Mr. Peel, the Speaker of the House of Commons, answering
at Warwick on Wednesday to the toast of "the House of Commons," described the only occasion on which he had voted since he occupied the Chair as a comparatively unimportant one, when the House was equally divided on the subject of a Bill dealing with Antwerp marriages, when he gave the casting vote against the Bill. But he referred to an occasion when one of his predecessors, Speaker during Mr. Pitt's administra- tion, had given his vote,—the House being equally divided,— for inquiry into the conduct of a Minister who was a colleague and friend of Mr. Pitt's, and whose Ministerial conduct had been assailed, and had thereby caused Mr. Pitt such bitter mor- tification that he crushed his hat over his eyes while the tears ran down his cheeks. Mr. Peel expressed a hope that "it might never be his lot to bring tears to the cheek of any Minister, or to cause any Minister, by any action of his, such bitter mortification as that which fell to Mr. Pitt." We hope not too, and think it very unlikely that such a lot will be his. But Mr. Peel would be the last to shrink from it merely on account of the pain, if it did become his duty, as it became the duty of one of his predecessors in the Chair, to inflict such mortification.
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