If Wellington sought to conciliate the ultra-tories by his unfortunate speech, he was soon undeceived. While Brougham's motion was pending, the government proposed a revision of the civil list which purported to effect slight economies for the benefit of the public. It was objected, however, that a greater reduction of charges should have been contemplated, and that parliament should have been invited to deal with the revenues derived from the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, which, as Peel explained, formed no part of those placed at the disposal of parliament. Sir Henry Parnell moved to refer the civil list to a select committee; the chancellor of the exchequer directly opposed the motion, and, after a short discussion, a division was taken on November 15. The result, which had been foreseen, was a majority of twenty-nine against the government in a house of 437 members. There were many defections among the discontented tories, and the Wellington ministry preferred to fall on an issue of minor importance, rather than await a decisive contest on the reform question. On the following day, therefore, both the duke and Peel announced the acceptance of their resignations, and it was known that Grey had received the king's command to form a new administration.
GREY ACCEPTS OFFICE.
Grey was the inevitable head of any cabinet empowered to carry parliamentary reform. His dignified presence, his stately eloquence, his unblemished character, and his parliamentary experience, marked him out for leadership, and disguised his want of practical acquaintance with the middle and lower classes of his countrymen. His political career, ranging over forty-four years, though not destitute of errors, had been perfectly consistent. From the first he was a staunch adherent of Fox; he was among the managers who conducted the prosecution of Warren Hastings; his connexion with the Society of the Friends of the People, and his advocacy of reform during Pitt's first administration are described in the preceding volume of this history. On Pitt's death he became closely associated with Grenville; it will be remembered that he joined his short-lived government, originally as first lord of the admiralty, and afterwards as Fox's successor at the foreign office. It was he who carried through the house of commons the bill for the abolition of the slave trade, and it may truly be said that, in opposition, he was equally persistent in supporting every measure in favour of liberty, political or commercial, and in resisting every measure, necessary or otherwise, which could be interpreted as restricting it. We have seen how he more than once declined overtures for a coalition with his opponents, and showed a bitter personal antipathy to Canning, whom he was more than suspected of despising as a brilliant plebeian adventurer. This suspicion of aristocratic prejudice, ill harmonising with democratic principles, had never been quite dispelled, and was now to be confirmed by the composition of his own cabinet.
All the members of this cabinet, with four exceptions, sat in the house of lords. No cabinet had contained so few commoners since the reconstruction of Liverpool's ministry in 1822. Of the four who now sat in the house of commons, Lord Althorp was heir-apparent to an earldom; Lord Palmerston was an Irish peer; Graham was a baronet of great territorial influence; Charles Grant was still a commoner, though he was afterwards raised to the peerage. In the distribution of offices, full justice was done to Canning's followers. Three of these occupied posts of the highest importance, Palmerston at the foreign office, Lamb, who had succeeded his father as Viscount Melbourne in 1828, at the home office, and Goderich at the colonial office, while Grant became president of the board of control. The selection of Graham as first lord of the admiralty did not escape criticism, but was due to his tried energy in financial reform, and was justified by the result. Lansdowne was made president of the council, and Holland chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. Both of these had been Grey's colleagues in the administration of "All the Talents". Althorp, who succeeded Goulburn at the exchequer, and Carlisle, who accepted a seat in the cabinet without office, were both whigs of tried fidelity. But the Duke of Richmond, the new postmaster-general, was a deserter from the tory ranks, and Lord Durham, the premier's son-in-law, the new lord privy seal, was a radical of the most aggressive type, well qualified, as the event proved, to disturb the peace of any council to which he might be admitted. Three occupants of places outside the cabinet remain to be mentioned. One of these, the Marquis Wellesley, had been a warm supporter of catholic emancipation when the Duke of Wellington stoutly opposed it, and his brother's conversion on that question had not affected his own relations with the whig party, which now welcomed him as lord steward. Lord John Russell, the new paymaster of the forces, had identified himself as prominently as Grey himself with the promotion of parliamentary reform, and Stanley, the new chief secretary for Ireland, was probably selected for his brilliant powers in debate, as the natural and most worthy antagonist of the great demagogue, O'Connell.
BROUGHAM BECOMES CHANCELLOR.
