Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/63

 xvii. 1230), proposing a limited period of apprenticeship for the slave and compensation for the owners, and afterwards by bill, which reduced the apprenticeship and increased the compensation. His introductory speech of 14 May was published. In the conduct of this bill he showed himself less the orator of the Irish debates than a hardheaded man of business. The bill became law in August 1833, but before it came into force in 1834 Stanley had resigned. On 6 May 1834 Russell, speaking on Littleton's Tithe Bill, declared in favour of the alienation to secular purposes of a portion of the Irish church revenues. The question was one on which two parties existed in the cabinet, and no collective declaration had been hitherto made by the ministry. Stanley has been accused of having actually introduced an appropriation clause into the Church Temporalities Bill in 1833; but his speeches during its progress show that he was opposed to any secularisation of church property, and did not think or desire, that by Clause 147 any such object would be effected. At any rate he saw that Russell's declaration meant the break up of the ministry. ‘Johnny has upset the coach,’ he whispered to his neighbour Graham. [q. v.], member for St. Albans, followed up Russell's announcement with his ‘Appropriation Resolution’ for the redistribution of the Irish church revenues; it was to come on on 27 May, and the ministry, hesitating between their radical and whig followers, resolved to meet it with a proposal for a commission of inquiry. Stanley instantly tendered his resignation, and had ceased to be a minister before Ward had finished introducing his motion. He never afterwards rejoined the whigs; for a time he spoke and voted as an independent member, but he inevitably drifted towards the conservative party. In him the whigs lost one of their ablest men of business, and incomparably their best debater. Earl Russell (Recollections, p. 114) speaks of 1833 as the most distinguished and memorable of Derby's whole career, and says that, had Althorp then resigned, Stanley's ‘infinite skill, readiness, and ability’ would have qualified him for the succession to the leadership of the House of Commons.

During the rest of the session of 1834 Stanley spoke sometimes for and sometimes against the government: for them on the bill to admit dissenters to the universities and on Althorp's plan for the abolition of church rates; against them in the speech on 2 July, in which he compared their conduct on the Tithe Bill to the sleight of hand of thimbleriggers at a fair. In general his speeches at this time were too full of bitterness and invective against his former colleagues. When Melbourne was dismissed, and Peel's return from Rome was anxiously awaited, his position was commanding. United with Stanley, Peel might well form and maintain an administration. Opposed by him, his premiership must be short-lived. Stanley, while willing to serve under Peel as far as personal feeling was concerned, thought it best to decline to take office. He had too frequently been Peel's antagonist while in office himself to become so soon afterwards his colleague. He promised, however, an independent support, and no doubt his decision was wise. Between Peel's conservatism and the opinions of Stanley and his friends, nominally some fifty strong, there was perhaps no great discrepancy; but until Peel had asserted himself over the older section of the tory party, Stanley could not tell, if he joined such a ministry, how soon he might not be compelled to leave it. Whether he hoped to form and keep alive a party of his own cannot now be determined. He certainly spoke in a very whiggish tone at Glasgow in December. He assembled his followers when parliament met, and O'Connell, quoting from Canning's ‘Loves of the Triangles,’ nicknamed them the ‘Derby Dilly, carrying six insides.’ The idea of an independent party was soon abandoned, for Peel's administration, short-lived as it was, soon proved that he might well now unite himself with so progressive a party. On 1 July 1835 he, Graham, and others formally took their seats with the followers of Peel, and in 1838, at the banquet to Peel in the Merchant Taylors' Hall, he figured as one of Peel's chief lieutenants.

Stanley was now, by his grandfather's death on 21 Oct. 1834, Lord Stanley. Till 1841 he remained in vigorous opposition, criticising especially the government's Irish and ecclesiastical proposals, its Jamaica Bill, and its policy with regard to Canada; and his continual attacks on the whig tithe settlement at length compelled the government seriously to modify the disendowment portion of their proposals. He joined Peel's administration in 1841 as colonial secretary, and in 1843 supported the Canadian Corn Bill. His language with regard to it showed that he was for free trade, or practically for free trade with the colonies generally, but did not propose to apply the same rule to foreign powers. He demonstrated his great value to the government in the House of Commons by the part which he took in defending its Irish policy; but it was in urgent need of debating assistance in the