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308 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAP, under Lord Palmerston during a period of about ' fourteen days ; but resigning at the end of that time (because they could not join with their colleagues in abandoning further resistance to the nomination of Mr Eoebuck's Committee),(^'^) Their sue- they wcre succeeded by Whigs, of whom Lord John Kussell was one. Whilst suffering under Eirectofthe this changc a huge loss of both administrative and oratorical power, the Government of Lord Palmerston became more homogeneous than at first, and apparently more free from the danger of being disturbed in its task by dissension springing up in the Cabinet. VIIL The late The Order for appointing a Committee to en- vote of the . . /^ ° Commons. quiTC luto the couduct of the war was a measure adopted in anger by the House of Commons ; and amongst the supporters of the motion, there were many who had rather intended to censure Lord Aberdeen's Government than to have their vote strictly obeyed according to its literal im- Theappre- port. Somc thought that a Committee sitting gersofa chargcd with the task proposed would be 'un- ' constitutional,' and that such a trilninal, erected in the midst of a war, and at a time of great public anger, would be likely to usurp no small share of the executive power ; others dreaded the too obvious perils resulting from wholesale disclosures, and were not to be tranquillised by a hopeless suggestion for investing the chosen enquirers with the attributes of a ' Secret ' Com-