execution of them would not meet with adequate
support from the House of Commons. Still I shall
not abandon them. I shall not seek to compensate
the threatened loss of confidence on this side of the
House by the faintest effort to conciliate the support
of the other. I shall steadily persevere in the course
which I have uniformly pursued since the passing of
the Reform Bill, content with the substantial power
which I shall yet exercise -- indifferent as to office, so
far as personal feelings or personal objects are con-
cerned -- ready, if required, to undertake it, whatever
be its difficulties -- refusing to accept it on conditions
inconsistent with personal honour -- disdaining to hold
it by the tenure by which it is at present held.'

The vote of want of confidence in the Whig Cabinet
was negatived on that day by a majority of twenty-
one: but the blow had been struck. During the
following session, on the 27th of May, 1841, a similar
vote, proposed by Sir R. Peel himself, was carried by
312 votes against 311. The Cabinet, determined to
leave no chance untried, persuaded the Queen to dis-
solve Parliament, The elections sealed their fate.
The new House of Commons, which met on the 19th
of August, 1841, in the debate on the Address, gave
the Conservatives a majority of ninety-one votes over
the Whigs. On the 30th of August, the Whig Ministers
resigned their offices into the hands of the Queen; and
thirty-two years after his first entrance into the House
of Commons, Sir Robert Peel, fulfilling the expectations
of his father and of the companions of his youth, stood
at the head of the Government of his country.

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