this year put a stop to the accumulation of debt. The depression which visited some of the great inte- rests of this country, and which caused such depriva- tion and suffering among the working classes, is at least, in a considerable degree, converted into grow- ing prosperity -- a prosperity which, I trust, will become still greater. I know perfectly well that, although suffering and privation are relieved, there still exists, in many parts of the country, distress which we cannot view without sympathy; but this I trust also is in the course of being lessened, if not removed. And, on the whole, I do trust, that I am justified in stating, that in the performance of our duties towards the Crown and the country, with re- spect both to foreign relations, the condition of trade, and the state of the revenue, we are enabled to pre- sent ourselves before the assembled Parliament as having fulfilled the expectations which we held out as to the prospects of the empire, and the effects of the measures we proposed; and that you will deem we have not been wanting in the duties which we owe to our sovereign and the country.' But in free Governments success is not a title to repose; and hopes when realized, far from appeasing, increase the desires of nations. This is the condition imposed by the selfish impatience of peoples upon their worthiest servants. Sir Robert Peel knew this, and was neither surprised nor discouraged by it; de- voted from his very birth by paternal ambition to a political life, he had early contracted its laborious and vigorous habits, not without some suffering to his susu+ooad -186- |