78 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP. IV. The petti- ness of the advantage secured by the Crown at the oost of grievous harm to the country. macliinery of the ' Wellington reign ' which, although far enough, it is true, from even ap- proaching perfection, had still been made to work serviceably during several victorious years, and (by being made to receive unceasing yet judicious improvements) might well have become in time a magnificent engine of State. From this cause it was that the ' Department of War
- and Colonies ' became stripped of its power over
the military transactions of the country, and that England — speaking administratively — fell back at once into a plight such as that in which she had found herself some twenty-three years before, when despatching all the troops she could muster on board the Newcastle colliers. And, although the Eoyal demands caused this lasting injury to the State, all the good they secured to the Crown was so small, so poor in comparison to the public mischief they wrought, that — if he knew what he was doing — the moral plight of the Regent when thus harming Eng- land was like that of the man without malice, who only set fire to a homestead because, for some small cooking purpose, he chanced to want some hot ashes. The courtiers surrounding their prince might eagerly wish him joy, saying that at last, upon the expiration of Wellington's Letters of Service, their Royal master's land forces were once more under his personal gover- nance ; but, since all men were then well agreed that the mighty business of war was one that must be always committed to ' his Majesty's ' Ministers,' and not to the * personal ' king, there
