It would seem indeed a difficult and somewhat graceless office for the Whigs to oppose the first reading of a government bill, concerning, too, the highest duties of administration, which had received such unqualified approval from all the leading members of their party in the House of Lords, who had competed in declarations of its necessity and acknowledgments of its moderation, while they only regretted the too tardy progress of a measure so indispensable to the safety of the country and the security of her Majesty's subjects. A curious circumstance, however, saved them from this dilemma, which yet in the strange history of faction they had nevertheless in due time to encounter.
As the Coercion Bill coming from the Lords appeared on the paper of the day in the form of a notice of motion, the Secretary of State, this being a day on which orders have precedence, had to move that such orders of the day should be postponed, so that he might proceed with the motion on the state of Ireland, of which notice had been given. The strict rule of the House is, that on Mondays and Fridays, orders of the day should have precedence of notices of motion, so that it was impossible for the Secretary of State to make his motion, that a certain bill (the Protection of Life--Ireland--Bill) should be read a first time without permission of the House, a permission always granted as a matter of course on such nights to the government, since the business which can be brought forward, whether in the shape of orders or motions, is purely government business, and thus the interests and privilege of no independent member of Parliament can be affected by a relaxation of the rules which the convenience of a ministry and the conduct of public business occasionally require. However, on this night, no sooner had the Secretary of State made, in a few formal words, this formal request, than up sprang Sir William Somerville to move an amendment, that the orders of the day should not be postponed, which he supported in a spirited address, mainly on the ground of the great inconvenience that must be suffered from the postponement of the Corn Bill. The motion of the Secretary of State would produce a long, exciting, and exasperating debate. Time would be lost--for what? To advance one stage of a measure which it was avowedly not the intention of the government to press at the present moment. Sir William concluded with a very earnest appeal to Lord George Bentinck and his friends, who might at no very distant period have the government of Ireland entrusted to them, not, for the sake of a momentary postponement of the Corn Bill, to place themselves, by voting for this measure of coercion, in collision with the Irish nation.' He called upon Lord George Bentinck to weigh the position in which he was placed.