"[260] And, indeed, the subjects which demanded the care of the
minister, and attracted the attention of Parliament, were constantly
increasing in number, variety, and importance to the very end of his
administration. Not only were the financial difficulties of the country,
the depressed state of agriculture and commerce (the result of a
succession of bad harvests), sufficient causes for grave anxiety, but
the terrible war, of which mention has already been made, which we had
now been carrying on for nearly three years in Afghanistan, and which,
before the end of this very year, was about to be signalized by a
disaster such as had never before befallen a British army, threatened to
kindle the flames of war in Europe also, from the share which the
intrigues of Russia had had in fomenting the quarrel; and the same
danger was more than once in the course of the next five years imminent,
from the irritation with which France regarded us, and which, commencing
in Syria, while Lord Melbourne was still at the helm, lost no
opportunity of displaying itself, whether in transactions in the remote
Pacific Ocean or the old battle-field of the two nations, the Spanish
peninsula; and finally, these embarrassing perplexities were crowned by
the appalling visitation of famine, which, at the end of the fourth year
of the administration, fell upon Ireland with a severity surpassing any
similar event in modern history.
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