The new ministry which entered on office in June, 1812, differed largely in composition from that which had preceded it. Ryder and Yorke retired at the death of Perceval, Harrowby returned to office, and places in the cabinet were found for Sidmouth's adherents, Buckinghamshire, Vansittart, and Bragge-Bathurst. Sidmouth himself succeeded Ryder as home secretary, while Harrowby succeeded Sidmouth as president of the council. Earl Bathurst took Liverpool's place as secretary for war and the colonies. Vansittart succeeded Perceval at the exchequer and Bragge-Bathurst in the duchy of Lancaster. Robert Dundas, now Viscount Melville, followed Yorke at the admiralty, and Buckinghamshire took Melville's place at the board of control, which became once more a cabinet office. Eldon, Castlereagh, Westmorland, and Mulgrave retained their former offices, while Camden remained in the cabinet without office. In September Mulgrave was created an earl, and Camden a marquis. The internal history of England during the first two years of Liverpool's premiership has been entirely dwarfed by the interest of external events. For this period comprised not only the Russian expedition--the greatest military tragedy in modern history--the marvellous resurrection of Germany, with the campaigns which culminated in the stupendous battle of Leipzig, and the invasion of France which ended in the abdication of Napoleon at Fontainebleau, but also the brilliant conclusion of the Peninsular war, and the earlier stages of the war between Great Britain and the United States. The nation was contented to leave the guidance of home and foreign policy at that critical time to the existing ministers, all honest, experienced, and high-minded statesmen, but none gifted with any signal ability, and inferior both in cleverness and in eloquence to the leaders of the opposition. Napoleon was not far wrong in regarding the British aristocracy, which they represented, as his most inveterate and powerful enemy; but he was grievously deceived in imagining that this aristocracy, in withstanding his colossal ambition, had not the British nation at its back. The electoral body, indeed, to which they owed their parliamentary majority, was but a fraction of the population, and the public opinion which supported them may seem but the voice of a privileged class in these days of household suffrage. But there is little reason to doubt that, if household suffrage had then prevailed, their foreign policy would have received a democratic sanction; nor is it at all certain that some features of their home policy, now generally condemned, were not justified, in the main, by the exigencies of their time. [Pageheading: _INDUSTRIAL DISTRESS._]