1825--in the same way in which he met the proposal to allow Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham to send members to Parliament in 1830.' Finally, Lord John announced his conviction that it was no longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty, and his vigorous attack on the Ministry ended with a call to arms. 'Let us unite to put an end to a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people. The Government appear to be waiting for some excuse to give up the present Corn Law. Let the people, by petition, by address, by remonstrance, afford them the excuse they seek.' [Sidenote: THE 'POISONED CHALICE'] Sir Robert, when this manifesto appeared, had almost conquered the reluctance of his own Cabinet to definite action; but his position grew now untenable in consequence of the panic of Stanley and the Duke of Buccleuch. Lord John's speech was quickly followed by a Ministerial crisis, and Peel, beset by fightings without and fears within his Cabinet, had no alternative but resignation. He accordingly relinquished office on December 5, and three days later Lord John, much to his own surprise, was summoned to Windsor and entrusted with the task of forming a new Ministry. He was met by difficulties which, in spite of negotiations, proved insurmountable, for Howick, who had succeeded in the previous summer to his distinguished father's earldom, refused to serve with Palmerston. Lord Grey raised another point which might reasonably have been conceded, for he urged that Cobden, as the leader of the Anti-Corn-Law League, ought to have the offer of a seat in the Cabinet. Lord John was unable to bring about an amicable understanding, and therefore, as the year was closing, he was compelled to inform her Majesty of the fact, and to hand back what Disraeli theatrically described as the 'poisoned chalice' to Sir Robert. 'It is all at an end,' wrote Lord John to his wife. 'Power may come, some day or other, in a less odious shape.' FOOTNOTES: [10] Justice has never yet been done to the founder of the Lancasterian system of education. Joseph Lancaster was a remarkable man who aroused the conscience of the nation, and even the dull intelligence of George III., to the imperative need of popular education. [11] 'The Melbourne Government: its Acts and Persons,' by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. _The Nineteenth Century_, January 1890, p. 50. [12] 'The Corn Law of 1815 was a copy of the Corn Law of 1670--so little had economic science grown in England during all those years. The Corn Law of 1670 imposed a duty on the importation of foreign grain which amounted almost literally to a prohibition.'--_Sir Robert Peel_, by Justin McCarthy, M.P., chapter xii. p. 136. [13] _The Croker Papers_, edited by Louis Jennings, vol. iii. p. 35. [14] _Life of the Prince Consort_, by Sir Theodore Martin, vol. i. p. 317.