It is vital to your Majesty's authority and power at this critical moment, that the Canal should belong to England. - Benjamin Disraeli

In the great contention between the patriotic and the cosmopolitan principle which has hardly begun and on the issue of which the fate of this island as a powerful community depends, Lord George Bentinck appeared to be produced to represent the traditionary influences of our country in their most captivating form.

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens

For nearly five years the present Ministers have harassed every trade, worried every profession, and assailed or menaced every class, institution, and species of property in the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into mistakes which have been always discreditable, and sometimes ruinous. All this they call a policy, and seem quite proud of it; but the country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering.