ABSTRACT
In the summer months of 1839, before news from China reached Great Britain, the Liberal Tories joined the Ultra-Tories in their attacks on the Whigs. At the same time parliamentary Radicals, frustrated by the slow pace of reform, seized upon the vulnerability of the government and pressed their own agenda. This crisis of confidence intensified Lord Ellenborough's charges that Lord Melbourne's Whig ministry neglected British interests in the Far East. The result of the Bedchamber Crisis was that it appeared as if the Melbourne ministry's position of authority rested outside the current constitutional system. The memory of the Bedchamber Crisis had not faded by the time Lord Ellenborough questioned the Prime Minister in Parliament on 1 August 1839 regarding Captain Charles Elliot's action in Canton. Parliament's vote on the Whigs' Jamaican policy directly precipitated the Bedchamber Crisis. The nature of the House of Lords' debate exemplified the problems the Melbourne ministry faced since the Bedchamber Crisis.
