In 1824, (June 1), we find Mr. Brougham in the House of Commons, moving an address to the King, relative to the proceedings at Demerara against Smith, the missionary; but, after a debate of two days, the motion was negatived.[2]

During the period of Mr. Canning’s ministry, his liberality gained Mr. Brougham’s support:  this is the only instance of Mr. Brougham’s not being opposed to the minister of the day; and, observes a political writer, “he has been as much above the task of drudging for a party as drudging for a ministry.”

The year 1828 is a memorable one in Mr. Brougham’s parliamentary life.  Early in the session, upon the debate of the battle of Navarino, we find him expressing his readiness to support the ministry as long as the members who composed it showed a determination to retrench the expenditure of the country, to improve its domestic arrangements, and to adopt a truly British system of foreign policy.  It was on this occasion that Mr. Brougham used the expression which has since become so familiar—­“The schoolmaster is abroad.”  On Feb. 7, Mr. Brougham brought forward a motion on the State of the Law, in an elaborate speech of six hours delivery.  The debate was adjourned to February 29, when Mr. Brougham’s motion, in an amended shape, was put and agreed to, requesting the King to cause “due inquiry to be made into the origin, progress, and termination of actions in the superior courts of common law in this country;” and “into the state of the law regarding the transfer of real property.”  Even the heads of this speech would occupy one of our pages.  A passage much quoted at the time of its publication is a good specimen of Mr. Brougham’s forcible style of illustration:  “He was guilty of no error—­he was chargeable with no exaggeration—­he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said, that all we can see about us, King, Lords, and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the system and its varied workings, end simply in bringing twelve good men into a box.”  In the same month, Mr. Brougham spoke at great length in support of Lord John Russell’s motion for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.  On March 6, Mr. Brougham spoke in support of Mr. Peel’s motion for Catholic Emancipation, which he described as going “the full length that any reasonable man ever did or ever can demand; it does equal justice to his Majesty’s Roman Catholic subjects; it puts an end to all religious distinctions; it exterminates all civil disqualifications on account of religious belief.  It is simple and efficacious; clogged with no exceptions, unless such as even the most zealous of the Catholics themselves must admit to be of necessity parcel of the measure.”

In the session of 1829, Mr. Brougham explained the proceedings of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into Public Charities, who, it appeared, had examined sixteen counties, and partially examined ten; altogether amounting to more than 19,000 charities, being more than half the number in the whole kingdom.