[Footnote 73: [Here follow, in Mr. Greville's manuscript, several details of racing transactions in which Lord George Bentinck took a part, which Mr. Greville strongly disapproved; but they have now lost their interest, and are omitted.]] [Sidenote: LORD GEORGE SELLS HIS STUD.] This brings me to his very extraordinary political career. I well remember, in the winter of 1845, when Peel's intentions began to be known or suspected, what indignation he expressed and what violent language he used about him. As soon as Parliament met he began to take an active part amongst the Protectionist malcontents, and he devoted much time to getting up the _pro_ Corn Law case. He had never studied political economy, and knew very little on the subject, but he was imbued with the notions common to his party that the repeal of the Corn Laws would be the ruin of the landed interest; he therefore hated the Anti-Corn Law League, and--considering that the first and most paramount of duties was to keep up the value of the estates of the order to which he belonged, and that Peel had been made Minister and held office mainly for this purpose--he considered Peel's abandonment of Protection, and adoption, or rather extension, of Free Trade, as not only an act of treachery, but of treason to the party which claimed his allegiance, and he accordingly flung himself into opposition to him with all his characteristic vehemence and rancour. Still neither he himself nor any one else anticipated the part he was about to play, and the figure he was destined to make. One of the men whom he was in the habit of talking to, was Martin, Q.C.,[74] and he told him that he had a great mind to speak on the Corn Law debate, but that he did not think he could; he had had no experience and could not trust himself.[75] Martin told me this. I said I thought he could; that I had been much struck with a speech he had made at the Jockey Club, when he had spoken for two hours, and in a way which satisfied me he had _speaking in him_. Martin went and told him this, which struck him very much, and it decided him (so Martin told me) to make the attempt. His _dÈbut_ in the House of Commons was a remarkable exhibition, and made a great impression at the time: not that it was a very good, still less an agreeable speech; quite the reverse. He chose the worst moment he possibly could have done to rise; the House was exhausted by several nights of debate and had no mind to hear more. He rose very late on the last night, and he spoke for above three hours; his speech was ill-delivered, marked with all those peculiar faults which he never got rid of; it was very tiresome; it contained much that was in very bad taste; but in spite of all defects it was listened to, and it was considered a very extraordinary performance, giving indications of great ability and powers which nobody had any idea that he possessed. [Footnote 74: [Afterwards a Baron of the Court of Exchequer.]]