were as old as the exchequer itself, and conferred a vested right, with which it was held parliament could not interfere. He moved a series of resolutions, the last of which declared:—“That it is the duty of parliament in the present unparalleled state of national expenditure and public calamity, to exercise its rights still further over the fees now paid out of the public money at the exchequer, so as to confine the profits of the two tellers to some fixed and settled sum of money more conformable in amount to the usual grants of public money for public services, etc.” Ministers opposed this motion, and it was lost without a division. An amendment, likewise, proposed by Mr. Brand, for appointing a committee to inquire into precedents, was rejected by a large majority. In these debates the greater part of the opposition took the part of ministers, but in the minority were Whitbread, General Fergusson, Lord Tavistock, Lord Archibald Hamilton, and Mr. Brougham. But though parliament would not interfere in these vested rights, in November of this year the two noble tellers intimated their intention of appropriating to the public service a third of their salary and fees from the 5th of January next to the end of the war: this was an act of true patriotism. Before the session closed an attack was made upon another patent place, that of the office of registrar of the admiralty and prize courts. A bill for regulating this office was brought in by Mr. Henry Martin, but it was rejected by a majority of sixty-five against twenty-seven. In the course of this last debate it was made to appear that Lord Arden, the registrar, whose fees amounted to about £12,000 a year, had made £7000 a year more by interest and profits of suitors’ money, and that he had sometimes above £200,000 of such money employed at interest. A bill, however, proposed by Mr. Perceval himself, which declared that the registrar should be entitled to one-third part only of the fees of his office, and that the remaining two-thirds should go to the consolidated fund, was carried, though not without some opposition. This was noble conduct on the part of Mr. Perceval; for this office had been granted in reversion to his elder brother, Lord Arden, and after Lord Arden’s death it was to revert to Mr. Perceval himself. Its merits were, however, lowered by the consideration that the reductions of emoluments were not to take place till after the expiration of the existing present and reversionary interests; that is, till after the deaths of Lord Arden and Mr. Perceval.
CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY, ETC.
At this period the present cabinet was not only weak but distracted. The Marquess Wellesley, indeed, who was dissatisfied with some of his colleagues, had signified his intention of resigning almost as soon as parliament met, although he agreed to hold office till the expiration of the year to which the restrictions on the regent were limited. He resigned on the 19th of February, and he was succeeded as secretary for foreign affairs by Lord Castlereagh. Six days before the resignation of Marquess Wellesley the regent wrote a letter to his brother, the Duke of York, in which he began with alluding to the fast approaching expiration of the restrictions; stated that motives of filial affection had induced him to continue the present cabinet; adverted to the success of his first year’s administration, and expressed a hope that a new era was arriving. He concluded with these words:—“Having made this communication of my sentiments, I cannot conclude without expressing the gratification I should feel if some of those persons with whom the early habits of my public life were formed would strengthen my hands, and constitute a part of my government. With such support, and aided by a vigorous and united administration, founded on the most liberal basis, I shall look with additional confidence to a prosperous issue of the most arduous contest in which Great Britain was ever engaged. You are authorized to communicate these sentiments to Lord Grey, who I. have no doubt will make them known to Lord Grenville.” The prince’s letter was shown to both Grey and Grenville, but they flatly refused to join the Perceval administration. The letter, and their reply to the Duke of York, were published in all the newspapers of the kingdom, and from this moment the Whigs began to revile the Prince of Wales, whom they had so long flattered and applauded. They had anticipated a return to power under his rule; and when they discovered that he adhered to his father’s line of policy, they no longer looked up to him as their rising sun. The old cry was indeed raised, that there was something behind the throne stronger than the throne itself, something that was subversive of the constitution. Earl Grey declared in the house of lords that the ministry depended for its existence upon an unseen influence; a power alien to the constitution; a disgusting and disastrous influence which consolidated abuses into a system, and which prevented both complaint and advice from reaching the royal ear; an influence which it was the duty of parliament to set its branding mark upon. Both in and out of parliament it was asserted that Lord Castlereagh’s return to office was the effect of the influence of a certain lady, and the auspices of the Hertford family.
ATTACKS UPON MINISTERS.
These murmurs broke out into open attacks upon the cabinet. On the 19th of March Lord Boringdon moved in the house of lords for an address to the prince regent, beseeching him to form an administration so composed as to unite the confidence and good will of all classes of his majesty’s subjects. His real meaning was that the regent should form a Grey and Grenville administration; but his irregular, if not unconstitutional motion, was got rid of by an amendment proposed by Lord Grimstone, which was carried by one hundred and sixty-five against seventy-two. A more violent attack on the ministry was subsequently made by Lord Donoughmore, when he moved for a committee on the Roman Catholic claims; but though his lordship’s motion was seconded by the Duke of Sussex his motion was lost: his speech was too much tainted with private pique to be heeded by parliament. A similar motion, urged by the eloquence of Mr. Grattan in the commons, met with a similar fate. At a later period, however, Mr. Canning carried a motion in opposition to ministers, pledging the house to consider early next session the state of the laws affecting the Roman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. In the lords a similar proposal made by the Marquis Wellesley was rejected.
ASSASSINATION OF MR. PERCEVAL.
During this session, as the continuance of outrages in several of the manufacturing counties continued, a severe law was enacted, which made the breaking of frames and administration of oaths a capital felony. These commotions were generally attributed to the operation of our orders in council, diminishing the demands for articles of British manufacture; and petitions were presented to both houses for a revocation of these edicts. In compliance with the general wish, a formal inquiry was instituted; but while it was depending, its leader was suddenly cut off by a tragical death. As Mr. Perceval, on the 11th of May, was entering the lobby of the house of commons he was shot through the heart, and after uttering a slight exclamation and staggering a few paces, he expired. The assassin, whose name was Bellingham, made no attempt to escape, and he was immediately arrested. Apprehensions were at first entertained that there might be a conspiracy; but it was soon discovered that no other person had been concerned with him, and that there was no mixture of political feeling in his motives. Bellingham had been a merchant; and in a commercial visit to Russia some time before he had met with serious losses, which he attributed to violence and injustice. He had repeatedly addressed Lord G. Leveson Gower, who had been our ambassador at Petersburgh, and he had presented memorials to the treasury, soliciting a compensation for losses; but these losses not having been incurred in the course of any public service, were considered as affording him no title to compensation. Mr. Perceval had rightly refused to listen to his applications; but Bellingham was enraged at his refusal, and resolved to sacrifice his life. He was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey, and he underwent the extreme sentence of the law within one week of his perpetration of the fearful deed. Two days after the assassination parliament voted £50,000 for the children of the sacrificed minister, and £2000 to his widow for life. Subsequently another pension was voted to his eldest son, as was also a monument for the deceased in Westminster Abbey. The talents of Mr. Perceval were not splendid, but as chancellor of the exchequer he displayed considerable skill in augmenting the public burdens at a time when the war was conducted on a scale of unprecedented expenditure. His advancement seems to have been owing to his inflexibility on the Catholic question, at a time when a majority of the talented members of parliament was in favour of some concession. But if Mr. Perceval’s talents were not of the highest order, in private life few persons were more deservedly respected, and whose death was in consequence more lamented. Sir Samuel Romilly, in his “Diary of Parliamentary Life,” remarks that he could hardly have accompanied his refusal to listen to Bellingham with any harshness, for few men had ever less harshness in their nature than he had. A recent writer also says:—“We remember well walking through the populous streets and suburbs of the capital on that afternoon and evening, and seeing the mixed feelings of horror and pity expressed on almost every countenance.”