begged to ask the noble Lord if the petition had been agreed to at a public meeting?

answered in the negative.

had no doubt, that many very respectable persons might be found in Worcestershire to put their names to an Anti-reform petition; but from all the communications he had received from that county (and he was much connected with it), he denied that the petition spoke the opinions of the majority of the inhabitants. He would instance in favour of his assertion the fact that an hon. friend of his, entirely unconnected with the county, was returned at the last election, solely because he was a Reformer. He begged to protest most strongly against the petition being supposed to contain the sentiments of the inhabitants of Worcestershire.

confidently asserted, there was not a better or more peaceably disposed population in England, than that of Worcestershire. As an allusion had been made to the fear of incendiarism being entertained by those who dared to express an opinion unfavourable to Reform, he begged to state, that during last year only one fire took place in Worcestershire, and in that case punishment overtook the offender. He resided in that county, and his noble friend did not, and therefore he was better able to state the opinions of the inhabitants than his noble friend. He had attended the public meeting in Worcestershire, and could state, that the strongest feeling was manifested to have a full and effectual Reform carried. If there was a Tory county in Great Britain, Worcestershire was that county. Many ancient families of large possessions were Anti-reformers, but not one of them ventured to come to the public meeting and avow his opinions. The petition had laid for signature some weeks, and after all about 400 only had signed it, whereas, from what he knew of the county, he should have expected to see at least 1,000. In point of numbers the petition was, certainly, very insignificant, whatever it might be in point of respectability.

as Representative for the city of Worcester, could state, that there was a very inconsiderable number of persons either in the city or county opposed to all Reform. At the same time he was ready to admit there were many persons some of whom were men of the highest respectability, who objected to the specific measure which had lately passed that House; but both these classes were a small minority compared with the number of inhabitants who were in favour of it. The principles of Reform were so deeply rooted in that county, that a very amiable and gallant candidate was beaten at the last election by a Reformer, who was a stranger to the county. That fact alone was a complete answer to the charge of there being many Anti-reformers in Worcestershire. As to the statement made by the noble Lord, that persons were afraid to declare their sentiments from a system of terror which shewed itself in the destruction of property—he had no knowledge of the fact, and he doubted its existence. And with regard to the effects likely to be produced by the proposed Bill, he believed that its principles embodied the opinions of by far the greatest portion of the enlightened public. As it was evident some Reform must be conceded, that undoubtedly was the safest which had for its support the majority of the thinking people of the country. In his opinion the minority would do well to come into the views of the majority, and together support a measure which by their combined efforts to uphold it, would effectually check the desire for further innovation, and most materially tend to pacify the country.

said, he rejoiced to hear, that the advocates for the late measure had at length discovered that there were many respectable persons opposed to their plan. He would assert, that the results of the last election were not a fair proof of the present feelings of the inhabitants of Worcester, or any other county, on the Reform question, as, subsequent to the last general election, a great change had taken place in the minds of many persons.

begged leave to say, as from several remarks made by hon. Members, he feared that he had not made himself understood, that he had never asserted that the petition expressed the sentiments of the majority of the people of Worcestershire. What he had said was, that although it was signed by but 400 persons, yet it nevertheless represented the opinions of a considerable proportion of the property of that county, and that it proved what was the prevailing opinion among a certain class of persons. He had avoided alluding to the proposed measure except by the general observation that many persons were not favourable to the main principles of that Bill. The hon. member for the city of Worcester had thought proper to taunt him and his friends with not venturing to shew their faces at public meetings convened for the consideration of the subject of Reform. In reply to this he would simply say, that several persons had agreed to assemble at Worcester, for the purpose of expressing their approbation of the conduct of Colonel Lygon, the late Member, but previous to the intended meeting they were informed, that the public peace might be endangered by the excitement which such a meeting would create, and the consequence was, that the intention was abandoned. Some other parties had then called a Reform meeting, which those who had endeavoured to get up the former feared in return would be infinitely more dangerous to the public peace, and their anticipations were correct, for nothing but the excellent arrangements of the Magistrates, and the timely arrival of the military, prevented the same tragedy at Worcester, which was subsequently acted at Bristol. The hon. Member vaunted of the peaceable inhabitants of Worcester, he did not deny, that they generally deserved that character, but he affirmed, the serious disturbances which afterwards prevailed grew out of the county meeting. He had made these remarks to justify his own conduct and that of the petitioners, and he hoped his object was obtained.

must deny, that the disturbances of the 5th of November at Worcester grew out of the county meeting. He believed they took their rise from a fire which broke out in the night between that day and the following. With respect to another of the noble Lord's observations, he must still declare, that the petition did not even represent the opinions of the majority of the property of the county.

presented a petition from a body of persons calling themselves members of the National Political Union in Council assembled against any clause of the Reform Bill which should require the payment of rent or taxes as qualifications to vote for Members to serve in Parliament. He had always declined to become a member of these Unions, because he found attending his duties in that House quite sufficient, therefore he could say no more of the parties who had signed this petition, than that, as members of such a Union, he believed they had conducted themselves with propriety. The petitioners stated, that from their own knowledge, being most of them electors for Westminster, the making of the payment of rates a criterion for voting had, from their own experience, and upon general principles, led to bribery and corruption. They inferred this from what had taken place in Westminster in the case of certain candidates whom they were prepared to name. There was the famous case that was argued before the King's Bench, in which it was proved that the rate collector, at the expense of about 5l. 5s. a day had attended on the hustings, on the part of one of the candidates, an undertaking having been given, that the rates due by those who voted for him should be paid. The candidate went first, and the rate collector followed to threaten the poor electors with distraint if they did not vote for that candidate. He entirely concurred in the prayer of the petition, and he implored the noble Lord opposite to take the reasoning of this petition into his consideration. The petitioners did not object to property, or the occupancy of a house of 10l. being made the criterion for a vote, but only to the payment of rates and taxes, as leading to bribery and corruption.

cordially supported the prayer of the petition. It was his opinion, that if the suggestion of the petitioners was adopted it would very much improve the Bill. As far as the right of voting went, it ought to be of no consequence whatever, whether the elector had paid his rates or not. As to the rent, that was an obligation existing between landlord and tenant. Rates were also a contract between the Government and the voters, and neither of these obligations had, strictly speaking, any connexion with the right of voting.

said, he did not understand how the prayer of the petition could be supported, without upsetting the whole intent of the Bill.

said, the occupancy of a house was a sufficient guarantee for the competency of the voters. He certainly agreed with the petitioners in thinking that if electors were required to pay up their rates and rent, it would open the door to many abuses.

said, he understood the payment of rent was not a necessary qualification, and so far the hon. member for Louth was at fault: but with regard to the payment of King's taxes, Westminster was not the only place where this qualification had been made the means of bribery and corruption. This provision of the Bill he very much objected to on that account.

said, that before the petition was brought up, he must beg leave to call the attention of the House more particularly to it. The petition professed to be the petition of the members of the Council of a Society called the National Political Union, in Council assembled, and it appeared to him impossible for the House to recognise such a body. He therefore felt it his duty, as many other petitions of the same nature might be presented, to call the attention of the House to the point, which appeared to him to be of considerable importance, particularly when he referred to his Majesty's proclamation, for although he was not prepared to say whether or not this particular body came within the scope of that proclamation, yet, as such a proclamation had been issued from the highest authority in the State, mentioning that Societies under the denomination of Political Unions had been found contrary to the letter and the spirit of the law, he thought the House ought to be careful how it contravened that law by recognising the acts of any such Societies. He was of opinion that the House could not receive a petition from those parties, except as the petition of the individuals. When they addressed the House as members of the Council of a Political Union, in Council assembled, the House ought to be cautious how it gave a sanction to the petition of persons assuming such a title.

said, that although on many occasions petitions were presented, from persons claiming to sign them as members of certain Societies, the House had never objected to receive them on that account. It was as the petition of the individuals that he presented the present petition. He was not aware that any illegal act had been committed by the members of the Union; on the contrary, he believed that they had not infringed on any Act of Parliament.

said, he had disclaimed saying that they had been guilty of any illegal act; but the petition expressly set forth that it was the petition of members of the Council of a Political Union, in Council assembled. His Majesty's proclamation which he had sent for immediately on seeing the title of the petition, described the illegal Unions as consisting of members subject to the control and direction of a superior Committee or Council. He therefore thought that the House ought to be cautious not to give a body which might fall under that designation the power of approaching it.

said, he entirely concurred with the right hon. Baronet, that the House ought to be very cautious, not to do any thing, in receiving petitions, which might encourage or recognise the existence of any of the Societies to which his Majesty's proclamation referred. The proclamation referred to societies composed of regular gradations, and different classes of members, under the supreme guidance of a Council. He was not aware exactly what the constitution of this society was, but he did not believe that it was one of those societies which contravened the proclamation. The present was not the time at which it would be convenient to discuss the question whether such societies were advantageous or not. The question before the House was, whether there was any thing in the form of this petition which would make it necessary for the House to reject it; and he did not think that it would be expedient to adopt that course unless they were imperatively called upon by the forms of the House to do so. The petition stated, that it was the petition of the undersigned members of the Council of the Political Union, in Council assembled. Now it did not profess to be the petition of the Council itself; and if it were not the petition of a body which the House ought not to recognise, he thought it would not be expedient to reject it. He admitted, that the case was one which was liable to some degree of doubt; but he was not disposed at any time to be captious as to petitions presented to the House, and he thought that the present might be received as the petition of the individuals.

said, that the distinction which the noble Lord had attempted to draw between the members of a Political Council and the Council itself was a mere evasion, and an insult to common sense and to the House.

said, according to the dictum of the noble Lord, if a petition were presented from the Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of any city, in Common Council assembled, such a petition would not be that of the Corporation. He trusted the House would not tolerate such evasions, and he regretted that the noble Lord had endeavoured to make them.

would, with the leave of the House, withdraw the petition for the present, but not with the intention of withdrawing it wholly, for he would present it on a future day.

would meet the proposition of the hon. Gentleman in the spirit in which he made it, and would not oppose the withdrawing the Motion, although he might do so.

before moving the Order of the Day for the Second Reading of the Reform Bill, wished to give notice, that it was his intention, immediately after the Debate on the second reading was disposed of, whenever that might be, to move, that the House, at its rising, should adjourn to Tuesday, 17th January next. It had been the wish of his Majesty's Ministers, that the Parliament should meet after the holidays a week earlier than that day. But it had been represented to them, that it would be extremely inconvenient to the Members connected with Ireland to attend so soon; and as it was their desire to give the Members from all parts of the kingdom an opportunity of attending in the Committee, Ministers thought it better to depart from the original intention, and to move an adjournment to the day which he had mentioned.

