“. . . There is much truth in your complaints of the present state of public affairs. But how is the evil to be corrected? There is a want of popular feelings in many individuals of the party. Others are exasperated with the unjust and uncandid treatment they have received, and are every day receiving, from the modern Reformers. Another set are violent anti-Reformers, and alarmed at every speech or measure that has the least tendency towards reform. There is but one measure on which the party are unanimously agreed, and no one man in the House of Commons to whom they look up with that deference and respect to his opinion which is necessary to have concert and co-operation in a party. . . . It is a state of things, however, which cannot possibly last. Before next meeting of Parliament, the Prince must either have changed his Ministers, or he must lay his account with systematic opposition to his government. Even though the old leaders of the party* should be unwilling to break with him, they will not be able to prevent their friends from declaring open hostility against his government. If such a rupture should take place, many would of course desert the party; but those who remained, agreeing better with one another in their opinions, and consisting of more independent men, would in fact be a more formidable opposition than the present. . . . ”]
