ABSTRACT
Lord George Bentinck had sat for eighteen years in parliament, and before he entered it had been for three years the private secretary of Mr. Canning, who had married the sister of the Duchess of Portland. The parliament was fast waning, and had low prices and abundant harvests continued to prevail, Sir Robert Peel was prepared until the dissolution still to occupy the ostensible post of a protectionist minister. In his subsequent statements in parliament, Sir Robert Peel more than once expressed his feeling that, whatever his conviction, he was not the person who ought to propose a repeal of the corn laws. Thus was Sir Robert Peel appointed, for the third time, prime minister of England: and apparently confirmed in power with no prospect of his authority being successfully impugned. His position was so strong, that many, not without justice, deemed it impregnable.