thought it probable that it might be necessary to defer the assembling of Parliament to a later day than the noble Lord proposed. He would suggest to both the noble Lords, that possibly they were not allowing themselves sufficient time to prepare the information which it was necessary to have laid upon the Table before the Bill ought to go into the Committee. The noble Lords themselves best knew whether the proposed time would be sufficient; but the House would perceive, that, without having all the information that was promised, it would he impossible to go one step further after the second reading. The documents which were to be produced were, he understood, voluminous, and if they could not be prepared by the 17th of January, it was unnecessary and useless to appoint so early a day for the re-assembling of Parliament.

had no doubt that he should be ready before that day, but the right hon. Gentleman would perceive that it was not necessary to go into the Committee on the first day. It would be more convenient that the Irish and Scotch Bills should be read a first time before the English Bill should have been committed. He should suggest, therefore, that the Committee might be taken on the Thursday or Friday after the re-assembling of the House; and he had no doubt that the House would then be in possession of all the necessary information.

hoped that the noble Lord would find the time sufficient for the necessary preparation. But he must remind the House, that the noble Lord promised last night, that there should be laid before the House the List of boroughs on which the Bill was founded. When he had repeated the assertion that the Bill was founded on that List, he was told that his assertion was incorrect. However, he had received that morning one of the official papers connected with the List, and he insisted that the first line justified what he said. The paper to which he alluded was a letter from Lord Melbourne to one of the gentlemen who was instructed to prepare the information required for the new Bill; and it began thus:—"Sir;—The Government having determined to found the Reform Bill upon a new basis, I request your assistance, to enable them to ascertain the relative importance of the smaller boroughs in England and Wales. It is proposed to take the number of houses, and the amount of assessed taxes for the year ending April, 1831, together, as the test of disfranchisement." It had been promised, that that letter should be laid on the Table this morning, and this morning it certainly was delivered. But the document which ought to have been delivered with it, namely, the List which itself constituted the basis on which the Bill was founded, he had not then obtained. He had received it, however, since he came into the House, it having been put into his hands by an hon. friend of his, who was connected with his Majesty's Government. Whether his hon. friend had acted officially or officiously, he could not say; but the fact was, he had only just received the information. Whether it was to be laid on the Table or not, he did not know, but this he knew, that it was not put into his hands until just upon the verge of the debate. It could not be obtained before, for he had inquired for it from the officers of the House the moment he entered. However, as he had got it at last, he should not comment, as he might well do, upon the great irregularity, and the still greater delays, that had taken place respecting the production of these papers, but he must complain, that, at the moment when the debate was about to commence, the List, which was the basis of the Bill, according to the letter of the noble Secretary of State for the Home Department, was not in the hands of more than six or seven Members. He should make no comment on the absurd and ridiculous calculations (such, at least, they appeared, from the cursory look he had had of them) which accompanied that List, and was signed "Thomas Drummond." The schoolmaster was said to be abroad, and Mr. Drummond seemed to be one of his most promising pupils; for, as appears by his own letter, he had puzzled himself and the House with a long series of decimal fractions, to produce a result which could just as completely be effected by the simple addition of the numbers. He hoped that the future information would be more distinct, even though it were less learned, than the fractional scale of Mr. Drummond.

thought that he had some reason to complain of the observations made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He had been informed, on coming into the House, that the papers were not yet in the hands of the Members, but that they would be ready in a very short time, and be delivered as soon as possible. At that time there were about fifty copies in the Vote Office. With that information he (Lord J. Russell) might have been satisfied. But, as a matter of civility, rather than otherwise, he undertook to convey some of those papers to the right hon. Member, rather than to give him the trouble to obtain them for himself, or wait until he should receive them according to the forms and usage of the House. He did not know in what way the right hon. Gentleman might wish those things to be done, but it was not very encouraging to others to take the trouble of giving information as soon as it came into their hands. The right hon. Gentleman was displeased that Mr. Drummond had not confined his calculation to the mere addition of the numbers. But it was not the fact, that the mere, addition would have given the result which it was the object of the calculation to obtain. The addition could not possibly give the relative proportion of the towns in respect to the population and the assessed taxes together. If the hon. Gentleman supposed that it would, he must not have visited the schoolmaster very lately.

would not detain the House from the debate on the Reform Bill by protracting the present conversation. But he would take an opportunity of proving, that the mere addition would have given the result ssought, quite as satisfactorily as Mr. Drummond had expressed himself in his fractional formulæ and then he trusted the noble Lord would be satisfied that his schoolmaster was more skilful than the noble Lord's. He felt fully justified in complaining that the papers had come down so late, for he had himself inquired at the Vote Office without obtaining them, and the irregular thrusting them into his hands just as the debate was about to begin, he could not consider as any thing like private civility or public decorum.

said, he was sorry to interpose a moment's delay before the Debate on the Reform Bill commenced; but with the consent of the noble Lord opposite, he was going to put a question upon a matter totally unconnected with Reform. He should not put this question now, if it did not involve a point (as it appeared to him) of considerable constitutional importance, the elucidation of which ought not to be postponed. However, in order to avoid, as far as he could, the possibility of a discussion, he should abstain from making any observations except such as were necessary to render the matter intelligible. He referred to that loan, which was called the Russian Loan. The original circumstances under which that loan was entered into, it was unnecessary for him to detail; but it would be remembered by the House, that, in the year 1815, we contracted with the king of the Netherlands, and the emperor of Russia, to pay the interest upon a proportion of that loan, which amounted in the whole to upwards of two millions. An Act of Parliament was accordingly passed, which authorised the Treasury to continue the payment of the interest, conformably to our engagement. In order to ascertain whether we were bound, consistently with law, to continue that payment, it was necessary to understand precisely what was the nature of our engagement. The original amount of the loan was 25,600,000 Dutch guilders, which was rather more than 2,000,000l. sterling; and we had consented to pay the interest of one-third of that sum. But an express engagement was entered into, that we should not be called upon to pay the interest after the possession and sovereignty of the Belgian provinces should be severed from the kingdom of Holland. He apprehended that the possession and sovereignty of those territories had been for a considerable time past so severed. On the 21st of June, in the present year, in the Speech delivered to Parliament, his Majesty recognised the right of the people of Belgium to make their own internal regulations, and to settle the government of their country according to their own views. Therefore, on the 21st of June, his Majesty admitted the de facto separation of the two kingdoms. Now, what he wished to ask the noble Lord was, whether directions had been given for the payment of the interest upon the Dutch loan up to the present day, or to the next time when it would become payable; and, if not, whether he did not consider it important to obtain the sanction of Parliament to the payment, if it was to be continued? On the policy of continuing the payment he said nothing; but, in conformity with the letter and spirit of the law, he conceived that there was no authority in the Treasury to continue it.

said, that he did not mean, at the present moment, to enter into the discussion of the subject of the loan, but it was necessary for him, in answering the question of the right hon. Gentleman, to say a very few words with respect to the treaty. The treaty, as the right hon. Gentleman had truly stated, stipulated that the money was to be paid by England for Russia, so long as the Netherlands should be united to Holland. But the House would recollect, that it was necessary to refer to other parts of the negotiation, in order to understand the meaning and spirit and the clear object of the treaty. By it the king of the Netherlands and the king of Great Britain were to pay a certain proportion of the interest and principal of the Russian loan to the emperor of Russia, so long as the Netherlands should continue united with Holland. This agreement was made with the emperor to prevent any attempt at the separation of those countries. The whole of the correspondence and negotiations proved, that this was the principle. The question which came before his Majesty's Government for consideration was, whether the circumstances under which the separation had taken place, absolved this country, in honour and justice, and in conformity to the spirit and etter of the treaty, in holding back from Russia the payment of the interest? And what were the circumstances under which the separation took place? Was it our desire to call upon Russia to take steps to prevent the separation? The contrary was quite notorious. And would it, then, be consistent with the honour of this country to have taken advantage of the separation to refuse to Russia the payment of the interest on the loan, when it was clearly in accordance with the wishes of this country that the separation took place, and when we could not impute any blame to Russia on account of that separation? This appeared to his Majesty's Ministers to be the fair view of the question; but, not content with their own judgment, they had referred the matter to the law officers of the Crown, and they were of opinion that we were bound to continue the payment. These were the simple facts of the case. This was the view which his Majesty's Ministers took of it, and they felt that the Treasury should be empowered, as usual, to continue the payment.

said, the noble Lord had entirely misunderstood him. He was not considering whether it was consistent with the honour and good faith of the country to continue the payment, but whether it was consistent with the law. He wished to know whether the Exchequer was warranted by the Act of Parliament in issuing the public money; and he entreated the attention of the noble Lord and of the House to the subject, and begged them to consider whether Parliament ought to separate without giving an express sanction to the proceedings of his Majesty's Government.

said, that although what he had stated as to the views of his Majesty's Government referred to equity, and not to strict law, yet, when he stated that the law officers of the Crown had been required to give their opinions, and that, as the Act of Parliament which had been referred to them quoted the words of the treaty, he considered, therefore, that the law officers of the Crown had declared, that we were still bound by the treaty, and consequently he was of opinion that he had fully answered the question of the right hon. Gentleman. He had also stated the grounds upon which it appeared to his Majesty's Government that it was bound by law, and consequently justified in making the payment.

did not wish to appear captious; but really the matter seemed to him so clear, and at the same time so important, that he thought it better to state fully his views at once, than afterwards to turn round upon his Majesty's Ministers, and make an accusation against them:—The Convention said "It is understood and agreed between the high contracting parties, that the said payments on the part of their Majesties the king of the Netherlands, and the king of Great Britain, shall cease and determine, should the possession and sovereignty of the Belgic provinces at any time pass or be severed from the dominions of his Majesty the King of the Netherlands, previous to the complete liquidation of the same." The Act of Parliament said, that the payments should continue only so long as the engagements entered into in the Convention were continued. Now, the sovereignty of the Belgian provinces had passed away from the king of Holland more than six months ago, and the debt had not been liquidated. Whatever honour or policy, therefore, might dictate, he doubted that the Exchequer had authority to continue those payments.

supposed, that many Gentlemen in the House conceived, as the right hon. Gentleman did, that as soon as the possession and sovereignty of Belgium passed from the king of Holland, the payments were to be at an end; and he had no hesitation in avowing, that he had entertained the same impression originally, and had mentioned it to an hon. Gentleman, a Member of that House, and to the King's Advocate, who was also consulted. The House would feel, that it would be extremely inconvenient to enter into a legal argument at that time; but he would say, that not only was his first impression removed by more mature deliberation, but though he had entered into the consideration personally desirous of finding the Crown relieved from the liability, yet, after looking at the course which the negotiations had taken, in order to ascertain the due construction of the treaty, and after giving the subject the most attentive consideration, he and his hon. and learned friends had formed the unanimous opinion, that neither in law nor equity, nor still less in honour, was there the slightest doubt that both parties meant the passing away of the possession and sovereignty of Belgium from Holland by some external force; that a separation by any internal cause or mutual agreement was never contemplated; and that, consequently, the obligations of the treaty continued in full force. The obligations of the treaty continuing in force, so, he thought, did the Act of Parliament, which was founded on, and recited it, as the right hon. Baronet had stated. He should be able to defend his view of the subject when an opportunity regularly offered.

