Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/111

1815.] Dismissal of Grenville to the End of the War. 97 there was no doubt that the prejudices and sympathies of Eldon and the high Tory party were set against Canning. He was too clever and too energetic for them, and his well- known views on the Catholic question were enough to make them distrust and dislike him. So that, after the immediate affair had passed over, Castlereagh was restored to the Ministry ; and Canning, the ablest man in the party, was left outside, with the result, no doubt, of directing his thoughts and increasing his attachment to those points on which he was most out of harmony with the people who had injured him. This was the commencement of one of those rifts in the Tory party which broke it up from within when there was no constitutional means of overcoming it from without. The ministerial changes of the year did not end with this. On the 29th of October the Duke of Portland, the nominal prime minister, died. Efforts were now made to extend the basis of the Administration, and negotiations were opened with some of the Whigs. They failed, and the Cabinet was recon- structed on the old lines, Perceval becoming Premier, the Marquis of Wellesley Foreign Secretary, and Lord Liverpool Secretary at War. One appointment to a junior post serves to connect the past generation with our own. Lord Palmer- ston, who had entered Parliament in 1807, was now made Under Secretary at War. From this time, 1809, to 1828 he continued in office under the Tories, and was almost the only man of eminence who, leaving that party, became a thorough- going Whig, with no more popular sympathy or enthusiasm than the driest member of the most select Whig family. In this year, too, Robert Peel first entered Parliament, a man who was destined to carry on the series of revolts and deser- tions which shook the Tory party and facilitated reforms. The session closed on the 2ist of June, and Parliament did not meet again until the 23rd of January, 1810. There was of course no change in the position of parties, ministers carry- ing the address in the Commons by 263 to 167 ; but in the course of the year there were lively and not very creditable scenes in the House. There were to be animated discussions H