already been challenged by other speakers, and he
might point out another. Mr. Roebuck said that
ministers were idling in the country while cold, hunger,
and disease were decimating our army. But ministers
were in the country in the early autumn—cold, hunger,
and disease did not fall upon the army till mid-winter.
So much for Mr. Roebuck's love of truth and justice.
He must remind the house of a great defect in the
honourable and learned gentleman's speeches. His
exordiums were strong, and his perorations admirable,
but the middle of his speech, the evidence on which
the charges should rest, were wholly wanting. There
were the beak and the claws of a bird of prey, but the
inside was stuffed with straw. To quote the language
of Curran, Mr. Roebuck perched upon assertions, and
called them conclusions. There were two points before
the house, and Mr. Roebuck cautiously abstained, in
his love of truth and justice, from saying on which
of these two points he relied for condemnation. That the
army had not received proper supplies was one charge;
that the expedition to the Crimea was wholly wrong in
policy was another. On which of these two charges
was he to be condemned? Mr. Roebuck left members
to take their choice, so that those who refused to
condemn on one ground might do it on the other. He
said that on both points the inquiry was partial and
incomplete—it could not be thoroughly gone into without
touching on the delicate ground of the French alliance,
and therefore he thought the only proper vote to which
the house could come would be the previous question.
He defended the expedition to the Crimea, and said
that the object was worth the risk that was run; for, if,
Sebastopol had been taken—and there was reason to
expect it would—peace might have been secured. Was
it therefore desirable that the house should inflict
censure upon those who projected the expedition? If
the house came to such a conclusion, it would, in his
opinion, commit a great injustice. Then on the question
of policy, was it desirable that at this moment the
house should come to a vote that would have the effect
of displacing the present administration? This led
to the further question, whether or not the present
ministers were carrying on the war with sufficient
vigour. If those now in power had shown themselves
utterly incompetent, there would be a case for dismissing
them, and with disgrace; but Mr. Roebuck had made
out no such case. Convinced that the house would
decide fairly, he was willing to accept the "previous
question," and equally ready to abide by its decision
upon the justice and policy of the resolution—a
resolution conceived, he said, in malice, and which could
lead to no object useful to the country.—Mr. BRIGHT
had not voted for the appointment of the committee
because he believed at the time it was directed
against Lord Aberdeen and his immediate friends.
But now it had been appointed, and that every charge
against the government had been proved, he asked
how the house meant to deal with it? Surely it
was not all to end in the mere concentration of a few
departments, which had been urged upon the government
years ago. He believed the motion was intended
to be a vote of censure specifically upon the noble lord
at the head of the government. That issue he for one
was ready to accept, and in support of it he went
over the history of the noble lord in his foreign policy,
commenting with hostility upon his conduct in relation
to the war. He considered that his was a vote of
confidence in Lord Palmerston, and he had no confidence
in the noble lord.—Sir DE LACY EVANS thought
the country was indebted to Mr. Roebuck for the
labour and spirit with which he had conducted the
inquiry, the result of which was of the highest importance;
but he thought the resolution went too far, and
he should have been the less indisposed to concur in it
if the censure had not been so sweeping and comprehensive.
He very freely criticised the measures of the late
administration, complaining of their tardiness and their
trust in the virtue of protocols. He differed from Mr.
Bright with regard to the policy of Lord Palmerston;
he had great confidence in the spirit and determination
of that noble lord, and would concur in no vote that
would eject him from office, although he did not think
he had shown his characteristic energy. He hoped,
however, that he would exert himself with real vigour,
for if measures were not adopted earnestly to prosecute
the war, in which the army in India might be employed,
the sooner the present administration was got rid of the
better. He must say that there had been great tardiness
in the support of the army by the late government,
and he believed that if it had not been for the generous
efforts of the press, and the disinterested conduct of our
ally, the Emperor of the French, our army might have
perished altogether. But he had no apprehension of the
future, and he denied that any disasters at all of a
military kind had befallen our army. On the contrary,
the disgrace infiicted upon Russia, a great military
power, which had domineered over the world, was
unparalleled in the annals of war. He concluded with an
encouraging picture of the prospects of the contest,
placing in remote perspective the total break-up of
the vast empire of Russia.—Captain GLADSTONE,
as a member of the Sebastopol committee, opposed
the motion, and Mr. MUNTZ supported it.—Mr. S.
HERBERT urged that, after the accusations that had been
brought against the late government, the house should
specifically decide which of those accusations were true,
and which false. He proceeded to vindicate the policy
of the Crimean expedition, and to defend the practical
measures by which it had been carried out. Believing,
for his own part, that he was entitled to a distinct verdict
of guilty or not guilty, he declared hisintcntion of voting
against the amendment of General Peel, by which a
division would be evaded.—Mr. E. ELLICE could not
assent to the motion of the member for Sheffield, nor
could he join in censuring an expedition with which, if
it had been successful, no fault would have been found.
—Sir G. GREY treated the motion as involving a specific
charge against the noble lord at the head of the government.
He then entered into a detail of past debates
and occurrences, from which he argued that the
endeavour to assign blame to the noble viscount was
comparatively a recent thought. He denied that the
ministry had endeavoured to shield themselves under a
motion of "the previous question," professing himself
perfectly prepared to challenge a direct negative to the
resolution proposed by the hon. and learned member for
Sheffield.—Lord J. MANNERS very briefly supported
the resolution.—Lord PALMERSTON said he should
stand but a short time between the house and its
decision. He submitted that the motion was one of the
most extraordinary that had ever been presented to
parliament. He acknowledged his full responsibility
for all the acts of the Aberdeen cabinet, but contended
that the attempt was indefensible by which it was
sought to render responsibility personal and perpetual
against the ministers who were not charged with the
conduct of departments when failures were discovered.
When the events were much more recent, he observed,
Lord Derby had not considered himself and some other
members of the late government unfit for office, having
invited their accession to the ministry he was attempting
to perform. The noble lord then adverted to the
war, and contended that the successive operations which
had been undertaken during the past year were wisely
counselled and gallantly performed. No object
remained to be accomplished by the resolution now
proposed, except to dismiss the ministry for faults which
they had not committed, and which were fully repaired.
—Mr. DISRAELI remarked that the government had
not ventured to propose a negative to the vote of
censure, but asked the house to consent not to express any
opinion at all. Let the house remember what had been
the course of events with regard to this motion. A
few months before a committee to inquire into the state
of the army before Sebastopol had been appointed by
an immense majority of that house. What was the
cause of the appointment of that committee. Was it
the feeling of the house? No; it was the feeling of
the country. As Inkerman was said to have been the
soldier's battle, that committee might have been called
the people's committee. After a protracted investigation,
a decision was come to, and the chairman of that
committee now submitted a resolution embodying the
case on which that decision was founded. He thought
it only right that the house should express an opinion
on that resolution one way or the other. The noble