SCOTLAND. Lord-Advocate.................. Mr. Anderson. Solicitor-General .............. Mr. Inglis.
IRELAND. Lord-Lieutenant ............... Earl of Eglinton. Lord-Chancellor ............... Rt. Hon. Mr. Blackburn. Chief Secretary................. Lord Naas. Attorney-General................ Mr. Napier. Solicitor-General ............. Mr. Whiteside.
QUEEN’S HOUSEHOLD. Lord-Steward..................... Duke of Montrose. Lord-Chamberlain................. Marquis of Exeter. Master of the Horse.............. Earl of Jersey. Mistress of the Robes .......... Duchess of Athole.
This ministry was but slightly modified during the year, and altogether apart from political changes. The death of the Duke of Wellington led to the appointment of Lord Hardinge to the Horse Guards, Lord Raglan becoming master-general of the Ordnance.
This ministry was not popular. In the cabinet the lord-chancellor was not an accession of strength. Although a very high Tory, he was not liked by the aristocracy; and although a very good lawyer, he was believed by the country to be narrow-minded and prejudiced. Lord John Manners was extremely unpopular, in consequence of his well-known couplet, expressive of the desire that learning and commerce should perish rather than that the power of the aristocracy should be diminished. The Duke of Northumberland was considered utterly unfit for the important duties imposed on him, and it was supposed that he would patronise “jobbing,” and promotion by unfair means.
Out of the cabinet, the English appointments were generally severely criticised, except those of the household and the law officers. These latter were considered able men, but bigoted partizans—clever enough for attorney-general and solicitor-general, but very unsuitable for judges, to which honours the offices notoriously led.
All the Irish appointments were popular in Ireland, although the gentlemen who filled them belonged to a party of so small a minority. Lord Eglinton was a gentleman personally liberal and generally esteemed, generous, and off-hand, fond of Ireland, and adapted to intercourse with the Irish. Mr. Blackburn, the lord-chancellor, was considered the greatest equity lawyer in Ireland, and an impartial judge. Lord Naas, the chief secretary, was an Irishman who knew the country well, and was connected with many popular families. Joseph Napier was held to be a first-rate lawyer and scholar, a polished gentleman, and a sincere Christian. Whiteside was regarded as having too much of the clever, eloquent, fiery Irish agitator in his own constitution, not to have some complaisant sympathy with such qualities in his countrymen. Accordingly, the government worked well in Ireland for its own ascendancy, but every step it took in England rendered the hope of ministerial longevity impossible. Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli were personally liked; both were believed to be more liberal than their relation to their party allowed, and their brilliant eloquence made the country proud of them in or out of office.
The time soon arrived for testing the House of Commons as to the amount of toleration it was likely to show to the new ministry. On the 27th of February, Lord Derby offered the lords an exposition of his views, which, even while he was yet speaking, found its way substantially to the commons, and was buzzed about among the members. In his speech, his lordship disavowed any intention to interfere violently with free-trade principles, but avowed himself still a Protectionist, declaring, that in his opinion, the importation of all articles which competed with the industry of the country ought to be taxed, and that corn ought not to be exempt. A report of his lordship’s speech had scarcely reached the commons, when it was evident that so far as the parliament then sitting was concerned, the doom of his ministry was sealed. When, the next day, the wings of the press bore to the country his lordship’s oration, indignation was everywhere excited, and the free-traders were united and strengthened, in a manner they had not been from the time of the repeal of the corn-laws.
Lord Derby made a statement connected with reform, which proved to be nearly as distasteful to a majority of the people out of doors as that on free-trade. He expressed his intention not to proceed with Lord John Russell’s reform bill, which he described as unsettling everything and settling nothing, which began by exciting the country, and finished by dissatisfying it.
His lordship, as if not satisfied with the opposition such statements were likely to raise against him, provided himself with a third element of hostility, by invoking the assistance of his hearers for the extension of the established church, and of an education entirely under the control of the parochial clergy. The dissenters and Roman Catholics were much alarmed ly this portion of his lordship’s speech, and quietly, but extensively and effectually, prepared to give a strenuous opposition to his government. Thus, in his début as premier, Lord Derby contrived to set against him the free-traders, reformers, dissenters, and Roman Catholics, at a moment when there was a majority against him in the commons. The premier’s oratorical onslaught was so indiscreet, that only the most headstrong and ignorant of his own party had any hope that he would display the tact, sagacity, self-control, and party-moderation which alone could enable him to hold his ground against the opposition in the commons, and the general want of confidence in his ministry.