calmness, whether England has not _done_ what he doubted or denied her
ability to do? whether she has not shown the world that she may, indeed,
do what she pleases among the nations, so long as her pleasure is
regulated and supported by her accustomed sagacity and spirit? She has,
however, recently had to pass through an awful ordeal, principally
occasioned by the brief ascendency of incompetent councils; and while
expressing, in terms of transport, our conviction that, "out of this
nettle danger, we have plucked the flower safety"--we cannot repress our
feelings of indignation against those who precipitated us into that
danger, and of gratitude towards those who, under Divine Providence,
have been instrumental in extricating us from it, not only rapidly, but
with credit; not merely with credit, but with glory. To appreciate our
present position, we must refer to that which we occupied some twelve or
eighteen months ago; and that will necessarily involve a brief
examination of the policy and proceedings of the late, and of the
present Government. We shall speak in an unreserved and independent
spirit in giving utterance to the reflections which have occurred to us
during a watchful attention paid to the course of public affairs, both
foreign and domestic, in the interval alluded to; though feeling the
task which we have undertaken both a delicate and a difficult one.

[1] Malte Brun, xi. 179. Alison, x. 256.

After a desperate tenacity in retaining office exhibited by the late
Government, which was utterly unexampled, and most degrading to the
character and position of public men engaged in carrying on the Queen's
Government, Sir Robert Peel was called to the head of affairs by her
Majesty, in accordance with the declared wishes of a triumphant majority
of her subjects--of a perfectly overwhelming majority of the educated,
the thinking, and the monied classes of society. When he first placed