conceived, from the wording of the Convention, and of the Act of Parliament, as they had been read to the House by his right hon. friend, and in which it was expressly stated, that in the event of any separation between Belgium and Holland, this country was no longer liable to the interest of the loan; he was most fully of opinion, that the Treasury was not authorized to continue the payment after the separation.

said, it appeared that the first impression of the Attorney General was that which any man, with ears to hear, and understanding to comprehend, must at once see to be the true construction of the Act; but that at last he came to an opinion founded solely upon the equity of the case and the honour of the Crown—["No, no" from the Attorney General.] He certainly understood the result of the hon. and learned Gentleman's observations to be, that his new impression was formed as well with a view to the equity of the case, as to the honour of the Crown. It was not equity or honour that was now the proper subject for the consideration of the House. If it had been intended that the Convention should continue, it would have been so expressed. If the honour of the Crown was pledged beyond the Convention, he was sure the House and the country would wish, that the honour of the Crown should become the bond of law. But any man who heard the Convention read, must see that it admitted of no two conclusions; and, which made the case still stronger, it had been found necessary to frame an Act of Parliament for the purpose, which embodied the words of the Convention. How was it possible that a Minister of the Crown should issue the money of the public to perform an engagement to which the country was in no degree liable? It was said, that a separation from internal causes was not meant—but why, if that were the case, did not the Convention state it?

said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, must surely either not have heard what he said, or he must have misunderstood him altogether; because he had declared, in the most distinct and positive manner, that the law officers of the Crown, had no doubt whatever as to the legal responsibilities which the treaty in question imposed upon the Government; and when it should become necessary to explain the grounds upon which this opinion was formed, he had not the smallest doubt whatever, that the House would give their approbation to the course which the Ministers had pursued.

said, that he did not wish to prolong the discussion; but he could not help remarking, that there were two points on which the Attorney General had not satisfied him in the answer which he had given to the observations of the right hon. Baronet. The hon. and learned Member had certainly reverted to the opinions which he and the other law officers of the Crown had come to on the subject of this treaty. Now, what he wished to know was, whether that opinion was formed as to the obligation which was imposed on the Crown to continue to fulfil the stipulations of the treaty, and to issue the necessary sums for payment out of the Treasury, or whether the law officers of the Crown were of opinion that the Exchequer had the power to issue money without an order for that particular purpose from Parliament? With the first the House had nothing to do; but, in the second case, they had every thing to do with the payment—for if the Exchequer possessed that right, then there was no use whatever in passing Acts of Parliament for the application of the public money. The next point upon which he felt altogether unsatisfied by the reply of the hon. and learned Member was, the remark which was made that two parties to the treaty had agreed that the engagement continued to be binding. Now, it happened that the treaty was tripartite—between England, Holland, and Russia; and each of those States bore an equal proportion of the debt; and he should, therefore, like very much to know from the hon. and learned Member, if the third party was equally consenting to the course which had been adopted by the other two parties with those parties themselves.

did not see how it was possible to explain the circumstances, without entering into a discussion of the whole subject; a proceeding altogether irrelevant and out of order at the present moment. All he could do at that time was merely to repeat his first observation, that there had been no notice whatever given of the intention of the right hon. Baronet on the other side to make any inquiries upon the subject of this loan; and having been called upon to give an opinion upon the construction of a treaty of considerable importance, he must say, that he was not, at that moment, prepared to say whether it was, or whether it was not, obligatory upon all these parties. But whenever the right hon. Gentleman opposite felt disposed to bring the question regularly before the House, he should be ready to meet it; till then he could not say whether his Majesty had ordered the issue of the money out of the Exchequer, or whether the Government had taken it upon themselves to pay it, for he could not, at that time, discuss the particular views which were entertained by Ministers on this head, and which had led them to act as they had done—a course of conduct which the right hon. Gentleman opposite would ever find them ready to defend.

merely rose to apologise to the hon. and learned Attorney General for having asked him a question upon a subject on which he certainly seemed to be considerably well informed, without, having given him notice. He certainly did think that he was entitled to ask the hon. and learned Member for an explanation of some parts of the speech which he had made in defence of the conduct of Ministers, and particularly on the two points which he had selected for explanation. He was sorry to have taken the hon. and learned Member unawares, but certainly, if that hon. Member was so taken, there were, or ought to be, other Gentlemen on the opposite bench who were well able to answer the questions on which he sought to be informed. The hon. and learned Attorney General had said, that two of the contracting parties in the treaty considered it as binding under the present circumstances—now, what he again would ask, as he really wished to be informed on the subject, was, what was the opinion of the third subscribing party? He thought also some explanation was due from the Gentlemen on the opposite side who were more immediately connected with the Exchequer.

said, that the Act stated in precise terms the power which the Treasury had with respect to the payment of the money, and it also clearly granted a power to his Majesty to comply with the engagements entered into with the subscribing parties to the treaty. If, therefore, the engagement continued to be legally binding, the money was consequently still payable, and the same Act which empowered the King to form this binding engagement also empowered the Treasury to pay the money. Both these provisions formed part of the stipulations of the existing treaty. As to the inquiry which the right hon. Gentleman had made, with respect to the consent of all the three parties to the treaty to view it as binding, all he had to say was, that undoubtedly, if two of those parties were willing to look upon it in that light, they were not to consider the other party as refusing if no such intimation was afforded them.

hoped, he should not be told, that the House of Commons was not the fit guardian of the public purse, or that, because it was unreformed, it was not a fit judge of the necessity for expenditure, and of the propriety of meeting that necessity. It was right, that the public should know—or if they did not know, it was his duty to inform them—that an unreformed House of Commons had exercised as much vigilance over the expenditure of the public money as their successors, the reformed House of Commons, could ever do; and he thought the public owed no small debt of obligation to the right hon. Baronet for having introduced the subject of the present discussion, because it was his opinion that the Government had committed a flagrant breach of the law; and he could find no other expression in which to clothe his thoughts upon the subject. It might be very right in an equitable point of view, looking at the question as an abstract matter of honour and equity, that the Government should pay the money; but even if the honour of the country be implicated in its payment, was it not for the House of Commons to judge of that question of honour? and if it were found to be binding, was it not the peculiar province of the House of Commons to make that honour good, and to sanction the payment of the money? This was a matter of the very highest importance, and one which every Member of that House was deeply interested in. He did not consider the hon. and learned Member opposite to have gone the length of stating it to be his opinion, that the payments which the Government had taken upon itself to make, were due by the letter of the treaty. He, however, did not rightly understand whether the hon. Member meant to say, that the honour of the country was so involved as to render it binding on the Government to continue to fulfil the treaty, or whether he meant to say, that the treaty itself continued to be legally binding, and that the payment was made in conformity to the letter of the treaty: but this he would say, that no one who had read that treaty would venture to make the assertion, that the Government was still bound legally to continue to make the payments. He asserted, that by the letter of that treaty the Government was not bound. When his hon. and learned friend introduced the honour and equity of the country into this discussion, he took into his hands a province not belonging to the law officers of the Crown, and which any law officer of the Crown, who knew his duty would have rejected. If the Law Officers of the Crown had given an opinion upon what affected the honour and equity of the country, then their opinion was not worth the paper on which it was written. He must, therefore, say, that the hon. and learned Member had arrogated to himself the right of forming and delivering an opinion upon a case which, when it was sent to him, he ought to have returned to the place whence it came, unanswered; the more particularly if the opinion which he had formed was, that the country was not legally bound, but bound only in honour, to continue to act under the stipulations of the treaty, as if they had never been infringed upon. The noble Lord (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) would, he hoped, suffer him to request his Lordship to suspend all future issues of money from the Treasury in payment of any further sums under this treaty. He did not know whether the noble Lord would consent to suspend those issues, for he seemed to say, that the payments were in strict conformity to the Act of Parliament; but looking at the treaty as it stood at present, he was of opinion, that every one of the payments which had been made since the treaty was infringed were direct breaches of the law; and he said this, not knowing if the propriety of making those payments had or had not been submitted to the consideration of his Majesty's law officers: but the Government had been so eager to press on the Question of Reform, to the entire exclusion of all other business, that he was very much inclined to believe that the payments were made as a matter of course, without any inquiry or consultation whatever. The hon. and learned Member had said, that his original opinion was the same as that of the right hon. Baronet, and that, on looking at the equity of the case, he had been induced to change that opinion. Now he (Sir Charles Wetherell) was inclined to think, that the original opinion was the best, and that the course which the hon. and learned Member ought to have adopted, when the correspondence which passed between the contracting Powers, previous to the settlement of the treaty, was sent to him to peruse, in order that his judgment might be clearer and his information more correct, was to have returned the correspondence, and to have said to the Ministers, "I am not the proper person to consider what is meant by the protocols, nor to decipher the equity of the case by perusing a correspondence on the subject of this treaty." He ought to have looked over the treaty itself, and that alone; and upon that document ought his legal opinion to have been formed. The hon. and learned Member, in looking over the correspondence, probably found an argument here, and an explanation there, which he was pleased to apply to the treaty, and by which he, probably, explained its meaning to himself. If so, he made the treaty out to be a treaty of omissions; and in doing so, he changed from his character of Attorney General into that of a diplomatist, who is endeavouring to read in a treaty what is not contained there. It might, perhaps, turn out that the honour of the country was involved in the strict observance of this treaty, even under the altered state of the parties concerned; and if so, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would lay on the Table of the House the correspondence which passed, and by which a case could be made out, authorising Parliament to add to the treaty, and continue the payments, such a course would not be objectionable; but, in the mean time, he must beg to ask, if it was in the power of the law officers of the Crown to introduce stipulations into a treaty which had no existence there, merely for the purpose of obviating the necessity for applying to Parliament to grant the Government the means of altering the treaty, and of acting up to the intention as well as the strict letter of legal obligation which was imposed upon the country when it was contracted? The law officers of the Crown seemed, however, in this instance to have clothed themselves in a panoply of chivalry, and to have volunteered an opinion as to the honour and equity of making payments, whilst they ought to have stuck to the mere question of law. He could not help again expressing it to be his firm opinion, that in making the payments under this treaty, after the stipulations had been altogether infringed upon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had acted as illegally as the law officers of the Crown had advised inconsiderately.