But the most formidable of all the "radical reformers" still remained to be conciliated, and provided with a post which might satisfy his restless ambition. At the end of 1830 Brougham was in the plenitude of his marvellous powers, and in the zenith of his unique popularity. As member for the great county of York, returned free of expense on the shoulders of the people, he already occupied the foremost position among British commoners, and it was feared that he might use it for his own purposes in a dictatorial spirit. He had recently declared in Yorkshire that "nothing on earth should ever tempt him to accept place," and that he was conscious of the power to compel the execution of measures which, before that democratic election, he could only "ventilate". So late as November 16, he assured the house of commons that "no change in the administration could by any possibility affect him," adding that he would bring forward his motion for parliamentary reform on the 25th, whatever might then be the state of affairs, and whatever ministers should then be in office. The great whig peers were most anxious to keep him out of the cabinet without losing his support, or, still worse, provoking his active hostility. With this view, Grey indiscreetly offered him the attorney-generalship, and we cannot be surprised that Brougham rejected the offer with some indignation and disdain. It was no secret that his supreme desire was to become master of the rolls—an office compatible with a seat in the house of commons—but his future colleagues well knew that, in that case, they would be at his mercy in the house. Thereupon it was suggested, probably by the king himself, that it might be the less of two dangers to entrust him with the great seal, which Lord Lyndhurst was quite prepared to resume under a fourth premier. Accordingly, it was known on November 20 that Brougham was to be the whig lord chancellor, and on the 22nd he actually took his place on the woolsack. His title was Baron Brougham and Vaux, but, though he lived to retain it for nearly forty years, he always preferred, with pardonable vanity, to sign his name as "Henry Brougham".
Before the close of 1830 the new ministers found time to carry a regency bill, whereby the Duchess of Kent (unless she married a foreigner) was to be regent in the event of the Princess Victoria succeeding to the crown during her minority. Having adopted the watchword of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform," they gave an earnest of their zeal for retrenchment by instituting a parliamentary inquiry into the possible reduction of official salaries, including their own. The defeat of Stanley by "Orator" Hunt at Preston was a warning against undue reliance on popular confidence, for Preston was already a highly democratic constituency, largely composed of ignorant "potwallopers". A similar but more emphatic warning came from Ireland, where O'Connell did his utmost to insult and defy Anglesey, the new lord-lieutenant, in spite of his sacrifices for catholic emancipation, and his well-known sympathy with the cause of reform. In the southern counties of England, too, violent disturbances had broken out, and were marked by all the ferocity and terrorism characteristic of luddism in the manufacturing districts. They spread from Kent, Sussex, and Surrey into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. In these four counties there was a wanton and wholesale destruction of agricultural machinery, of farm-buildings, and especially of ricks, as if the misery of labourers could possibly be cured by impoverishing their only employers. The rioters moved about in large organised bodies, and their anarchical passions were deliberately inflamed by the writings of unscrupulous men like Cobbett and Carlile.
Happily, the ministers showed no sign of the weakness upon which the ringleaders had probably calculated. They promptly issued a proclamation declaring their resolution to put down lawless outrage, and promised effective support to the lords-lieutenant of the disturbed counties. Acting upon this assurance, Wellington himself went down to Hampshire, and took a leading part in quelling disorder. The government next appointed a special commission, which tried many hundreds of prisoners and sentenced the worst to death, though few were executed. This vigour soon overawed the organised gangs which, in one or two instances, had only been dispersed by military force. Finally, they prosecuted Carlile and Cobbett for instigating the poor labourers to crime. The former was convicted at the Old Bailey, and condemned to a long term of imprisonment, with a heavy fine. The trial of Cobbett was postponed until the following July, when the frenzy of reform was at its height. He defended himself with great audacity in a speech of six hours, calling the lord chancellor with other leading reformers as witnesses, and succeeded in escaping conviction by the disagreement and discharge of the jury.
ALTHORP'S FIRST BUDGET.
Two other questions engaged the attention of parliament on the eve of the great struggle over the reform bill. One of these was the settlement of the civil list, which the Duke of Wellington's ministry had failed to effect. William IV. was not an avaricious sovereign, nor did he share the spendthrift inclination of his brother. But he was disposed to stickle for the hereditary rights of the crown, both public and private, and he greatly disliked the details of his expenditure being scrutinised by a parliamentary committee. Now, Grey and his colleagues stood pledged to such a committee, and could not avoid promoting its appointment. They propitiated the king, however, by excluding the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster from the inquiry, and ultimately succeeded in persuading the house of commons to grant a civil list of £510,000 a year. But the publication of a return containing a complete list of sinecure offices and pensions was turned to good account by the economists, and produced an outburst of public indignation, which was by no means unreasonable. Great results were expected from the report of the select committee on the civil list, which revised the salaries of officials in the royal household, as well as the emoluments of pensioners. It was even demanded that no regard should be paid to vested interests, but Grey firmly supported the private remonstrances of the king against such an act of confiscation. In fact, the savings recommended by the committee were so trifling that it was thought better to waive the question for the time, and the first economical essay of the new régime ended in failure.