Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/123

 1815.] Dismissal of Grenville to the End of the War. 109 easy matter to reconstruct the Ministry. There were con- flicting elements in the Tory party which limited the area of selection. After the quarrel between Canning and Castlereagh they could not both sit in the same Cabinet. The ability of the one or the Parliamentary influence of the other must be given up. Then Sidmouth had to be counted with, and he and his friends also had a considerable number of nominees and dependents in the Commons. The sympathies of Eldon and Sidmouth were with Castlereagh, but the Marquis of Wellesley was an important man, and he would go with Canning. The Prince of Wales, too, was anxious to have his own part in the construction of the Ministry, and he was anxious to nominate Wellesley and Canning, and willing to consent to a coalition which should also include Grey and Grenville. So negotiations, conferences, and intrigues went on, the front stairs and the back stairs of the court being both in constant use. The end of it all was the construction of a Ministry of the highest Tory pattern. Lord Liverpool was Premier, and Eldon, Sidmouth, and Castlereagh members. In this Ministry Robert Peel took office for the first time. Can- ning and Wellesley were left outside left, fortunately, to develop those liberal tendencies which must have been sup- pressed if they had been in such a Cabinet. The result was soon manifested. On the 8th of June Liverpool announced that he had been appointed First Lord of the Treasury, and had undertaken to form a Ministry. On the 22nd of the same month Canning brought forward a resolution declaring that the House would, in the next session, take the Catholic ques- tion into consideration. This was carried by 235 votes to 106, a wonderful change in the opinion of the House since Grattan's defeat in the previous year. On the 1st of July a similar motion was only lost by a single vote. This was a contest in which Canning the Tory, Grenville the Whig, and Burdett the Radical, could work and vote together ; but there were questions on which the Whigs had opportunities of showing the depth of their own Liberalism