This was a bad beginning, and his speech in defence of the army estimates proved equally unfortunate. The pledge of non-intervention had been thrown over by the Government in the case of Belgium, and an increase to the army was asked for. In advocating this increase, Sir James allowed himself considerable latitude of speech in regard to the condition of Ireland, and O’Gorman Mahon, conceiving that he, among others, had been attacked, called upon the First Lord to retract, or else to give him personal satisfaction. Sir James requested Lord Althorpe to act for him on that occasion, and the quarrel was amicably settled. The improvements introduced into the constitution of the Admiralty were chiefly these: Sir James abolished the Victualling and Navy Boards as separate establishments; he required the accounts of the office to be kept by double entry; he proposed to throw open the great national asylum at Greenwich to seamen of the mercantile marine; and, failing to accomplish that, he relieved the mercantile marine from the special tax which it had heretofore borne. Nor was he all the while exempt from a full share of the burden of administration in other respects. Earl Grey never lost sight of the pledge which he had given to reform the representative system throughout the United Kingdom, and a committee of four was appointed to investigate the whole subject, and to report upon it to the Cabinet. Lord Durham, Lord John Russell, Lord Duncannon, and Sir James Graham composed that committee, of which no member worked more steadily and with greater zeal than Sir James.