degrading. He rose to command where he had been accustomed to obey. He made such compensation for a long support of oppression as his conscience dictated and his judgment approved. The historian has to do with both phases of his political life, and is not, because he afterwards rose to the highest position both as a man and as a legislator, to pass without strong condemnation the error which inflicted so many sufferings on the people. Perhaps the yelling and the howling of his faction, when they thought that an enemy had been put under their feet, may have contributed to rouse the nobler attributes of his character, He must have been deeply ashamed of such support, and ashamed that to ensure it he must avail himself of the tricks of the party politician, rather than aspire to the statesman-like dignity which subsequently placed him high amongst the highest men who had graced the annals of English history. Soon after this lamentable scene in the House of Commons observant men thought they could discover symptoms of change in the premier, leading them to conclude that he was impatient of his slavery to a faction, and others began to think of the possibility of his becoming a corn-law repealer, if he could but see his way of commanding a majority. There were many saying, as Poulett Thomson said on his way to the government of Canada, "Peel could do it if he had the courage." On the division the numbers were, for the motion, 191; against it, 306.
There were those also who thought that it would be true conservatism to destroy the source of great mischiefs. Amongst then was 'Thomas Carlyle, who, in his "Past and Present" said: "O, my Conservative friends, who still specially name, and struggle to approve yourselves Conservative,' would to heaven I could persuade you of this world-old fact, than which Fate is not surer; That Truth and Justice alone are capable of being conserved' and preserved! The thing which is unjust, which is not according to God's Law, will you, on a God's Universe, try to conserve
