minds.  The British Constitution is the work of ages, the slow growth of many centuries, and if it could be transplanted to countries so totally unprepared for its reception, and there made to take root, it would be as great a miracle as if we were to take a mature plant and set it to grow on a stone pavement, or a great wooden stick, and plant it in a fertile soil, there to bear fruit.  The plant and the soil must be of congenial natures; the constitution must fit the nation it is to govern.  The people must be prepared by their previous experience, their habits, their second nature, their political nature, to receive such institutions.  I know not that I can ever sufficiently express the affection I bore to my late noble friend (Lord W. Bentinck) who, in 1812, instituted in Sicily the experiment of transplanting thither the British Constitution.  But your Lordships now know from his experience what was the consequence of attempting to establish our own constitution in another country.  A traveller happened to be in Sicily at the time, and I will read the account he gave of the solemnity which he witnessed.  He is speaking of the most important of all proceedings under that transplanted system; he is describing the conduct of the people’s chosen representatives; he is painting the scene of their legislative labours, in the temple of freedom; he is admitting us to the grand, the noble spectacle of the most dignified of human assemblies, the popular body making laws for the nation in the sanctuary of its rights.  See, then, this august picture of a transplanted Parliament.  Mr. Hughes says: 

’As soon as the President had proposed the subject for debate, and restored some degree of order from that confusion of tongues which followed the announcement of the question, a system of crimination and recrimination was invariably commenced by the several speakers, accompanied with such hideous contortions, such bitter taunts, and such personal invectives, that blows generally followed, until the Assembly was in an uproar.  The President’s voice was unheeded and unheard; the whole House arose; patriots and antagonists mingled in the fray, and the ground was covered with the combatants, kicking, biting, striking, and scratching each other in a true Pancratic fray.’

It is to restore this grand political blessing of the 1812 Parliament that all our late efforts have been pointed.  The great object of our negotiations has been the establishment of such a precious representative assembly; but the result is, that those efforts have been all thrown away.  The King of Naples was said at that time to have agreed to certain concessions; he offered the people such terms as our negotiators thought they ought to have accepted; and, up to that time, indeed up to this hour, Ferdinand has behaved most fairly.  He did not scruple to make such proposals for conciliation as our own negotiators thought the insurgents ought to have accepted.  But all ended in their refusal.  War broke out.  Neapolitan troops were sent over.  Messina was attacked, bombarded, and, after some four or five days, was taken.