said, that he could only repeat what he had said from the first, that he was not called upon for any opinion upon the equity of the case; and he thought he had stated this so clearly, that no distortion of imagination could have misrepresented or misunderstood him. When he said that the treaty was binding on the contracting parties, he meant to say, that such was the legal construction which the subscribing parties themselves came to.

observed, that the hon. and learned Member had described such to be the construction of the treaty by two of the subscribing parties, but he had not given any reply to the question which he had put to him, with respect to the construction which was put on the treaty by the third subscribing party.

said, in rising to second the Amendment moved by his noble friend, he was most desirous to draw the attention of the House to the real provisions of the Bill, of which hon. Members could only judge by examining into the details, as in those details were contained the very essence—the principle of the Bill. No doubt it was eminently democratical, much more so than the last, and therefore it had the decided approbation of Mr. Attwood, of the Birmingham Union, and of several other Unions throughout the country. If the Bill were not as democratic as it really was, the Government would have been bound to answer for it to the Political Unions, with which they had been in correspondence, as well as to certain Members in that House. He should be as happy as any man to consider the Bill with every spirit of conciliation, and with as much good temper as he could discuss any subject having for its object what he considered to be the overthrow of the Constitution. But it was the natural and honest sensation of the heart to express strongly what it felt warmly. In the repeated Bills which were brought before the House there was no defined principle, unless, indeed, a principle of wide, unnecessary, and dangerous innovation, unless a principle of making the Political Unions the masters of the country could be considered such. The only basis he could discover on which the present Bill was built, was an endeavour to elevate the democratic over the landed interest of the country. When he heard the Ministers state the necessity of diminishing the usual number of Members constituting the House, he in vain had asked their reasons for the reduction; but as they altered their opinions from Session to Session, it was but fair to imagine they had no other reason for acting as they had done, than the mere wanton love of innovation, and the effects of these repeated changes had been, to bring forth the most preposterous claims. It appeared as if the Government wished to have a bank (of Members) in hand that others might draw upon it; and so it happened, for the Scotch and Irish Representatives, finding the Government had a few Members to give away, immediately made their applications, and said they would not be satisfied without a fair share of the stock in hand. Mr. O'Connell particularly; he begged pardon for having made use of the name of an hon. Member who was absent; but Mr. O'Connell said, that he would not be satisfied unless Ireland had fifteen Members, in consequence of the stock which the Government at last avowed they had to dispose of. Now if the Government had no such bank, neither the Scotch nor Irish Members could ever have made any such demands as they had made. Agitation now prevailed in Ireland to a most alarming extent; the people there had entered into a confederacy, not merely upon the subject of procuring additional Members, but for the redress of what they were pleased to call other grievances, and he begged leave to ask the noble Lords opposite, if such a state of things was not calculated to produce considerable danger to the State? The condition of Ireland had been produced solely by the supineness and misconduct of the Government. Then, as to the census of 1821, hon. Gentlemen opposite never would hear of making any other than that the standard of the population by which the elective franchise was to be governed; over and over again they were urged lo adopt the more correct standard of 1831; but no, they were inflexible. And yet on this occasion they had come round to the standard of 1831, which for the first time they had now agreed to consider as the most equitable and most just. There were no less than seven editions of schedules A and B, all differing from each other—a large family, but no likeness between any two of them. Why change the constituency of A and B? All changes excited alternate hopes and fears; and why have one borough or class of boroughs dead to-day and restore them to life the next day? It was said that the first ten boroughs in B were to have the right of electing two Members each, and out of the bounty of the noble Lord they were now to have that right continued to them which was formerly so very unjustly to be taken away. Why, it really appeared as if the noble Lord were in a dream, and had said, "I'll give to each often boroughs in schedule B an additional Member, beside the two to which they were before entitled." And thus it would appear as if these ten boroughs were to have three Members each instead of two. He was glad they had got rid of the Riding Commissioners, but only because they were to have the Report of the Commissioners, a species of information which he was most desirous of seeing. He must complain that he never could obtain the information which he coveted during the course of these discussions, although he did not complain of any want of courtesy upon the part of the noble Lord, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but yet it must be clear, that on a question of so much importance as the present every information in the power of Government to grant should be freely given to Members of that House. He now begged to call the attention of the House to the manner in which the various interests of the country would be affected by the measure before them. Out of the total number of boroughs at present in existence, there were about eighty-seven that were to be partially or wholly destroyed; and in those which were to remain, a new and uniform constituency was to be created, to operate with the various descriptions of the present electors. According to the Bill as it stood at present, it took away from what he should call, by way of distinction, the conservative interest of the country, about 144 Members, as appeared by an examination of the particulars. There were two for Weymouth, 112 from schedule A, and thirty from schedule B. On the other hand it was necessary to look at the increase of the popular interest: forty-four Members had been added to it by means of schedule C, of whom eight were to be from the metropolitan districts, and nineteen by means of schedule D, all of whom were open to the objection that they were bestowed on places where there must be a contest for the single Member: on the whole it appeared there were to be sixty-three Members given to the manufacturing interests, and what was there to set against this on the part of the agricultural interests? Two new Members were added to Yorkshire, two to Lincolnshire, eight to as many counties, on the principle of their returning three each (a plan particularly objectionable, because it made a distinction between electors where none had previously existed); three were added to the Welch counties, one to the Isle of Wight, and fifty according to schedule F, making altogether sixty-six Members, who, it was said, would be returned by the agricultural interest. When the first Bill was introduced by the noble Lord, it was held out as a boon to the agricultural interest, that their influence in the counties would be strengthened by taking out of the county Representation the freeholders resident in towns. That was provided for in the first Bill; but in the fifth Bill (for they were now occupied in the sixth Bill) it was altered, and the Bill now before them, the sixth Bill, following the example of the fifth, contained no such provision. It appeared by it, that all persons who occupied houses of a certain value in towns which did not return Members of their own, were to vote for the county, and what was worse than this, all freeholders under 10l. annual value in the towns to be enfranchised, as well as those who now returned Members, were to vote for the counties, and not for the towns in which their freeholds were situated. He feared the number of these in several instances would be found so great as to be an over-match for the agricultural interests, particularly in those counties where there were a considerable number of manufacturing towns, and that a part, at least, of these sixty-six Members must be abstracted from the agricultural, and placed to the account of the manufacturing interest. The effect of giving the freeholders and copyholders and leaseholders in towns the right of voting for counties would be, that such towns as Birmingham and Coventry for example, would invariably carry the county election. It was necessary for the House, before it agreed to adopt such a Bill, to look forward and see what would be its consequences when passed. Let them take Birmingham for an example. Already political combinations and unions had been established and organized there; the masters and operatives had a common interest in agreeing to depress the agricultural and to exalt the manufacturing interests; and the time was not far distant when the House would see these bodies usurping the powers of the executive government. They would exercise a control utterly incompatible with good and impartial government, and the result must be, they would form bodies in the State which it would be found impossible to break down or dissolve. The House of Commons would ultimately be the Representatives of such Political Unions; it would then assume the whole executive authority, to which every other must succumb. If the noble Lord and the Cabinet had really and sincerely wished to preserve the balance of the agricultural and manufacturing; interests, they should, while giving additional Representatives to large towns, have confined the right of voting in the freeholder, copyholder, and the leaseholder to the towns and boroughs where their property stood. They would then not have been driven to the 10l. householder alone, but would have had a more diversified and a much better constituency for the towns, and the agricultural interest would not have been completely overwhelmed and sunk. This was done by the former Bills, and yet in the two last it had been altered. Why was the resident in Coventry to be thrown into the county Representation? There could be no object in such an arrangement which he could discover but that of depressing the agricultural and elevating the manufacturing interest. The freeholders of London were to be thrown into the county of Middlesex. Why? They possessed no such right now, and upon what necessity did they require it? He could account for it in no other way, and until better reasons were shewn to him he should continue to believe, that it was done with the design and for the single purpose of crushing and keeping down the landed interest. There was the case of Horsham. The freeholders of Horsham were to vote for the Rape of Bramber, while Brighton, which at present possessed no other influence than as a large town voting by its freeholders in the county at large, and to which they were about to give Members, was to be left with its non-resident and small freeholders voting for the county, and its householders voting for the town. What reason could there be for this in common sense but that which he had suggested? And if it had not been done for that reason, then it must have been done from a mere wanton desire of change, without any reason or principle whatever. And let the House consider that they were thus about to throw all the large towns, as well those which already possessed a franchise of their own as those to which the Bill was now to give it for the first time—that they were about to throw this overwhelming mass of influence upon the counties, not in their former strength, but divided and parcelled out into districts. Why the county voters of one considerable town would nearly form a sufficient number in themselves to swamp the agricultural voters. He begged the House also to mark, that while the measure thus operated upon the sixty-six agricultural Members, neither the landed proprietors, nor those connected with them, had any means of exercising the least influence upon the election of the sixty-three Representatives of the manufacturing towns. In addition to this, as he had already explained, there were to be 144 Members taken from the conservative interest, so that altogether there would be such an immense alteration in the relative numbers and description of Representatives, that the result of such a measure must inevitably be, that they saw there for the last time an assembly of English Gentlemen connected with the land, and enabled to speak the sentiments and the wants of that most important of all the interests in the country. With regard to the right of voting in counties, as far as he understood the complicated arrangements made by the Bill, he found that the clause relating to 50l. tenants at will having a right to vote was embodied in it. This, although he did not deny that it was an improvement generally, only shewed, that so far as the framers of the Bill were concerned, they had no fixed principles for their guidance. But with respect to another innovation in the county franchise, he entertained a strong objection; he meant to that part of the clause respecting forty-shilling freeholders, which was last session adopted in haste, but which now appeared to have been retained after deliberation, and which did not allow a vote to a forty-shilling freeholder unless of inheritance. He knew that this was intended to strike at sham and fraudulent votes. He was convinced, however, that it would not effect that object, while it would effectually take away from many an honest freeholder a right which he and his forefathers had possessed from the time of Henry 8th; and this would be done, too, by a measure professing to extend the rights of the people. He knew that it was necessary to take precautions against fictitious votes, but let it be done in a statesmanlike and masterly manner, and not by striking a random blow in the dark, which only did injury where it was not intended to fall. Let them not, in attempting to remove an excrescence, cut away the whole healthy limb. He considered the alterations in the qualification for towns and boroughs to have left all the difficulties of that part of the subject untouched. He was always of opinion that if such a qualification was to be taken at all, rent would be the best test if they could get at it, because the real value of a thing was "just as much as it would bring." The alteration respecting the payment of rent, however, was easy to be understood when they saw how the noble Lord's efforts had been appreciated by Mr. Attwood and the persons whom he addressed. The Bill was not so good for the landlords as the last, but, by the rule now taken, every house in the kingdom upon which a claim to a vote was founded must be surveyed and valued every year; so that, if the surveyors did not meet and send up an address of thanks to the noble Lord, they would be the most ungrateful body of men that ever lived under a benign Government. He would assert, that under the Bill every house, counting-house, and warehouse in the country, the occupier of which claimed to vote, must be regularly and officially valued before that claim could be decided, and the voter placed on the register. He would assert this, and he would defy the noble Lord to contradict it. In the former editions of the Bill this right was intended to apply to dwelling houses alone, but now it would apply generally. Let the House consider what a scene of confusion and ridicule must be presented by these annual exhibitions of scheming and litigation. According to the provisions of the clause he was then reviewing, it would also be necessary that an annual valuation of all sorts of premises should take place, for what was said to be of the annual value of 10l. in 1831, in consequence of dilapidations might not be judged to be so much worth in 1832. What would be the effect of that upon the minds and the habits of the people? Let them imagine the grave judges appointed to preside over such inquiries sitting to try the value of a contested house. Suppose the occupier of a cottage, paying 6l. or 7l rent, coming forward and swearing that his gooseberries and currants, and what he was likely to get by letting lodgings, made his house of 10l. a year value, the Judges turning to the Jury, and saying, "Well, gentlemen, you have heard the evidence; and if you think that the gooseberries and currants are worth so much, then you must decide that this is a fit and proper person to exercise the important right of voting for Members of the Legislature." Why, what must be the effect of such a mockery but to shake in the minds of the people that respect which they had always hitherto preserved for the proceedings and decisions of justice. But, besides this, such a system would open a door to one of the worst crimes that can afflict any community. He believed there would be more perjury committed upon the proceedings under this Bill in one year than upon all other subjects open to the oath of man. A man would endeavour to satisfy his conscience by whispering to himself, "well, after all it was only a matter of opinion, I have been swearing to." This was a danger, the risk of which ought not lightly to be incurred; but here, for the sake of a fancied theory, which was not, after all, sanctioned, a great practical grievance was introduced into society, for which no justification could be assigned. It was required by the Bill, that a person claiming to be registered should give proof of having held a 10l. house for twelve months, and that he should have been rated to the poor; but what the amount of that rate was to be did not appear. It might be five shillings, or any other sum, for no amount was specified. The payment of the rent was no longer to be required. The voter had been relieved from the claim of the landlord, he believed, at his suggestion. But it was proper that the people should know the purposes the Bill was still made to serve. It was to be a help to the revenue, by compelling the 10l. householder to pay up his taxes before he could vote. