Page:The Annals of Our Time - Volume 1.djvu/25

JULY place of the old name :—“If they are really and truly Conservatives as regards the general institutions of the country, no name is deserving of more adherents, or would meet with more general approval ; but with them it is a more change of name, a mere alias to persons who do not like to be known under their former designation, and who under the name of Conservatives mean to be conservative only of every abuse—of everything that is rotten—of everything that is corrupt. If that, then, is the name that pleases them,—if they say that the distinction of Whig and Tory should no longer be kept up—I am ready, in opposition to their name of Conservative, to take the name of Reformer, and to stand by that opposition. (Cheers.) And in looking back to history, taking their sense of the denomination of Conservative, I think one may be as proud of the name of Reformer as they can be of the name of Conservative. What was Luther? Luther was a Reformer. Leo the Tenth, who opposed the Reformation, was a Conservative. What was Galileo? Galileo, who made great discoveries in science, was a Reformer. The Inquisition, who put him into prison, was Conservative. So, in the same way, with respect to every part of history, we find that in all times and in all countries there have been Reformers and Conservatives. The Christians who suffered martyrdom in Rome were Reformers. The Emperor who put these Christians to death, Nero, was a Conservative,” The term here commented on was thought to have been first applied to a political party by Mr. Croker in an article in the Quarterly Review for Jan. 1830. “ We despise,” he wrote, “and abominate the details of partisan warfare, but we are now, as we always have been, decidedly and conscientiously attached to what is called the Tory, and which might with more propriety be called the Conservative, party.”

29.—In the elections up to this date, the Whig and Tory gains and losses were nearly balanced. In the City of London Mr. Grote was elected (by a majority of 6 over Mr. Palmer) along with Wood, Crawford, and Pattison. Mr. Disraeli was successful at Maidstone (along with Mr. Wyndham Lewis) by 688 votes against Colonel Thompson's 529. Mr. Lewis was unseated on petition, and Mr. Fector, Tory, elected after a contest. Roebuck and his colleague Palmer were defeated by two Tories at Bath, Sir James Graham at Cumberland, and Hume in Middlesex. The latter afterwards found a seat at Kilkenny, rendered vacant by the election of O'Connell for Dublin. The West Riding of Yorkshire was carried after a keen contest by two Whig candidates, Lord Morpeth and Sir George Strickland.

August 5.—Died at her residence in Pic cadilly, Harriet, Duchess of St. Albans, aged sixty-six. Her father, Matthew Mellon, held a commission in the Fast India Company's service, but died shortly before she was born.

Her mother married a second time, an after wards went on the stage, taking young Harriet with her for juvenile characters. She continued on the stage, meeting with great favour, till her marriage with Mr. Coutts, the banker, in 1815. He died in 1822, at the advanced age of eighty-seven, leaving her universal legatee, with a share in the business of the banking-house. The personalty was sworn under 600.000l. In 1827 she married William, Duke of St. Albans, then in the twenty-seventh year of his age, and on her death bequeathed to his Grace 10,000l, per annum, Sir Francis Burlett's house in Piccadilly, and an estate at Highgate.

7.—A meeting held at the “ King’s Head.” Poultry, in aid of the Paisley weavers, 14,000 of whom had been out of employ for four months.

— At a dinner in the Town Hall, Tam worth, held to celebrate the return of Tory candidates, Sir Robert Peel warned his hearers that they had now a duty to perform to the Constitution. “ It might he disagreeable, and indeed inconvenient, to them to attend to the registration of voters which annually took piace throughout the country. All this might be revolting to them ; but they might depend upon it that 1t was better they should take that trouble than that they should allow the Constitution to become the victim of false friends, or that they should be trampled under the hoof of a ruthless Democracy. The advice which had been given to some persons was, ‘Agitate, agitate, agitate!” The advice which he would give to them would be this: Register, register, register!’”

12.—General Espartero enters Madrid at the head of the Royal troops, but is coldly received.

14.—Lord Durham writes to the Sunderland electors :— “Be assured of this, that in all circumstances—at ail hazards—be the personal consequences what they may—I will ever respond to vour call. Whenever my aid to the cause of Reform and liberal principles is required, it shall be freely and cordially given.”

— A boy three years and a half old murdered in the playground at Leeds by an idiot youth named Jeffgate.

16.—The Gravesend steamboat Medway, with about 150 passengers on board, takes fire in the Thames off Northfleet. One person was drowned and another burnt.

— Died, aged 68, William Daniell, R. A.

18.—An extraordinary session of the Parliament of Lower Canada opened by the Earl of Gosford, Governor-in-chief. M. Parineau, Speaker of the Lower House, led the opposition to the Government proposals regarding the application of the revenues of the province.

19.—The elections being now over, it is found that the Liberals replaced by Tories amounted to 66, and the Tories replaced by Rh