nearly three hours. He seemed to feel as one emancipated from a long and hated thraldom, and spoke with great earnestness and power, vindicating his measures with consummate ability; and, confident of the favour of the house, indulging himself in a sarcastic pleasantry, upon some of the absurdities of his opponents, which excited bursts of laughter. He was luxuriating in his newly acquired liberty—a man renovated by the touch of truth-a statesman, not longer & led leader. After exhausting the field of argument and ridicule, be appealed to the justice and the humanity of the house:
"The memory of the winters of 1841 and 1842 never can be effaced from my recollection. Recollect the course we pursued. Then, on every occasion on which the sovereign met her parliament, there was the expression of the deepest sympathy with privation and suffering, bat an expression, also, of the warmest admiration of the patience and fortitude with which they were borne. (Hear.) This time may recur. The years of plenteousness may intermit, and years of dearth may succeed. And if they do come, and if it be our duty again to express sympathy with sufferings, and again to exhort fortitude in their endurance, I do ask every man who hears me, to commune with his own heart, and to ask himself that question—if these calamitous times do come, if we must express sympathy with distress, if we must again proffer exhortations to fortitude, will it not be a consolation to reflect, that we have relieved ourselves from the heavy responsibility of regulating the supply of human food? (Greet cheering.) Will not our expressions of sympathy seem more sincere; will not our exhortations to fortitude be more impressive, if we can, at the same time say, and with pride, that in a time of comparative plenty, urged by no necessity, yielding to no clamour, we anticipated difficulties, and removed every impediment to the free circulation of the beauty of the Creator? (Loud cheers.) Will it not be a long and lasting consolation to us to be enabled to say to a suffering people, these calamities are the chastenings of an all-wise and beneficent Providence, inflicted for some great and humane purpose—perhaps to abate our pride, possibly to convince as of our nothingness, and awaken to a sense of our dependence; they are to be borne without repining at the dipensations of Providence, for they have not bạen aggravated by human institutions restricting the supply of food."
The resumption of the debate on Tuesday night was