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was labouring in his vocation when this expedient was devised, and he had no doubt that the assessed taxes would benefit by the regulation that the voter must first produce the receipt of the tax-gatherer. It was proper that the people should know these things, in order that they might not come upon them by a very disagreeable surprise, when their demands should have been complied with, and the Reform Bill passed. Another difficulty would be found in many places where houses of 10l. value were not rated to the poor's rates, but by certain local acts the landlord was to pay the rates upon them. They were told that such parties could claim to be put upon the rates under this Bill, but the Bill did not specify the time when they were to be so put on, nor the particular times their rates were to be paid, and therefore their opportunity of voting at any ensuing election within the year would be lost. He now came to the most important and most objectionable alteration which had been made with reference to this new qualification. There was a provision now introduced which was not in the former Bill; nay, which had been studiously excluded by the noble Lord, according to his own declaration. But the schedules had been diminished, and the noble Lord thought that something must be done on the other side to keep up the popularity of the measure. In the former instance it was required that the holding should have been uniform; now it was permitted that a succession of holdings of the same value of 10l. should be the title to a vote. By this change the character, of the new constituency was to be improved by letting in weekly lodgers; and not only weekly lodgers, but persons who had held a succession of lodgings in different parts of the same town. He knew not how the examination of a claim of this sort was to be worked before the Registrar, or how it was to be ascertained whether the lodgings had or had not been occupied. When a man represented himself as having lived now in this alley, then in that court, and then in another place, he should like to know how the Judge was to get at the proof of the statement. Were the officers to be sent over the town to the different lodging-houses to seek it. All sorts of evasions and tricks would be resorted to for the purpose of making votes. In the manufacturing towns they would have the masters possessing themselves of houses of the lowest description, a nominal rise in wages would take place, and the difference would be returned by a higher rent, which would be made the ground of claiming a vote, and the real value of the house could never be got at. The proper title of the Act when passed would be "An Act for Encouraging the growth of 10l. houses." It would not increase their growth in size or in comforts, but in number. As sure as he addressed that House they would greatly increase for political purposes. They would diminish in intrinsic value, because a fictitious value would be given to them. In the manufacturing districts particularly, these voters would be created in such numbers, and they would be so extended, as to outweigh the influence of all other classes of voters combined. He believed, that nothing could be so injurious as this introduction of a uniform class of voters, instead of a system which embraced all classes, from the highest to the lowest. The noble Lord had not, indeed, adhered to his theory of uniformity in the present Bill as in the preceding ones. But in what direction had he diverged from it? Why, having already reduced the qualification to the lowest amount at which property could be recognized at all, he admitted the lowest of the existing rights to be preserved, and which would exclude no man whatever from the elective franchise who had a house of any description over his head. The effect of all this must inevitably be, to cause the entire destruction of the aristocratic interest throughout the country. In whatever direction they looked, they saw the country cursed with political unions and combinations, and every species of agitation resorted to for the purpose of inflaming the minds of the lower orders of the people against the institutions of the State. He entreated Gentlemen to consider the circumstances which surrounded and threatened them. If the result should be to bring upon them the calamities of a civil war, in one country, and a servile war in the other, it became that House to pause before they divested property and the institutions of the State of their best support—the power of their natural protectors. How must the agitation and excitement of the lower classes be aggravated by the annual recurrence of the proceedings connected with the register under this Bill? The effect would be the same as that of having a general election throughout the country every year. And to what must that confusion and excitement naturally lead? The people would soon perceive that the forms and the expense to which they were put to acquire their vote every year were greater than those attending the exercise of the right once in seven years; and they would then very naturally demand, that having incurred the trouble and expense of acquiring the elective right, they should also be allowed to exercise it at the same time. Thus they should have forced upon them that measure of Annual Parliaments which he believed both sides of the House were most anxious to avoid. The effect of the power given to Overseers in parishes must be to convert them into political officers, and to give them a power wholly incompatible with their ordinary duties and station. Then there was one circumstance, not, he believed, very generally known, connected with this part of the measure, to which he thought there were the strongest possible objections. The expenses incurred by the Overseers in this business of preparing the register, were to be charged upon the poor-rates. He thought this was an unjust and most absurd regulation. They were daily hearing complaints of the insupportable pressure of the poor-rates, and yet they were to be burthened further with a matter of this kind. He should like to know how this would be received by those contributors to the poor-rates who did not obtain votes by the measure. Then let them look at the appointments of Barristers to preside in the Courts for settling the claims connected with the register. These Barristers, who were to be paid at the rate of five guineas a day, were to be appointed by the Lord Chancellor, a political officer! Why was this? why was not the Lord Chief Justice, who had no political duties, to make this selection; and why was he to be passed over, against all precedent, and the appointment given to the Lord Chancellor? The effect of such an arrangement was clear enough: it would make these Registrars one and all political officers. He spoke not of the intention, but of the effect he had a right to speak; and he would say, that, in conjunction with the new Bankruptcy Law, the giving these appointments to the Lord Chancellor would place a greater share of political power in the hands of that high officer than had ever been possessed by any individual whatever. It was ridiculous to suppose, that political influence would not be exercised by the mode of registration which it was proposed to adopt. What was to prevent the country Attorney from contriving with the Overseer to frame registers to suit their own views? But, besides this, the former had a particular interest to serve, by promoting litigation, for whatever costs were incurred were to be paid out of the poor-rates. He wished to make no charge against the Assistant Barrister, who would be selected from what he knew to be a most honourable body of men, but the natural effect of holding the Court for Registration every year would be, to create a periodical source of litigation, and to keep men's minds in a continued state of ferment, without leading to any practical good. With regard to the office of Overseer, there would no longer be a difficulty in getting persons to serve that office. There would be hereafter as much canvassing for that office, as heretofore for that of Member of Parliament. That would, in fact, be the struggle of parties, for whichever could get hold of the Overseer would obtain such an advantage over their opponents as to render a contest hopeless. And must not the effect of all this be to poison the minds of the lower orders, who would believe that relief was doled out to them according to political views, and with the design of making partisans? The principle of registration altogether was, in his opinion, useless, and contrary to the tastes and habits of the people. The experiment had already been made by Lord Stanhope's Act. But that was not compulsory, and it became a dead letter. It gave all voters the privilege of registering their votes if they wished it, but they did not choose to take the trouble, preferring to have their votes challenged and scrutinized at the place of election, and the Act was never resorted to. But after they had seen this roving Commission going through the country year after year, keeping the public mind in one continual ferment, and diverting every person's attention wholly to political subjects, then, after six years of this sort of preparation, supposing the Parliament to last so long, then came the election itself, and he would undertake to show, that that operation would still be as full of difficulties as any other part of the system. According to the noble Lord, indeed, they were to get through the election for a county in two days, and at no expense. But if there were to be fifteen polling-places open for two days, it was quite evident that such an election would be equal to one of thirty days' duration. He believed this regulation had been introduced with a view to prevent any voter having to go a greater distance than fifteen miles: now, he had no doubt, in some of these fifteen booths it would be necessary to have sixty or seventy persons employed, and this was to be done without expense. He had been informed, that the calculations of persons experienced in such matters, made the expense of bringing up the voters of a county under such a system so enormous, that it would be utterly impossible for any individual to meet it. He had now gone through the details of the measure, which, in his opinion, were so objectionable as to warrant the House in refusing its assent to the second reading. There was another portion of it, however, to which he objected wholly upon principle—he meant that which gave so many additional Members to the metropolitan districts. He saw great danger in throwing such power into the hands of that class of the inhabitants of the metropolis who would exclusively return the Members. He feared that by so doing they might be giving a political preponderance to the metropolis which would create that state of things so often described in a neighbouring country, when it had been said, that Paris was France. He hoped to God, that he should never live to hear it said—and if he did, he was convinced, that it could only be in consequence of passing this Bill—that London was England. If such a state of things should unhappily arrive he asked Gentlemen to consider well to what it must necessarily lead, when they saw the disposition now manifested in the metropolis to combine, and to assemble large bodies of people for the purpose of overawing the deliberations of that House—when they saw that the King's Proclamation, forbidding the meetings of such bodies, was followed by the proclamations of other parties upon the same subject. He had himself seen, when the King's Proclamation was posted up near the Home Office, another proclamation posted by its side, printed upon the same sort of paper, and in the same form, calling upon the people to obey the Proclamation of the Government, because the bloodthirsty boroughmongers desired to lead them into a plot, in order to shed their blood. He would not stop to defend the opponents of this measure from the charge of desiring to shed the blood of the people, when it was notorious, that in their opposition they had constantly been maintaining and defending the people's rights. He was now only speaking of the sort of influence attempted to be exercised over the people; it showed the animus that prevailed, when an individual issued a Proclamation, and called upon the people to yield obedience to a Proclamation issued by the King's Government. He knew the time could not be distant when the people of England having recovered from their temporary excitement, would recur to the examination of the motives which had actuated the opponents of measures like the present, and they would then perceive, that however much the popular voice might have been opposed, it had only been done with a view to benefit the people, and to advance the prosperity of the country. He hoped that the symptoms to which he had alluded, and the results to which they naturally tended, would have their just weight upon the House; and that before agreeing to this measure, its most minute details would be examined with the strictest care, for, once adopted, they could never be got rid of. They ought to remember, that if the measure of last Session had unhappily passed into a law, none of the obnoxious provisions contained in it, could ever have been repealed, but from which his Majesty's Government had now receded. It was of the last, and deepest importance, that they should look at the consequences of what they were going to do. What was a reformed House to do? It could not continue to do merely that which they themselves had done. If they retraced their steps and followed the same course, they would disappoint and lose the confidence of the people; because, after the expectations which had been excited, to continue to follow the old road would, in their view, be doing nothing. Other measures must be taken, and the first of these would be the adoption of all that had been abandoned in the last Bill. If the noble Lord and his colleagues were fortunate enough to be returned by the new constituency, they would be compelled to support the adoption of those measures, because they were their own offspring, and had only been rejected by the firmness of their opponents. And let it not be supposed, that the beginning of this new career was remote and afar off. A new Parliament must be assembled upon the passing of the Act, for the noble Lord had told them that such would have been a necessary consequence of the passing of the last bill. Why this should be he knew not. If ever there was a popular Parliament—he meant so far as the other side, the majority, was concerned—surely this was it. It had granted the people everything that they desired; and why, having been the donors of this greatest of all boons—why, after executing the deed of gift, they were to be called upon to die at once, in order that the parties benefitted should come into immediate enjoyment, he could not conceive. This, however, they were told was to be the gratitude of the Reformers to their friends, and the House must look forward to the next meeting of Parliament as the era of a new system, the consequences of which would rest eternally upon their memories. He wished the principles of his opposition to the Bill to be distinctly understood. He was not opposed to all Reform because he was opposed to this particular measure. On the contrary, he would not object to a moderate and rational Reform; but there was nothing of moderation or of reason in the Bill of the Government. He felt that under the circumstances of the country, some Reform was necessary. By the conduct of his Majesty's Government, the question had been placed in a different position to that which it had ever before occupied. When the Catholic Question was taken up by the Government, he felt, that it must be carried, and therefore his only object was, to see that it was carried with the least possible danger to the Constitution. With respect to Reform he had a similar feeling. His own opinions on the subject had undergone no alteration, but he felt that some change was demanded in consequence of the proceedings of the Government; and he was ready to adopt any measure not destructive of those institutions, which in his conscience he believed the great body of the people were sincerely desirous to see maintained. He was not opposed to a rational Reform, but he was opposed to so vast and sweeping a measure of destruction as that brought forward by the Government. That measure would destroy all the old barriers of our established institutions, while at the same moment it introduced an immense force in hostility to them. No country had ever advanced to the state in which England at present stood, and adopted such a measure as that proposed, without, falling into ruin and anarchy. If the Bill passed, the Constitution of this country would stand alone, without a parallel in the history of nations. And no man could tell how a new Constitution would work in this country. The wisest man that ever lived would be unable to tell what would be the situation of this country should this Bill come into active operation. The House ought to bear in mind, that the Bill immediately before it was only a part of the contemplated measure of Reform. There were bills relating to both Scotland and Ireland to succeed this. No one who thought there ought to be a Reform in the Representation of Scotland, but would say, that that Reform ought to be an extensive one; and if it was so—why in itself it would be a most serious alteration in the Constitution of Parliament. Again, with respect to Ireland: the Government was not content with the existing Representation of that country, although there was certainly some reason to believe that it was sufficiently popular. At the period of the Union, nomination boroughs were destroyed in that country, and the right hon. member for Waterford upon one occasion declared that the constituency of Ireland was as popular as it could be with safety to the empire. The Representation of Ireland, however, was to be rendered more democratic than at present; and, therefore, the House would do well to consider the whole measure, and not the particular Bill at present before it. They ought not to separate the Aristocracy from the other classes of the community; and to that result the present measure strongly tended. The House would best consult the interests of the empire, and the permanence of the Constitution, under which all classes of the people had known so much prosperity and happiness, by endeavouring to strengthen the bonds of union between all classes of the State. He was favourable to a moderate Reform; but he was not prepared to sanction a measure which would lead to the destruction of the Constitution of the country. Under these circumstances he should oppose the further progress of this Bill, and cordially second the Amendment.

