ABSTRACT
The political career of Lord George Bentinck was peculiar. He had, to use his own expression, ‘ sate in eight parliaments without having taken part in any great debate/when remarkable events suddenly impelled him to advance and occupy not only a considerable but a leading position in public affairs. The existing policy of the great cabinets had been founded on the assumption that the administration of Sir Robert Peel would be limited only by the term of his political life, and that he might probably bequeath the government to a competent successor. The determination to do nothing was accepted by the foreign cabinets as evidence that the British minister had examined his position and had found it impregnable. That, was not the opinion of those who from their parliamentary experience, political habits of their lives, and their personal acquaintance with the characters of the principal actors in the impending transactions, would appear to be more competent.
