_Bellerophon_. It was thought expedient, however, to pass an act of parliament in the session of 1816 for the purpose of setting at rest any objections which might afterwards be raised. This measure was introduced on March 17 by Lord Castlereagh, who defended it on grounds of national justice and national policy. It met with no opposition in the house of commons, but Lords Holland and Lauderdale criticised it in the house of lords, not as sanctioning a wrong to Napoleon, but as implicitly admitting the right of other powers to join in arrangements for his custody. Little attention was then bestowed by parliament or the public on the moral aspect of his life-long detention at St. Helena, the restrictions to be there imposed upon his liberty, or the provision to be made for his comfort. Yet these subjects have ever since exercised the minds of myriads both in England and France, and have given birth to a copious literature for more than three generations. FOOTNOTES: [61] For the movements of June 15, 16, see Chesney, _Waterloo Lectures_, pp. 70-137; Ropes, _The Campaign of Waterloo_, pp. 44-196. [62] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 494, 495. [63] Oman in _English Historical Review_, xix., 693, and xxi., 132. CHAPTER VIII. THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE. When Parliament met on February 1, 1816, after a recess of unusual length, Castlereagh was received with loud acclamations from all parts of the house as the chief actor in the pacification of Europe. There was, of course, a full debate upon the treaties, but the opposition dwelt less upon the arbitrary partition of Europe than upon their alleged tendency to guarantee sovereigns against the assertion of popular rights and upon the manifest intention of the government to "raise the country into a military power". From this moment dates the whig and radical watchword of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform". The nation was, in fact, entering upon a period of unprecedented depression and discontent, which lasted through the last four years of George III.'s reign. At the close of 1815, however, the whole horizon was apparently bright. Great Britain had saved Europe by her example, and, however small her army in comparison with those of continental states, she stood foremost among the powers which had crushed the rule of Napoleon. Her national debt, it is true, had reached the prodigious total of £861,039,049, and the interest on it amounted £32,645,618, but the expansion of our national resources had kept pace with it. In spite of the continental system, the orders in council, and the American war, the imports and exports had enormously increased, chiefly by means of an organised contraband traffic; the carrying trade of the world had passed into the hands of British shipowners; British manufactures were largely fostered by warlike expenditure at home and the suspension of many