said, he had listened to the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite with attention, and was glad to find that the question was not one of mere abstract principle, but whether a particular plan of Reform was that best adapted to the admitted wants of the country. The hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down, had not attempted to show that no Reform was required, but instead of debating the principles of the Bill, which was the usual course at this stage of the proceedings, he had entered into a long, and in some degree, technical examination of its details, and of the probable effects of some of its clauses. This formed a pretty correct criterion of the feeling which prevailed on the subject of Reform. One of the chief arguments which had been urged against the Bill, was, that it tended to weaken the just influence in the House of Peers, as one of the branches of the Legislature, and to exalt the democratic institutions of the country at the expense of the aristocratic. He believed, and was prepared to prove, that it would have no such effect. The position in which the other House now stood, amply bore out his assertion: the last bill had been rejected on that pretence, and what was the result? Were the Aristocracy now safer than they were before—had any check been imposed on the progress of the democratic spirit—or had they not fed the popular fervour to a fiercer heat by the dangerous fuel of continued excitement? A great difference must be made between the excitement which grows naturally out of a constitution, and that excitement which opposes it. Popular agitation was a necessary ingredient in free countries, but in good governments it was worked off by legitimate means. In America there was no danger in the ferment of opinions—free elections furnished them with natural vents. But that excitement which now belonged to us—the excitement that paralysed trade—that benumbed industry—that ripened towards universal poverty and universal discontent—that produced the desire, and, if not soon allayed, might produce the necessity, for National Unions and Political Associations—that excitment was fraught with the darkest and the most irremediable evils to that country in which it was long suffered to exist; above all, if that country were a commercial country—above all, if it had supported its greatness by artificial systems—above all, if credit had become so vital a part of its prosperity, that every popular mistrust was the inevitable forerunner of a stagnant trade and a crowded bankrupt list. Why was Manchester more democratic than Liverpool? Because Manchester was unrepresented. Let England be as liberal to Manchester, and let that manufacturing town have Representatives—give a free vent to opinion in both, and if hereafter they were startled by the mighty course of that opinion, they would, at least, be no longer endangered by its explosion. Hon. Gentlemen had said, that Reform would operate against the three aristocracies of all civilised countries—the aristocracy of talent, of the Church, and of rank and wealth. Now, with regard to the first, it was said that men of retired and cultivated habits of mind, not being able, either from peculiarities of disposition or circumstances, to brave the chances of a popular election, were returned to this House by means of a close borough; and it was argued from such premises that close boroughs were necessary for their return. He waived altogether those long theoretical disquisitions which had been so copiously indulged in on this point; yet what, he asked, was the practical result of free elections abroad? Look to America; there, of all countries, elections were the most popular, and there, of all countries, that class of men he alluded to found the readiest access to political honours. Look even to their Presidents, for in one memorable instance they would absolutely find the man who had attained the chief magistracy, the highest honour the republic could bestow, was an academician and a professor of letters. In France, he allowed, elections were not popular, but there, at least, they had no close boroughs; yet most of those who had distinguished themselves in politics—M. Thiers, M. Guizot, M. Bignon—belonged exactly to those classes whom the hon. Member declared close boroughs could alone return to the national councils. Were they then to believe that France and America were more alive than England to ability and merit? if so, they had the remedy—a high and noble remedy—in their own hands: that remedy did not consist of any system of corruption and perjury; it had no charm that attached to the walls of Old Sarum; that remedy lay in a general education of the people. If the people could not appreciate knowledge, diffuse knowledge and they would do so. Were hon. Members afraid of the power of the democracy? Instruct the people as to their interest, and they would transfer at once the power of the democracy to the power of intelligence. Hon. Gentlemen next said, the Church was to suffer, and he for one was prepared to assert that the Church must undergo some great and efficient reform. But necessary reforms, called for by the different constitution of society, appeared to certain hon. Gentlemen, who were attached to things as they are, and who could not be made to believe that the world progressed although they themselves stood still, or even went back, appeared to them to signify and be the harbingers of destruction. But was the Church in no danger now? He would tell them, that in one memorable night a far deeper wound had been inflicted on the ecclesiastical establishments of England than twenty years would have effected, if that Bill had been passed, and the people had been brought to see in the defenders of the Church the supporters also of the people. Was the church in danger now—why Because it was unpopular. Unpopularity was the only internal source of danger to any constitutional authority. The institutions the people began to believe inimical to their interests, began at the same time to fall. If they would render the ecclesiastical establishment safe, they must render it beloved. It was the same with the aristocracy of rank. Popularity was the condition of its existence. The hon. member for Calne had proved, in his speech in the last Session, that the laws which the public refused to acknowledge fell at once into disrespect and disuse. It was the same with persons as with laws—with the legislative assembly as with the legislative enactment. Opinion gave its only sanction to both. When hon. Members accused the Reformers of attempting to strip the Aristocracy of power, did they mean to say, that their object was to deprive them of the love, and esteem, and gratitude of their countrymen? On these foundations their power rested. Did those who advocated Reform desire to undermine these? No; that task was reserved for the Anti-reformers. It was they who weakened the Aristocracy, by alienating from them the hearts of the people. Would you preserve them? Identify them with the people. Would you strengthen their interest? Make their interest and the interest of the people one and the same. When William 4th came to the throne, kings were not popular. Who now ever hears a word said against a monarchy? Black books were not published about the King. He was not calumniated, for his people would not purchase such trash; they would scout the calumny. Why was this? Because the King had conciliated public opinion. Let the Aristocracy do the same, and they would, in their turn, put down calumny and clamour at once. For himself individually, he cared not how soon he might be called upon to relinquish his seat in that House. But he trusted, at least, that he should be present to witness the full accomplishment of this great measure. He knew that he should see that House faithful to its former pledges, but he trusted he should also see another assembly wisely and magnanimously reversing that decree which had separated the members of it from the people. He said wisely; for, till within the last two years, why was it that no foreigner could enter this country without surprise at the almost servile respect for the Aristocracy that pervaded all classes? Why was it that the English nobles were, as a body, the most powerful in Europe? Was it not because in the great crisis of past history, instead of opposing, they had led the way to popular institutions? They blended themselves socially and legislatively with the people; they grew with the growth of that people, and strengthened with their strength. He said wisely, because, if they would recur to their former powers they must recur to their former popularity. He said, too, magnanimously as well as wisely reversing their past decree; for whatsoever consequence might attend that reversal—whatsoever might be the future operations of that public mind which they could only temper, not prophetically anticipate, nor permanently direct, the reversal of that decree, the concession to this Reform, would stand forth, at least to posterity, a great memorial; that, in the hour of danger and trial, the Peers of England did not persist in dividing themselves from that people, with whom hitherto their proudest distinctions had been associated; but that, conscious of the justice of their high cause, they intrusted it willingly to that free tribunal of opinion, before which falsehood is indeed condemned, but truth is eternally triumphant.

