the existence and maintenance of a great party -- con-
stitutes a powerful instrument of government. I shall
surrender power, severely censured also by others
who, from no interested motive, adhere to the principle
of protection, considering the maintenance of it to be
essential to the welfare and interests of the country. I
shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist
who, from less honourable motives, clamours for pro-
tection because it conduces to his own individual
benefit: but it may be that I shall leave a name
sometimes remembered with expressions of good will
in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to
earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow,
when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with
abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is
no longer leavened with a sense of injustice.'

On the conclusion of this speech, cheers burst forth
on all sides. After long and confused emotion on the
part of the House, Lord Palmerston and Mr. Hume,
the one with clever appositeness, the other with sincere
unreserve, addressed to Sir Robert Peel expressions
of an esteem full of admiration. The House adjourned
to the 3rd of July. Sir Robert Peel went out, resting
on the arm of his friend, Sir George Clerk, the
member for Stamford. A great crowd thronged the
approaches; on seeing him, all took off their hats,
opened their ranks to let him pass, and accompanied
him in silence to the door of his house. On the 3rd of
July, 1846, when the House of Commons resumed its
sittings, the Whig Cabinet, under the direction of Lord
John Russell, was in possession of power.

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