XXIII. 1831. when so few placemen sat in the House as at this period, CHAP. or when the offices at the disposal of the Crown were so few.* In truth, no patronage remains to the King but that of commissions in the army and navy, which must always remain with him as long as the Crown enjoys the power of declaring peace and war. And as to the corrupting influence of party, so far is that complaint from being well founded, that it is universally acknowledged to be one of the misfortunes of the times that there are no leading men on either side under whose banners others will range themselves, and thus give character and steadiness to the Government, or consistency to the Opposition. 52. "The monarchy cannot long coexist with a free press and a purely popular representation. It never yet has Continued. been found to be consistent with it in any age or country. We have a memorable example of what such a combination leads to in the annals of our own country, when the Commons, in 1648, voted that their resolutions had the force of law, and thereby in one day murdered their King and voted the House of Lords useless. 'I cannot,' said Mr Canning, conceive a constitution of which a third part shall be an assembly delegated by the people, not to consult for the good of the nation, but to speak day by day the people's will, which must not ere long sweep away every other branch of the constitution that might attempt to oppose or confront it.' The thing may not happen to-day or to-morrow, but before ten years are over the shock will be decisive. The examples of the National Assembly of France, of the Cortes of Spain and Naples, of the Chamber of Deputies last year in France, prove how utterly impossible it is for a purely popular representation to coexist with a monarchy. Forty years ago Mr Pitt declared that, from the period when the new and First Parliament of George I., were placemen in House of Commons, 271 do. of George II. Do. Do. do. of George IV. do. do. 257 109 -Parl. Papers, p. 569, 16th July 1823; and No. 543, 9th July 1822. VOL. IV. X XXIII. 1831. CHAP. alarming era of the French Revolution broke in upon the world, I found that the grounds upon which the question of reform rested were essentially and fundamentally altered.' Is not the same the case with the last French Revolution, which, not less than the first, has entirely unsettled the minds of men, and blasted the brilliant career of prosperity which the Restoration had opened to France? It is possible that titles of honour may still be continued; it is possible that the House of Lords may have a nominal existence, but its real conservative power, its distinct and legislative character, is gone. The Reformers evince no hostility to the Lords or the Crown now, because they do not require to do so; they know, if they can popularise the House of Commons, they will get everything their own way. 53. "The reformers,' says Canning, 'are wise in their Concluded, generation. They know well enough, and have read plainly enough in our history, that the prerogatives of the Crown, and the privileges of the nobility, would be but as dust in the balance against a preponderating democracy. They mean democracy, and nothing else. Give them a House of Commons constructed on their own principles, the peerage and the throne may exist for a day, but they will be liable to be at any time swept away by an angry vote of the House of Commons. It is, therefore, utterly unnecessary for the reformers to declare hostility to the Crown; it is superfluous for them to make war upon the peerage. They know that, let but their principles have full play, the Crown and the peerage would be to the constitution which they assail but as the baggage to the army, and the destruction of them but as the gleanings of the battle. They know that the battle is with the House of Commons as at present constituted, and that that once overthrown, and another popular assembly constructed on Speeches, their principles, as the creation and depository of the seq.; Parl. people's, will, there would not only be no chance, but there 1090, 1126. would not be even a pretence for the existence of any 1 Canning's vi. 361 et Deb. ii. other branch of the constitution.'" 1 XXIII. 1831. sion of Con take servatives 21st and Re formers sides which en sued in the Such was the substance of this great debate, which, CHAP. commencing on the 1st March, continued through seven successive nights, at the close of which the bill was allowed 54. to be brought in and read a first time without a division; Clear diviit being understood that the trial of strength was to place on the second reading, which stood for the March. Immense were the efforts which both made during this interval, and great the transposition of country. parties which took place during its continuance; but the Reformers gained greatly more by the delay than their opponents. All classes of the Tories, indeed, were reunited by the approach of danger: the divisions consequent on the contraction of the currency, agricultural distress, and Catholic emancipation, were forgotten; and a great section of the House of Commons rallied in earnest, and in the ancient spirit, round Sir Robert Peel, who stood forth as the leader of the Conservatives on this momentous crisis. Lord Winchelsea, Sir Edward Knatchbull, Sir Richard Vivian, were found by his side not less cordially than Lord Haddington, Sir G. Clerk, or his own immediate supporters. But the Reformers gained infinitely more than the Conservatives by the delay. The towns all took fire, and infinite pains were everywhere taken to fan the flame into a conflagration. The country for the most part stood aloof, but in silent amazement, stupefied by the din and clamour, and overpowered by the vehemence of the urban multitudes. The Reformers at once perceived the demo- 1 Ann. Reg. cratic character of the measure which had been proposed; 78; Roe they discovered its practical working as completely as its buck, aristocratic authors had been ignorant of it.