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 this session Macaulay, an old enemy of his, wrote: 'A mere tongue, without a party and without a character, in an unfriendly audience and with an unfriendly press, never did half as much before' (, 270). In the debate of 21 May 1839 on the bedchamber question he made a violent attack on the whigs and spoke somewhat disrespectfully of the queen as 'an inexperienced person.' After the re-establishment of the Melbourne ministry he virtually led the opposition in the lords, and on 6 Aug. succeeded in carrying five resolutions censuring the government policy in Ireland. On 21 Oct., while he was at Brougham Hall, it was reported and generally believed in London that he had met his death by a carriage accident. All the newspapers of the 22nd except the 'Times' contained obituary notices of his career, one or two of them of an uncomplimentary character. It soon became known that the report was false, and Brougham was accused, not without reason, of having set it abroad himself. It was true that he and two friends were thrown from a carriage on the 19th, but none of the three was injured (, 505-11;, 312, 313). The loss of his only surviving daughter on 30 Nov. of this year caused him deep grief. He named the house he built for himself at Cannes the Château Eleanor Louise, in memory of her. From 1840 onwards he spent some months in each year at Cannes. His habit was to go to Brougham Hall as soon as parliament was prorogued, and at the approach of winter to visit Paris, where he took the opportunity of attending the meetings of the Institute—he had been elected an associate by the Academy of Moral and Political Science in 1833—and thence to proceed to Cannes, where he stayed until the next session recalled him to London.

Although on the defeat of Melbourne's ministry Brougham changed his seat to the opposition side of the house, he nevertheless gave Peel's government considerable support, and when the Ashburton treaty, concerning the Maine boundary, was attacked by his former colleagues, he brought forward a motion on 7 April 1843 expressing approval of it and thanking Lord Ashburton for his services. He was in favour of free trade, though at the same time he disliked the Anti-Corn-law League, for he looked with suspicion on all movements outside parliament. Although he tried to avert the disruption of the Scotch kirk, he has been accused of, in the end, sacrificing the cause to the interests of the tory government by yielding to Lord Aberdeen (, Journal, ii. 44). In this year a member of the family of Bird, the former owners of Brougham Hall, set up a claim to the estate. The case, which was one of trespass, was heard at Appleby assizes on 11 Sept., and the verdict ousted Bird's claim. Brougham was never happier than when acting as judge; he sat constantly in the supreme court of appeal, and in the judicial committee of the privy council, the court he had himself founded, and over which he desired to hold permanent sway. In the hope of acquiring the judicial headship of this court he constantly, and especially in the spring of 1844, endeavoured to obtain the appointment of a vice-president, who should be a judge (Greville Memoirs, 2nd ser. ii. 225). He continued to press the subject of law reform as president of the Law Amendment Association and director of its organ, the 'Law Review,' as well as in parliament. On 19 May 1845 he made a long speech on this subject, rehearsing, as his custom was, all he had effected during the seventeen years that had passed since his motion of 1828, urging the establishment of 'courts of conciliation,' a scheme he had propounded in his bill of 1830, and of other local courts, and recommending that additional facilities should be provided for the sale and transfer of land by the use of a formula of conveyance and by a system of registration; and as regards criminal law, that more frequent commissions of oyer and terminer should be held. He ended by laying nine bills on the table (Parl. Deb. 3rd ser. lxxx. 493-516). Old as he now was, and notwithstanding the position he had achieved and the good work he had done, his constant thirst for admiration led him 'to desire to flourish away among silly and dissolute people of fashion.' Ever anxious to impress others with a sense of his superior ability, 'he had no idea how to converse or live at ease' (Greville Memoirs, 2nd ser. ii. 235). When the French provisional government of 1848 summoned the National Assembly, Brougham was seized with a desire to be returned as a deputy, and applied to the minister of justice for a certificate of naturalisation. After some difficulty he was made to understand that if he became a French citizen he would lose his English citizenship, and with it his rank, offices, and emoluments, and he accordingly withdrew his request. On 11 April, while this matter was still pending, he made a long speech in the house on foreign affairs, attacking Charles Albert, the king of Sardinia, for having promised to help the Milanese, and the pope for his concessions to the liberals, and severely blaming the conduct of the French provisional government. He found, however, that his extraordinary proposal had not escaped notice, and Lord Lansdowne