obstructed the business of the committee. Almost every thing which came before them was more or less involved in it. The two parties were so equally balanced as to be unable to make a forward movement in any direction. A particular point might occasionally be decided by an accidental majority of one or two, but as the decision was likely to be reversed the next time the subject came under consideration, this only added inconsistency to inefficiency. This state of things lasted for about three years, until both parties became convinced that the usefulness and respectability of their body would be utterly compromised by its longer continuance. The committee had come to a dead stop, and the government alone could set it in motion again, by giving a preponderance to one or the other of the two opposite sections. The members, therefore, took the only course which remained open to them, and laid before the government a statement of their existing position, and of the grounds of the conflicting opinions held by them.
The question was now fairly brought to issue, and the government was forced to make its election between two opposite principles. So much, perhaps, never depended upon the determination of any government. Happily there was then at
