They had, as was natural, not been contented with opposing the Conservative ministry in its general policy, but in both Houses they had attacked it with great energy. They had begun the battle in both Houses in the debate on the address, in which they selected three points in the recent transactions for special condemnation, affirming that in every one of them the royal prerogative had been unconstitutionally exercised-the dismissal of the late ministry, the dissolution of Parliament, and the appointment of the Duke of Wellington to a variety of offices. In the House of Commons the attack was led by Lord Morpeth and Lord John Russell; in the House of Lords by Lord Melbourne himself. It was urged that, though the prerogative of the sovereign to dismiss his ministers was undoubted and inalienable, yet the Houses had a clear right to sit in judgment on any particular exercise of it; and that the circumstances of the late ministry having been but recently formed, of its possessing in a conspicuous degree the confidence of the great majority of the House of Commons, and of its being occupied at the moment of its dismissal with matters of high national concern, justified the House in calling on the new ministers to show valid reasons for its sudden dismissal. As to the dissolution, it was asked what misdemeanor the late House of Commons had committed? No difference had occurred between it and the other House of Parliament. It had passed no hostile vote against any administration. It had been in existence but a very short time. All these circumstances, they affirmed, made it reasonable for the Houses to express to his Majesty their disapprobation of the dissolution. Lord Morpeth argued, moreover, that the right of the House of Commons to inquire into such an exercise of the royal prerogative was proved by the example of Mr. Pitt, who, in 1784, had introduced into the speech from the throne a paragraph inviting Parliament to approve of the recent dissolution; and what Parliament could be asked to approve of, it manifestly had an equal right to censure. But the most vehement of the censures of the Opposition were directed against what Lord Morpeth called "the most unseemly huddling of offices in the single person of the Duke of Wellington; an unconstitutional concentration of responsibility and power, at which there was hardly an old Whig of the Rockingham school whose hair did not stand on end." He admitted that in the present instance the arrangement had only been provisional and temporary, and that "no harm had been done;" but, he asked, "what harm might not have been done? If the country had been suddenly obliged to go to war, who would have been responsible for the Foreign Department? If an insurrection of the negroes had occurred, who was responsible for the Colonial Office? If in Ireland any tithe dispute had arisen, who was responsible as Home-secretary?" And Lord Melbourne, though a speaker generally remarkable for moderation, on this subject went much farther; and, after urging that, "if one person held the situation of First Lord of the Treasury, and also that of Secretary of State for the Home Department, it would not only place in his hands without any control the appointment to every great office in the state, but a person so situated would also have the pecuniary resources of the state at his disposal without check or investigation," he proceeded to assert that "an intention to exercise those offices would amount to a treasonable misdemeanor." He did not, indeed, go so far as his late Attorney-general, Sir J. Campbell, who, in vexation at his loss of office, had even threatened the Duke with impeachment; but, though he admitted that the Duke had been free from the guilty intention of exercising the authority of these offices, he suggested that "the Lords ought to pass some resolution calculated to prevent so great a breach of the constitution from being drawn into a precedent."
On the first point thus raised, for the dismissal of the late ministry without any such cause as is usually furnished by an adverse vote of one of the Houses of Parliament, Peel frankly admitted that his acceptance of office rendered him constitutionally responsible, though, as he also said, it was notorious that in fact he had, and could have had, no previous knowledge of it; but he denied that any constitutional question whatever was involved in it, since the King's right was denied by no one; and he could, therefore, only consent to discuss it as a question of policy and expediency. And, looking at it in this light, he regarded his defence as easy and complete. He contended that the events of the past year, the resignation of several of the subordinate ministers, and finally of Lord Grey himself, and the proposal which had been made to him (Peel) and several of his friends to coalesce with Lord Melbourne, rendered the act by which the late government had been removed perfectly justifiable on the part both of the King and of himself; that the King was justified in thinking a wholly fresh arrangement preferable to a re-arrangement of Lord Melbourne's cabinet; and he himself in obeying his sovereign's commands to form a new administration.
The wisdom and propriety of the dissolution, too, could only be examined as a question of expediency; but in this instance every consideration not only recommended but compelled it. "When he undertook the arduous duties now imposed upon him, he did determine that he would leave no constitutional effort untried to enable him satisfactorily to discharge the trust imposed in him. He did fear that if he had met the late Parliament he should have been obstructed in his course, and obstructed in a manner and at a season which might have precluded an appeal to the people. It was the constant boast of the late government that the late Parliament had unbounded confidence in them. And, if that Parliament was, as had been constantly asserted, relied upon as ready to condemn him without a hearing, could any one be surprised at his appeal to the judgment of another, a higher and a fairer tribunal, the public sense of the people?" Precedent, too, was in his favor on this point, since, "whenever an extensive change of government had occurred, a dissolution of Parliament had followed;" and he referred to the year 1784, and to 1806, when the administration of which Lord Grey was the leading member at once dissolved the existing Parliament on coming into office; though he believed "the present to be the first occasion on which a House of Commons had been invited to express its dissatisfaction at the exercise of the prerogative of dissolution."
To the strictures of Lord Melbourne and Lord Morpeth on the Duke of Wellington's temporary assumption of a combination of offices, it was replied by Sir Robert and the Duke that, though there might be inconvenience from the assumption of all those powers by one individual, it was so far from being unconstitutional, that it was a common practice for the Secretary for one department to act for another during intervals of recreation, or periods of ill-health; that there was ample precedent for such a proceeding. In the last week of the life of Queen Anne, the Duke of Shrewsbury had united three of the greatest posts of the kingdom, those of Lord Treasurer, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, with the sanction of that great constitutional lawyer, Lord Somers. And in 1827 Mr. Canning had retained the seals of the Foreign Office for some weeks after his appointment as First Lord of the Treasury. Moreover, there was actually a law which provided that when the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer is vacant the seals of that office shall be delivered to the Chief-justice; and under this rule, in the latter part of the reign of George II., Chief-justice Lord Mansfield had continued finance-minister for above three months. And, as to the practical result of what had been done in the present instance, the Duke affirmed, what, indeed, was universally admitted, that the arrangement had from the first been understood to be merely temporary; that no inconvenience had resulted from it; indeed, that "not a single act had been done in any one of the offices which had not been essentially necessary for the service of the country."