* An unerring Martineau, instinct caused them to fasten on the £10 clause as de- Examiner, cisive in their favour, and adequate for all their purposes.1 1831. "The £10 clause," said the Examiner, " secures the * "I honestly confess," said Mr John Smith, a sincere Reformer," that when I first heard the Ministerial proposal, it had the effect of taking away my breath, so surprised and delighted was I to find the Ministers so much in earnest."-ROEBUCK, vol. ii. p. 108. 1831, 77, 107, 109; ii. 31, 32; March 6, XXIII. 1831. CHAP. constitution on a democratic basis: nothing remains but to prevent Ministers from abandoning it." To this object their whole efforts were directed; and they began the cuckoo cry, "The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill," which for the next year was the watchword of all classes of Reformers, and rendered it impossible for Ministers, if they had been so inclined, to recede from any material part of the proposed measure. 55. The interval between the close of the debate on leave Agitation in to bring in the bill and that on the second reading, a the country. period of a fortnight, was a season of incessant agitation and turmoil over the whole country, such as, since 1642, had never been seen in Great Britain. The press, following, as is generally the case, in the wake of popular passion, made the most strenuous efforts to inflame it, and these efforts were attended with the most signal success. Petitions were everywhere got up, and signed by thousands and tens of thousands, praying that the bill might pass "untouched and unimpaired.". These peti tions from the large towns had often 20,000 or 30,000 signatures; and though, without doubt, the usual arts to get names were practised with every possible exaggeration on this occasion, yet enough remained to show that the middle and working classes were nearly unanimous in favour of the change. So completely had their attachment to existing institutions been undermined by the "Ministers have far exceeded our expectations. The plan of reform, though short of radical reform, tends to the utter destruction of boroughmongering, and will prepare the way for a complete improvement. The ground, limited as it is, which it is proposed to clear and open to the popular influence, will suffice, as the spot desired by Archimedes for the plant of the power that must ultimately govern the whole system. Without reform, convulsion is inevitable. Upon any reform, farther improvement is inevitably consequent, and the settlement of the constitution on the democratic basis certain. If we sup posed that the plan before us could be permanent, we should declare it insufficient; but we have no such apprehension in our age of onward movement, and we hail it as a first step to a greater good, and as a first step towards abandoning an odious vice. It does not give the people all they want, but it takes the arms from their enemies. Like Sinbad, we have first to dash from our shoulders the Old Man of the Island, and afterwards to complete our deliverance."-Examiner, 6th March 1851. XXIII. 1831. long and dreary year of suffering which they had under- CHAP. gone, and their passions been inflamed by the impassioned language everywhere addressed to them! To such a length were the people excited, that the worst and most degrading effect of vehement faction became conspicuous. Private character and worth were entirely overlooked, a lifetime of beneficence was forgotten, and the noblest 80; Roecharacters, if they refused to bend to the popular voice, 116, 118; were put on a level with the most degraded, and aban- ii, 32, 33. doned to the whole fury of popular indignation.1* 1 Ann. Reg. 1831, 77, buck, ii. Martineau, 56. petition and bankers While such was the vehemence of the populace throughout the country, and such the efforts made alike by the Courageous Radical Reformers and the partisans of Government to from the inflame and organise them, there were not wanting those merchants who boldly stood forward on the opposite side, and exhi- of London bited the noblest of all spectacles, and the most character- bill. istic of a really free people-that of a small but resolute minority, standing firm amidst the surging and surround "The opponents of the measure were not treated as men entitled to entertain their own opinion, and differing on a question with which, by possi bility, reason might have nothing to do. They were all dealt with as being profligate oppressors, who wished to trample on and plunder the people; creatures, therefore, to be hunted down as beasts of prey, if they did not voluntarily fly from before the faces of their pursuers. Was there a man who was distinguished for nothing but having discharged all his duties; who had borrowed nothing from aristocratic patronage, and was innocent of the receipt of one farthing of the public money; who, standing on no other foundation than that of his own honest industry and honourable aspirations, had gained for himself a decent reputation in his profession, or a respectable fortune in the unpolluted exercise of his calling ; and did he, the most estimable of all citizens, doubt, as hundreds of thousands of such citizens did doubt, whether the ends of good government would be served by increasing, as Ministers wished to increase, the efficiency of a pure democracy in the constitution—such a man was placed beyond the pale of citizenship. He was a betrayer of the rights of the people, a corrupt plunderer of the humble and the poor; he was the mean and crawling slave of the wealthy few. He was entitled to no opinion, or his opinion was of no use except to degrade his character, for it was different from the opinion of those who thought otherwise, and who had determined, in accordance with the Ministry, that to doubt the unmixed wisdom of "the bill" was to manifest a corruption of heart, an incapacity of understanding, which unfitted the man whom they disgraced for any exercise of judgment on political institutes, and which invited and justified any charges which might be imposed upon them, if they could not be seduced by vanity or the love of power."-Ann. Reg. 1831, pp. 79, 80. against the |