It was in the course of the speech introducing the Emancipation Bill that the Duke made his well-known declaration “that he would sacrifice his life to prevent one month of civil war.”

One fruit of the angry passions excited during the progress of the Emancipation Bill was a series of prosecutions against the Morning Journal for libels on the Duke of Wellington, the Lord Chancellor, and the government collectively.  These prosecutions were conducted with unusual acrimony by Sir James Scarlet, the Attorney-General; and the Duke of Wellington came in for a very considerable share of public censure for having authorised such prosecutions.  Probably the Duke intended to inflict another “great moral lesson,” as he has always set his face against the unrestrained license of the press; but, looking back with calmer feelings to the events of that excited period, and admitting that the language used by the editor was certainly too strong, though faithfully representing the feelings of a large class of the public, it is certainly difficult to avoid now coming to the conclusion that Mr. Alexander, when sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment in Newgate and heavy fines, was treated with a severity scarcely justifiable.  It is probable that the Duke of Wellington, acting on his rigid notions of the division of responsibility, after ordering the prosecution, left the affair to Sir James Scarlet, and from that moment declined to interfere.

Among the discussions to which the prosecutions gave rise, an amusing speech of Sir Charles Wetherell, on the 2nd of March, 1830, in the House of Commons, will repay perusal.

In a debate which took place in the House of Lords on the first night of the session, upon the state of the country, the Duke of Wellington delivered a speech upon the causes of the existing distress, which proved (allowances being made for differences of opinion) that his qualifications to deal with the most intricate questions involved in civil government were very little inferior to his military talents.  Passages from that speech will be found in the following pages.  At the time many of his views were ridiculed by those political economists who were destined so soon to rise to power under shelter of the reform question; but it will be seen that the improved experience of the country after ten years’ undisputed sway of those gentlemen, confirms many of the chief conclusion to which the astute and practical mind of the Duke of Wellington then led him.  That speech, however, raised a hornet’s nest around him in the House of Commons.  Among others, Sir Francis Burdett made a personal attack on the Duke, in which he said that his administration showed how correct was his estimate of his own powers when he said he would be mad to think of being prime minister.  That illustrious individual, he said, had been treated with much tenderness, because he had conferred the greatest benefits on his country; but if his services had been great his recompense had been great also.  Mr. Brougham, also, made a most personal attack on the Duke on the day before parliament closed.