Sir, I can assure you, that since this subject was last before the House, I have given it the fullest and most anxious reconsideration, and I am anxious to state, very briefly, the grounds which have confirmed my first opinions, and which make it impossible for me, according to my conscience and conviction, to vote for the second reading of this Bill. I trust I may be allowed to say, in the first place, that I have no personal interest at stake. In the town which I represent, and which is placed in one of the schedules, I do not possess a single house; I do not possess an acre of land within 100 miles of it. Property in boroughs I have none; and as to the doubt whether I may or may not be returned in a reformed Parliament, I am quite sure that neither with me, nor with any hon. Member on this side of the House, would such a consideration weigh more than a feather in the scale, in comparison of the immense importance of the national objects now before us. Sir, I quite agree with my noble friend (Lord Porchester), who opened the debate this evening with so much eloquence, that this Bill contains considerable improvements as compared to the last. I hail with particular pleasure the diminution of schedule B—the abandonment of the principle of population in schedule A, and the change in the Parliamentary Commissioners. Sir, we may certainly congratulate ourselves on this side of the House at having been the first to propose, and the most strenuous to urge, those alterations which his Majesty's Ministers now think it their duty to adopt. Sir, I do not throw this out as a taunt; I only wish to Heaven that they had carried these amendments much further. For, Sir, though these amendments, suggested as they were by ourselves, go far enough for much party triumph, were we disposed to indulge any such, they do not, I conceive, go far enough for much national advantage. I still see in this Bill what I considered the most mischievous leading principle of the last—the 10l. qualification. My noble friend has objected to it this evening as too low; but, Sir, I object, not only to its amount, but also to its uniformity. I say, that so immense is the variety of interests in this great country—so manifold its different relations, that if even you can prove to me that this 101. qualification is the proper one for Leeds, I am sure, from that very circumstance—I require no other proof—that it is not the proper one for Greenwich or Devonport. Sir, I consider this l0l. qualification as a monopoly of Representation for one single class—the middle class; and the exclusion from Representation of both the highest and the lowest. It excludes the highest (in a great measure, at least), by the destruction of not only the nomination boroughs, but of the corporations, whether close or open. It excludes the lowest by the future disfranchisement of the pot-walloppers and the inferior scot-and-lot voters. It is true that, under this Bill, the hereditary rights of freemen are again confirmed to them, in some cases at least, (for freemen by gift or marriage are still, it seems, proscribed); but it is not less true, that neither freemen, pot-walloppers, nor the inferior scot-and-lot voters, will be created or suffered to exist in any one of the new constituencies. The real fact is, that, under the present system, all places are not represented, but all classes are; and that, in the new system, every place will be represented, but only one class. I will even go further, and assert, that this Bill will in reality convert our ancient monarchy into an aristocracy of 10l. householders [no, no.] Sir, those, hon. Gentlemen who contradict me may be assured it is no slight advantage that the poor man should remember, as he does at present, when he finds himself without a vote, that there are places, such as Coventry and Preston, where the right of suffrage is engrossed by the humblest and the lowest—that he should look upon his own exclusion not as an insult to his class, but only as a misfortune to his town. And, Sir, can it be wise, at a time when agitation is so rife amongst the lower orders, when so many and such artful attempts are made to stir them up to violence—can it be wise, I say, to neglect to form any bond whatever between them and the Representation of the country? Can it be wise to place before them this 10l. qualification as an insuperable barrier—hic murus aheneus eslo—beyond which all franchise is denied? And, Sir, on the other hand, if it be unwise to exclude the lowest orders, is it much wiser to exclude the highest—to shut out, as by this Bill you will do in a great measure, from the Representation of the country those who have the greatest stake in its prosperity? This measure, Sir, seems to me to lop off both head and feet from the body politic; and I no more believe that this system of Representation can be permanent and thriving, than I do that the human body could stand and live after such an amputation. Sir, there is one point on which I differ altogether from the hon. and learned member for St. Mawes (Sir Edward Sugden). He gave it as his opinion, that there is no precedent to be found in history of such a Constitution as this Bill will produce. Now, Sir, with all possible respect for the information and judgment of the hon. Member, and great distrust of my own, I yet venture to think that modern times have displayed examples of very similar systems; and that these may serve not only as close parallels from their details, but as awful warnings from their consequences. In several countries has this monopoly of Representation by the middle classes been tried; in all it has signally failed. What was it but this very cause—the centralization of power in a single class—that overthrew the first French constitution accepted by Louis 16th—the same alluded to on the first night of this Session by the right hon. member for Tamworth? It proceeded on this very principle; it stripped of power the nobles, who had hitherto engrossed it—it denied all power to the peasants and workmen, who hitherto, it is true, had none, but who had been taught anxiously to expect and to demand it. What was the result with both? The nobles withdrew in disgust from the capital, of any control on the government, some retiring to their country domains, many more flying across the frontier, and enlisting under the banners of Condé, as invaders of their native land? What was the effect on the poor? Disappointed in their expectations of political power—overrating the sweets of that power from the very fact that they had never been allowed to taste them—and disliking their new aristocracy of shopkeepers much more than their old aristocracy of gentlemen, they rose in tumult; the vast mass heaved and flung off the superstructure upon it, because they only felt its burthen and forgot its efficacy to steady and secure! Sir, I ought perhaps to apologise for bringing before this House what my noble friend has truly called an exhausted topic—the instance of France. I know that it has been so frequently introduced in these discussions as to have nearly become trite—and yet, after all, what is triteness but another name for truth? But there is another country whose name has never, as far as I remember, been mentioned in all these debates, and to which I am particularly anxious to call the attention of the House. Its Constitution is but very slightly studied and very little understood amongst us, but on examination it will be found to bear a most striking analogy to the new Constitution framed by the present Bill. I allude to Poland. Sir, it is usual in this country to consider the old Polish constitution as a pure and unmixed aristocracy—it was so, but an aristocracy of precisely the same number of persons in proportion as the new constituency of householders under the present Bill. This is no random assertion; it depends upon positive calculation. In the year 1765, Jaucourt computed the population of Poland at 5,000,000; there might then be about 120,000 voters. Now these 5,000,000 bear precisely the same proportion to 120,000, as our 20,000,000 to our half million of householders. It may, perhaps, be urged in answer, that in Poland the throne afforded no sufficient counterpoise to popular violence, being elective in its tenure, and curtailed in its prerogative. But let it be remembered that if the king had less power, the nobles had a great deal more; they had serfs and vassals—they had feudal and military jurisdiction—they had immense domains: so that, on the whole, the aristocratic force—a force compounded of the king and the great proprietors—may be considered to have been much the same in Poland as in England. I really would entreat hon. Members to look into the details of the old Polish constitution, and, amidst many lesser differences, they cannot fail to be struck with the general resemblance I have mentioned. And, Sir, let them at the same time look to the result. Where is the Polish constitution now? In the dust! Where is the Polish nation itself? Under the yoke! Such were the consequences of Representation confined to a single class! Sir, I will not weary the House with going into the case of Spain, though I may just mention, that there, under the Cortes, the same cause will be found to have operated, and the same result to have followed. But I do think that these examples should make us pause. We do not sufficiently appreciate the difficulty—the immense difficulty—of combining at the same time perfect security of property with perfect freedom of action. It is this combination that constitutes a really good government. Why, then, if this combination could be really effected by mere paper enactments—if it did not lean on long prescription and happy accident as its pillars, why should all these foreign nations have so signally failed in their endeavours to attain it?—and why should we hope to succeed better than they did in their trade of constitution-mongering? I remember Montesquieu observes, that an old law, even if bad, may often—such is the value of popular habit and veneration—be preferable to a new one, even if good. Depend upon it, Sir, that a new law, as has been truly stated, is nothing but ink and parchment—it has no hold on public opinion; men feel

"A breath may make it as a breath has made;"

