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A RETROSPECTIVE ENQUIRY. 81 peace-time must needs be without one when chap. war breaks out, and even, indeed, till long after- ' wards, since, far from being an engine that can be wrought into a sudden efficiency upon the spur of the moment, this is one, on the contrary, that can only be constructed and made to work with full power by the labour of years upon years. They had, therefore, before them full proof that a Department admitted by all to be essential for the conduct of war is also essential in peace-time, and can hardly have been able to fend off the truth from their minds by maintain- ing a sheer unbelief; but between unbelief and belief so consciously felt that it needs must burst into action, man often enough finds a ledge on which he can keep his footing — and it is there that a defender of the Regent and his Ministers may show them, perhaps, to have stood ; for, when executing the work of destruc- tion, they seem to have acted like functionaries transacting some business, of course, and were not apparently stayed for even a moment's reflection by any warning voice. Far from say- ing ' Beware ! ' to the Government, its parlia- mentary opponents were approvers of the havoc they witnessed, and even indeed strove their best to give it a yet wider range. (^) The expedient of dividing the control of our Long-pro- . ^ ^ , . 1,1 • > traded fdi) army between the sovereign and the sovereign s tiimance of Government continued to work its effects upon pifng|foiity VOL. VII. F