To permit such liberty was either a proof that the ministry was weak altogether--which it was not--or that its conduct on this question was weak.

In either case, it was a mischievous precedent that was thus set;[174] and the fact that it has since been followed in more than one instance, is so far from being any justification of it, that it rather supplies an additional reason for condemning it, as being the cause of wider mischief than if it had been confined to one single question, or had influenced the conduct of one cabinet only.

It has often been said that the name "cabinet" is unknown to the law, and that what we call the cabinet is, in fact, only a committee of the Privy Council.

As a statement of law the assertion may be correct, but it is certain that for more than a century and a half the constitution has adopted the principle that the cabinet consists of the holders of a certain, to some extent a fluctuating, number of the principal state officers; and, recognizing the responsibility of all for the actions of each member of it, does by that recognition sanction an expectation that on all questions, or at all events on all but those of the most trivial character, they will speak and act with that unanimity which is indispensable, not only to the strength of the government itself, but to its being held in respect by the people; such respect being, indeed, among the most essential elements of its strength.
The incidents of the war itself do not belong to a work such as this; but, tantalizing as it must be to an historian of any class to pass over the brilliant series of achievements which gave Britain the glory of being twice[175] the principal agent in the deliverance of Continental Europe, the glories of Salamanca, Victoria, Orthes, and Waterloo must be left to other writers, who, it is not unpatriotic to hope, may never again have similar cause for exulting descriptions.

But out of the crowning triumph of Waterloo a difficulty arose which, though it may be difficult to characterize the principle on which it was settled, since it was not strictly a question of constitutional, international, or military law; and though the circumstances were so peculiar that the conclusion adopted is never likely to be referred to as a precedent, seems still deserving of a brief mention, especially as an act of Parliament was passed to sanction the decision of the cabinet.