There is one man who has acted so conspicuous a
part in the business of the week, that its history would be incomplete did we not particularly advert to him. We mean the Duke of WEL- LINGTON. There can no longer be a doubt of the total unfitness of that nobleman to govern a great state. The first requisite of a, statesman is foresight. It matters little how successfully be can extricate himself from difficulties when they occur : the policy of a Primo Minister of England ought to be essentially preventive. We cannot afford to have the machine of society ever and anon brought to a stand-still, to give to such a man as the Duke of WELLINGTON an opportunity of showing how well he can employ his whip and his shoulder to set it in mo- tion again. We must have a driver who can see the slough and avoid it. Apply this test to the Duke. What was his conduct in 'Aspect to the Catholic question ? Does any one forget his famous letter to Dr. Cum.'s? or does any one forget what followed ? In one little month, the man who could discover no means of settling the Catholic claims but by burying them in order to a deliberate examination, forced them—roaring, squalling, and kicking as they had been for years before—through both Houses of Parliament, without one word of deliberation or examination about the matter. We will not say that the Duke's letter to Dr. CURTIS was a mere trick to lull asleep the suspicions of the Anti-Catholic Lords, at a moment when he had actually determined to carry Emancipation by a coup de main; for if we could for a moment adopt this theory, we should put down the Duke, not, as we believe him to be, a short- sighted, ignorant man, but a mere political trickster, unfit to be trusted with any office. Again, take his famous declaration against Reform. We allude to his first declaration, that the Constitu- tion of England, rotten boroughs and all, was so express and admirable, that he could not even image any thing more perfect. Alt the very moment that this great statesman was declaring that the Constitution was the beau ideal of all that was good and ex- cellent, nine-tenths of the People of England had resolved that its defects and corruptions were no longer tolerable. We do not insinuate, that having alienated the Whigs by his ingratitude and illiberality, and lost the Tories by his Emancipation Bill, and Fading himself, between the desertion of Lord WINCHILSEA and the opposition of Lord GREY, in imminent danger of coming to the ground, he thought, by declaring himself all of a sudden a furious Conservative, to whistle back the former. We merely im- pute to the Duke very great and marvellous ignorance of the feel- ings and condition of the people over whom it was his ambition to rule. Again, when in October last, on the faith of his being connected with five counties, he denied to Mr. POTTER of Manchester that the people cared any thing about Reform ; and when he told the same gentleman, that " if they would not be quiet, there was a way to make them," we charge him with no tyrannous intention,—we merely say, that his acquaintance with -five counties, minute and extensive as it might be, had yet left him in utter ignorance of the present wishes and general cha- racter of Englishmen. But the utter and hopeless ignorance of the Duke has never been so apparent as during the past week. We have shown how completely he has in every case mistaken the character of the people ; but it appears, from the history of the last week, that he knows as little of his ci-devant col- leagues as he does of everybody else. We must not suppose, that by dealing with the Sovereign through his friends in the Palace, or with the Peers by his friends in. the House—by cir- culating rumours of the King's disinclination to Reform—and ex- citing hopes of the Ministry being deserted by him—that by these and other stratagems, which an old soldier for the most part deems all fair when practised against an enemy, the Duke created the difficulty which he so magnanimously stepped forth to unravel. We take the whole of his account ad pedem Were& And what does he tell us? Why, so little did he know, even on Monday sennight, what the country demanded, that even then he was as ready as ever to battle against all Reffirm,—and yet, on Wednes- day, having then found out that the King and the country did de- mand. Reform, he was equally ready to battle for it; and having, with a readiness of zeal above all praise, determined, upon this new light, to abjure all his former sentiments, he was so completely ignorant of even his friend Sir ROBERT PEEL, as to conclude that as a matter of course Sir ROBERT must follow his lead. Nor is this the least curious of the Duke's conclusions. He is willing to pass a large measure of Reform, after declaring, only a week before, that no measure of Reform, however small, was required, and that a large measure must be pernicious,—and this without the slightest apparent consciousness of inconsistency,—but, finding no one willing to turn as he turned, he backs out of his loyal position, decries the measure which the previous day he was ready to advo- cate, and proclaims the men who are about to follow the course he had so abruptly entered upon, and so abruptly abandoned, as the enemies of the King and the destroyers of the Constitution ! Now we do not say that in all this cutting and shuffling, and giving up honesty. to duty, and duty to honesty,—in this readiness to do any thing in office, and determination to do nothing out of it,—this zeal for• the King's cause when in place, and utter disregard of it when out,---the Duke was actuated by low, mean, interested motives— by a rabid desire of power at any purchase ; far from it. We only
mean to show, that the Duke is, from extreme ignorance and lack of foresight, wholly incapable of filling the office of Prime Mi- nister of England. The Duke is a great general, and nothing but a great general. If at any future period we should desire to reinstate CHARLES Dix, or to confirm FERDINAND, or give back to. WILLIAM of Nassau the fair fields of Belgium, then the Duke will be our man. Till then, let him rest on his laurels.
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