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 310 THE WINTER TROUBLES. CHAi'. which for mortals is a part of true wisdom, they IX. might well enough find themselves lapsing into a despondent mood. For now in a trying cam- paign, and almost indeed one may say, in the midst of a protracted engagement, the Executive hitherto charged with the task of carrying on war seemed almost put under arrest, and com- pelled, as it were, to stand prisoner — its ' sword ' of state ' laid on the table — before a new, strange tribunal scarce qualified by its popular origin to make a resolute stand against the pas- sions that raged out of doors. Many anxious observers imagined that, though nominally con- fined to the past, a fierce and widely-ranging enquiry would carry with it the means of exer- The whole cising present control. The whole structure of our Govern- our Government system, if not indeed visibly tern brought reeling from the force of the shock, lay at all under re-, , , , ^ c proafh. events under reproach ; because numbers or people of all ranks and conditions, from the mere railers up to great statesmen, were believ- ing that our ancient Polity, as modified by time and circumstance, had failed to provide an execu- tive really competent to business of State. This was not the mere disposition to go and cast blame on the * Government ' of the hour in a common political sense, but a lowering distrust of the whole fabric of executive administration, men withdrawing, as it were, their allegiance from an ancient State, which, they said, was no longer in a condition to be able to do its State work. The Prince Consort might not have the instincts of a man born and bred in the maze of