‘It is my determination by the assistance of divine providence to uphold and protect the Protestant Church of the British Empire, which has been enjoyed three hundred years without interuption, the Religion which our ancestors struggled to obtain. And as long as it shall please God to spare me, I will endeavour to maintain the rights and perogatives of our holy Protestant Church. And now my Lords, I leave you to your duties, to the helm of the state, to the harbour of peace, and happiness.’”
This man showed me the street speech, which was on a broad sheet set off with the royal arms. The topics and arrangement were the same as those in the speech delivered by her Majesty.
On Monday morning last (Feb. 24), I asked the man who told me that prime ministers’ resignations were “pretty good” for the street traffic, if he had been well remunerated by the sale of the evening papers of Saturday, with the account of Lord John Russell’s resignation. “It wern’t tried, sir,” he answered; “there was nothing new in the evenings, and we thought nobody seemed to care about it. The newspaper offices and their boarders (as he called the men going about with announcements on boards) didn’t make very much of it, so we got up a song instead, but it was no good,—not salt to a fresh herring—for there was some fresh herrings in. It was put strong, though. This was the last verse:
‘From the House to the Palace it has caused a bother,
Old women are tumbling one over another,
The Queen says it is with her, one thing or ’tother,
They must not discharge Little John;
Her Majesty vows that she is not contented,
And many ere long will have cause to repent it,
Had she been in the house she would nobly resent it,