prosperity stand still, but go back, and so plunge us all into confusion and despair.” “I assure you,” quoth the Earl, “I am not going to attempt _any_ of these things. I love the people as much as yourselves, and, with you, am one of them. My interests, like your own, are identical with theirs: I wish only to secure the safety of our institutions, the common interests of the Queen and the people, against certain perils which I see distinctly, though you may not. And as to the corn question, in which you would tie up, and hide, and crush all others, I will have none of it. I have opinions of my own on the subject of corn laws, thinking it would be infinitely to the benefit of the community if I could at once derive a revenue for it from foreigners, and enable our own corn-growers to supply us with bread at a reasonable price, and foster and stimulate the energies of producers, and provide a safe, quick-paying home-market for them: thus protecting the interests of both the great classes of the community—producers and consumers. If, however, your long-continued and systematic agitation and misrepresentations have succeeded in persuading the masses of society that my own views on that subject are at variance with theirs, and that theirs they are resolved shall prevail, be it so; I will do all I can, less than which I should desert my duty in doing;—I will take care to submit that particular question, in order to dissipate all doubt, to the deliberate decision of the country; and whatever that decision may be, I will cordially carry it out. But do you seriously suppose that this question is the only one by which I must stand or fall?—the only one for which the Queen called me to her counsels? O no, gentlemen. Whichever way the pleasure of the country may lie upon this question, it is but one, and that a subordinate one, of several—nay, of many; it is but one, and a subordinate interest among several intrusted to my consideration and my keeping. Suppose the corn question totally set aside, and at rest, and yourselves called to advise the Sovereign, and carry on the government of the country, _what would you do, then_? You may pause; but I know well what you would do. Judging from your own repeated declarations, you would, under the pretence of liberalising our institutions, intrust power to incompetent hands, to be used only for the furtherance of your own selfish purposes; they would nominally, and you as demagogues practically,[11] be the depositaries of power. Your avowed principles are inconsistent with the maintenance of our national independence; of the connection between Church and State; of the Protestant character of our institutions: the Queen’s throne would be shaken, and her crown quiver upon her sacred brow, if you were intrusted with the power for which you are so anxious. I see distinctly before me the crimsoned darkness of anarchy, and through it the fabric of a republic crumbling under a military despotism.