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    short , whoever might be the nominal head of the office , it was well understood , that the real man of business was Mr . Stephen . A wise man , therefore , whose intellect had not been debased by aristocratic morgue and egregious vanity like that of Mr . Stanley , would have been anxious to add to his own stock of knowledge all that he could procure from other sources , on which to form a judgment . He would not have despised the information of his

    predecessor , or of those whose long practice in office must have given them a considerable amount of knowledge , but he would have learned ivhat he could , and then have estimated it according to its value . But not so Mr . Stanley . Full of presumption and self-conceit , he deemed that his genius and talent were to surmount all obstacles without opposition , and he was so exceedingly anxious to obtain the whole credit due to his transcendent abilities , that the moment he entered the office , he made it known

    that he needed no assistance from any one , but meant to do all his own business—by intuition , it may be supposed . Mr . Stephen having been jealously excluded from all share in his councils , he addressed himself to his improvisatory task , and in due time brought forth his programme , which I shall notice further on .

    I would here ask one question of the Whigs . The fact being granted , 1 ; hat Mr , Stephen knows more of the slave question than any other person in office , why should either Lord Howick or Mr . Stanley be put over him ? Why should he not hold the ostensible as well as real place ? Why should an ignorant man be set to fill it , while there is an instructed man at hand ? Is there

    any other answer but the glaring one , that there is power and a large salary attached to it , which it would be considered a species of sacrilege to bestow upon any one but an aristocrat . And upon this principle is it , that the coin of the nation is wasted , and the national business badly performed . Those members of the House of Commons who advocate the true interests of the

    community , might employ themselves worse than in pointing out the glaring instances of the waste of the public money , in giving large salaries to aristocratic puppets , at the same time that the labours they profess to perform are actually performed for them by men of superior abilities at inferior salaries . * The slaves must be freed ! Fall what may , at all hazards , whether of injustice to whites , or of mischief to blacks , or to

    * I believe that the objection to placing such a man as Mr . Stephen in the actual iiuation of minister , would be the fact , that upon a change of ministry he must turn out , and then the whole business would be stopped for want of knowledge in the m-comer . What a satire is this upon the machinery of our Government I The Noqdles and Doodles of either faction are to fill the offices ostensibly , and pocket the

    cash , and the men of business , the whole rank and file , remain in atatu quo , whatever be the changes , to have their utility impeded and their time wasted , by instructing , or offering to instruct , every succeeding fool . This is bad enough , but what must be the additional mischief , of the immorality thus engendered , by false pretences , in endeavouring to make the members of the aristocracy pass for wise men and men of business , when they we merely unprincipled peculators , a sort of civil condotticri .

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    458 On the Ministerial Plan " for the

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  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 458, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/18/