In 1841 Russell proposed a fixed duty of 8s. per quarter on foreign corn, and a reduc tion of the duties on sugar and timber. Being defeated by the oppositiou, the Mel bourne government appealed to the country without success; and Russell and his col leagues made way for the administration of Peel. In this general election, he challenged the verdict of the city of London upon the free-trade measures of the government, by boldly leaving Stroud, and standing for the city. He was elected by the narrow majority of nine votes, and continued to represent the city until his elevation to the peerage. In Nov., 1845, Russell wrote a letter from Edinburgh to the electors of the city of London, announcing his conversion to the total and immediate repeal of the corn laws. This letter led to the resignation of the Peel cabinet; and Russell was commis sioned by the queen (Dec. 11, 1845) to form an administration, which at first be failed to do through the antipathy of earl Grey to lord Palmerston, and sir Robert Peel being recalled to power, had the honor of carrying the repeal of the corn-laws. His Irish coercion bill, however, being defeated by the combined Whigs and protectionists, he resigned; and Russell became nominally what he had been really during the greater part of the Melbourne administration—prime minister. In 1846 a series of assassinations in Ireland compelled him to propose a more stringent coercion act than that of the previous session. In 1847 he had to deal with the Irish famine; and in 1848 with a miniature Irish rebellion. The ptpal bull, parceling England into dioceses, extorted from Russell an indignant protest, first in the form of a letter to the bishop of Durham, and next in the ecclesiastical titles bill of 1851, prohibiting the assumption of territorial titles by Roman Catholic prelates. Russell's advice to the queen to dismiss her foreign secretary and his ancient colleague, lord Palmerston, for communicating, without consultation with his colleagues, his approval of the French coup d'etat, precipitated the downfall of the Russell administration, and in Feb., 1852, he ceased to be first lord of the treasury. Lord Derby made an unsuccessful attempt to carry on the government; and in the suc ceeding cabinet of the earl of Aberdeen, Russell consented, Dec., 1852, to fill the post of foreign secretary with the leadership of the house of commons. In the session of 1854 he brought forward a new reform bill, but was most reluctantly compelled to resign it in consequence of the Criunan war. He was next appointed commissioner to the con gress of Vienna, and incurred so much unpopularity by recommending terms of peace, and a plan of counterpoise suggested by Austria, that lie was forced by the pressure of unfavorable opinion to leave the ministry (July, 1855). He voted against the govern ment on Mr. Cobden's motion against lord Pahnerston's Chinese policy, which led to a dissolution. When the second administration of lord Palmerston was formed (June. 1859),
Russell became for the second time foreign secretary, which office lie held until 1865. He threw the moral influence of his name and the nation lie represented into the scale of Italian unity and independence. He uttered warnings and remonstrances against the annexation of Savoy and Nice by France, which gave great offense to the government of the emperor Napoleon by their frankness and candor. He ably preserved British neutrality in the civil war between the federal and confederate states of America. He wrote spirited dispatches expressive of the indignation with which the British government regarded the despotic acts of Russia in Poland; but he incurred many reproaches from the Poles and their sympathizers in France and England, for withdraw ing from the Austrian and French alliance when war with Russia appeared imminent. More recently, he took an active but not a successful part in the Slesvig-Holstein dis pute, which the peculiar policy of the French emperor brought to nothing. Russell always took a very prominent part in promoting the education of the people, and, with the assistance of lord Lansdowne, laid the foundation of the present system of national education, supported by parliamentary grants, and administered by the committee of privy council for education. Ile brought forward for many years a measure admitting the Jews to parliament. which passed in 1858 upon a compromise suggested by the earl of Lucan. But the question with which lie has ever been identified in the public mind is parliamentary reform. Ile brought in a reform bill in 1852, a second in 1854; moved the resolution which procured the condemnation of the Derby reform bill in 1859; and in 1860 brought in another government hill, which failed to pass. In 1861 he was called to the upper house, and exchanged the courtesy title of " lord John," by which lie had been so long known, for that of earl Russell. On the death of lord Palmerston in 1865, earl Russell became prime minister for the second time. In 1866 he and Mr. Gladstone introduced a reform bill, which was rejected, and the ministry shortly there after resigned. Thenceforward, till near the time of his death, 28, 1878, earl Russell remained an active but unofficial member of the liberal party in the house of lords. Though his voice was weak and his delivery' affected, earl Russell was an admirable and successful debater; and his speeches sometimes rose to a high order of oratory. His indomitable self-reliance and tenacity of self-assertion were sarcastically painted by [1(.1. rev. Sydney Smith, who called hint the " Lycurgus of the lower house." Since the works mentioned above, earl Russell published his Recollections and Suggestions (1875), besides selections front his speeches and dispatches, and various addresses; and, in 1S73, the veteran statesman entered fearlessly on a new field, and gave us his Essays on the Rise and Progress of the Waist/an. Religion in the West of Europe.