last, we recant all the doctrines which we maintained during the
last Session, we sing our palinode; we allow that we have had a
great escape; we allow that our own conduct was deserving of
censure; we allow that the party which was the minority in this
House, and, most unhappily for the country, the majority in the
other House, has saved the country from a great calamity. Sir,
even if this charge were well founded, there are those who should
have been prevented by prudence, if not by magnanimity, from
bringing it forward. I remember an Opposition which took a very
different course. I remember an Opposition which, while excluded
from power, taught all its doctrines to the Government; which,
after labouring long, and sacrificing much, in order to effect
improvements in various parts of our political and commercial
system, saw the honour of those improvements appropriated by
others. But the members of that Opposition had, I believe, a
sincere desire to promote the public good. They, therefore,
raised no shout of triumph over the recantations of their
proselytes. They rejoiced, but with no ungenerous joy, when
their principles of trade, of jurisprudence, of foreign policy,
of religious liberty, became the principles of the
Administration. They were content that he who came into
fellowship with them at the eleventh hour should have a far
larger share of the reward than those who had borne the burthen
and heat of the day. In the year 1828, a single division in this
House changed the whole policy of the Government with respect to
the Test and Corporation Acts. My noble friend, the Paymaster of
the Forces, then sat where the right honourable Baronet, the
member for Tamworth, now sits. I do not remember that, when the
right honourable Baronet announced his change of purpose, my
noble friend sprang up to talk about palinodes, to magnify the