but that an ancient long-tried institution, of which we do not see the reason [hear, hear]—yes, Sir, of which we do not see the reason, but of which we feel the benefit—that such an institution is the best fitted for true, and rational, and lasting liberty! But, Sir, I am well aware that, in the present state of things, we cannot rest entirely on ancient prescription. I only say that we should rest on it as much as possible. I am well aware, as the hon. Member who spoke last (Mr. Edward L. Bulwer) has truly stated, that there must be some change—that our Representative system must be enlarged. So fully convinced am I of this necessity, that on the 1st of March last I was fully prepared, if the noble Lord, the Paymaster of the Forces, had brought forward anything in the shape of what I thought a moderate, and, still more, a final measure—I was fully prepared—I should have cared not whether I had stood alone, or acted with others—to have given that measure my support. Sir, I would even have gone beyond my idea of something moderate, had I seen any reasonable hope of something final; for, Sir, mischievous as I think any violent project of Reform would be in its attainment, I think it, if possible, a thousand times more mischievous still in its agitation. Look to the state in which that agitation has brought the country! Can any man look to the present state of the country without dismay? Can any man deny that this state has been mainly brought about by the agitation of Reform? Sir, under such circumstances, I readily admit that we ought to make great sacrifices—to go great lengths—for the sake of a final settlement. But, then, Sir, that settlement must be final, or have a fair prospect of being final—it must be a peace, not a truce. And here, Sir, lies my next great objection to the Ministerial measure—that it holds out no prospect at all of being final. It rests on no solid foundation, and only abolishes one set of anomalies to introduce another in their place. I object to the whole principle of proportion—I object to schedule B and schedule D. How, Sir, can we reasonably hope for permanency to a measure which, proceeding on the principle of proportion, gives to Malton, for instance, with its 900 houses and 4005 inhabitants, two Members, and only one to the 6,000 houses and 36,000 inhabitants of Bury? Then, again, as to counties—the Bill attempts to establish a sort of proportion for counties; yet it gives Yorkshire six Members (two to each Riding) while it leaves two to Huntingdonshire, for instance, the county mentioned by my noble friend this evening, although, on any principle of comparison you please, population, houses, taxes, wealth, or industry—the real proportion between those two counties is not as two to six, but as two to twenty. Now, Sir, I wish to know what satisfactory answer can be given—what strong position of defence can be assumed—when, next year, the Radicals come down—and come down they will, by their own avowal—and with this Bill in their hands, summon us to strike off one or both Members from the borough of Malton or the county of Huntingdon? We shall then have given up prescription, and not acquired sound reason in its place. Sir, to this it is usually answered, that the argument comes with a very bad grace from this side of the House, because the measure could not have been framed so as to meet this objection, without making it much more Radical and sweeping. But, Sir, I say it could, by proceeding on a different principle. Why adopt the principle of proportion at all, if the framers of the Bill are not prepared to follow it up to its fair extent? If they had proceeded on a different principle—if they had but looked to practical grievance, rather than theoretical anomaly—if they had first enfranchised the large towns, and then, to make way for this increase, had struck off an exactly equal number of small boroughs—why then they might have expected to frame, not only a moderate, but a final Reform. They would have an answer ready for the Radicals, when they ask us next year for the surrender of Malton or of Huntingdon. On this principle we might then say—you have no right to complain of disproportion; we never proposed to establish proportion. On our principle, you have no right to claim any further disfranchisement, unless you are prepared first to shew us some large constituency actually in want of Representation. Such would be our answer then—but what can be our answer now? Then again, Sir, why denounce all nomination as a thing to be utterly rooted out? How can it be utterly rooted out, stopping short of the American rule-of-three? Observe how much further than your Bill you will be carried by the very principles of your Bill—by the very arguments of its defenders. It is easy to say where nomination begins, but who will tell me where it ends? It begins at Gatton and Old Sarum; but does it not, in some cases, extend even to cities and to counties? Is not, or was not, at least, the city of Chester under complete nomination? What shall we say of one Member for the county of Derby—of both for the county of Westmorland? Now, Sir, let me not be misunderstood. I quite admit that, under the new Bill, nomination will exist in only a few cases—that we shall keep quite clear of what I may think the benefits, and of what others may think the evils of the system—but I am now speaking as to the chance of this measure being final; and I ask how, if we once denounce nomination as an abominable nuisance to be immediately abated, how next year are we to answer the Radicals when they call out for the still-untouched Malton, or the half-surrendered Calne? I, therefore, maintain that this measure has no character of stability about it. I am at issue on this point, as on many others, with my hon. friend, the Member for the borough I last mentioned (Mr. Macaulay), whom I cannot mention without bearing my humble tribute of admiration to his eloquence, and who, I remember, applied himself, in his very first speech this year in March last, to prove that this was likely to be a final measure. Sir, I admired his speech, but I own I think example still more forcible than argument; and if I wanted an answer to the argument of my hon. friend, I could find it in his own example. In that first speech he gave it as one of his principal reasons for approving of the Bill, that it would put an end to the cry for the ballot—that it would satisfy the people, and induce them to forbear from insisting on that most mischievous measure. Now, Sir, after this declaration, what was my surprise to see lately an address to the embryo-constituency of Leeds signed "Thomas Babington Macaulay," stating the writer to be favourable to that very ballot, which, in supporting the Ministerial measure, it had been one of his chief objects to stifle and avert! Sir, I do not mention this as any taunt of inconsistency, but I derive from it an important argument, that if the revolutionary torrent can really carry so far along with it a mind so powerful and cultivated as that of my hon. friend, what effect will it not have upon the weak and uninformed? Then, again, Sir, my hon. friend, in that, his first speech, declared that the House of Lords would never have anything to fear from its privileges,—which were complained of and aimed at by none, except, indeed, he said, "some crazy Radical, whom the boys point at as he walks along the streets." That, Sir, was in my hon. friend's first speech for Reform; and let me request the House to compare it with his last, on the motion of the noble Lord, the member for Devonshire (Lord Ebrington) last October—I will not quote particular passages,—I will appeal to the recollection of the House—and such speeches are not easily forgotten—whether that last speech seemed to proceed from the same man as from the first? Whether it was not, from beginning to end, one bitter philippic against the House of Lords?—whether it did not rather seem to emanate from that very Radical whom the imagination of my hon. friend had just before conjured up as an object of contempt and abhorrence. Sir, I shall now conclude the observations with which I have troubled the House, I fear, at too great length. I shall only say, that if the people should still continue in their present delusion—and I believe it to be a most fatal and complete delusion—a blindness as grievous as Providence ever inflicted on a guilty nation, I shall respectfully bow to the public opinion, but I shall not swerve from my own. If this should be the last Parliament in which I shall ever sit—if these should be the last words I shall ever address to you, I shall feel proud to the last moment of my life of having sat in an assembly which I revere so much more highly than its probable successor, and of having raised my voice, however feebly, in support of principles which I have deliberately chosen and shall stedfastly maintain.

I can assure my noble friend, for whom I entertain sentiments of respect and kindness, which no political difference will, I trust, ever disturb, that his remarks have given me no pain, except, indeed, the pain which I feel at being compelled to say a few words about myself. Those words shall be very few. I know how unpopular egotism is in this House. My noble friend says, that, in the debates of last March, I declared myself opposed to the ballot, and that I have since recanted, for the purpose of making myself popular with the inhabitants of Leeds. My noble friend is altogether mistaken. I never said, in any debate, that I was opposed to the ballot. The word ballot never passed my lips within this House. I observed strict silence respecting it on two accounts: in the first place, because my own opinions were, till very lately, undecided; in the second place, because I knew that the agitation of that question, a question of which the importance appears to me to be greatly over-rated, would divide those on whose firm and cordial union the safety of the empire depends. My noble friend has taken this opportunity of replying to a speech which I made last October. The doctrines which I then laid down were, according to him, most intemperate and dangerous. Now, Sir, it happens curiously enough, that my noble friend has himself asserted, in his speech of this night, those very doctrines, in language so nearly resembling mine, that I might fairly accuse him of plagiarism. I said, that laws have no force in themselves, and that, unless supported by public opinion, they are a mere dead letter. The noble Lord has said exactly the same thing to-night. "Keep your old Constitution" is his argument; "for whatever may be its defects in theory, it has more of the public veneration than your new Constitution will have; and no laws can be efficient, unless they have the public veneration." I said, that statutes are in themselves only wax and parchment, and I was called an incendiary by the Opposition. The noble Lord has said to-night, that statutes in themselves are only ink and parchment; and those very persons who reviled me, have enthusiastically cheered him. It is, evidently, not from the principle which I laid down, but from the application of the principle that they dissent. But, Sir, it is time that I should address myself to the momentous question before us. I shall certainly give my best support to this Bill through all its stages; and in so doing, I conceive that I shall act in strict conformity with the resolution by which this House, towards the close of the late Session, declared its unabated attachment to the principles and to the leading provisions of the first Reform Bill. All those principles, all those leading provisions, I find in the present measure. In the details there are, undoubtedly, considerable alterations. Most of the alterations appear to me to be improvements; and even those alterations which I cannot consider as being in themselves improvements, will yet be most useful, if their effect shall be to conciliate opponents, and to facilitate the adjustment of a question which, for the sake of order, for the sake of peace, for the sake of trade, ought to be not only satisfactorily, but speedily settled. We have been told, Sir, that, if we pronounce this Bill to be a better Bill than the last, we recant all the doctrines which we maintained during the last Session; we sing our palinode; we allow that we have had a great escape; we allow that our own conduct was deserving of censure; we allow that the party which was the minority in this House, and, most unhappily for the country, the majority in the other House, has saved the country from a great calamity. Sir, even if this charge were well-founded, there are those who should have been prevented by prudence, if not by magnanimity, from bringing it forward. I remember an Opposition which took a very different course. I remember an Opposition which, while excluded from power, taught all its doctrines to the Government; which, after labouring long, and sacrificing much, in order to effect improvements in various parts of our system, saw the honour of those improvements appropriated by others. But the members of that Opposition had, I believe, a sincere desire to promote the public good. They, therefore, raised no shout of triumph over the recantations of their neophytes. They rejoiced, but with no ungenerous joy, when their principles of trade, of jurisprudence, of foreign policy, of religious liberty, became the principles of the Administration. They were content that he who came into fellowship with them at the eleventh hour should have a far larger share of the reward than those who had borne the burthen and heat of the day. In the year 1828, a single division in this House changed the whole policy of the Government with repect to the Test and Corporation Acts. My noble friend, the Paymaster of the Forces, then sat where the right hon. Baronet, the member for Tamworth, now sits. I do not remember that when the right hon. Baronet announced his change of purpose, my noble friend sprang up to talk about palinodes, to magnify the wisdom and virtue of the Whigs, and to sneer at his new coadjutors. Indeed, I am not sure that the members of the late Opposition did not carry their indulgence too far—that they did not too easily suffer the fame of Grattan and Romilly to be transferred to less deserving claimants—that they were not too ready, in the joy with which they welcomed the tardy and convenient repentance of their converts, to grant a general amnesty for the errors or the insincerity of years. If it were true that we had recanted, this ought not to be made matter of charge against us by men whom posterity will remember by nothing but recantations. But, in truth, we recant nothing—we have nothing to recant.—We support this Bill—we may possibly think it a better Bill than that which preceded it. But are we therefore bound to admit that we were in the wrong—that the Opposition was in the right—that the House of Lords has conferred a great benefit on the nation? We saw—who did not see—great defects in the first Bill? But did we see nothing else? Is delay no evil? Is prolonged excitement no evil? Is it no evil that the heart of a great people should be made sick by deferred hope? We allow that many of the changes which have been made are improvements. But we think that it would have been far better for the country to have had the last Bill, with all its defects, than the present Bill, with all its improvements. Second thoughts are proverbially the best, but there are emergencies which do not admit of second thoughts. There probably never was a law which might not have been amended by delay. But there have been many cases in which there would have been more mischief in the delay, than benefit in the amendments. The first Bill, however inferior it may have been in its details to the present Bill, was yet herein far superior to the present Bill—that it was the first. If the first Bill had passed, it would, I firmly believe, have produced a complete reconciliation between the aristocracy and the people. It is my earnest wish and prayer that the present Bill may produce this blessed effect; but I cannot say, that my hopes are so sanguine as they were at the beginning of the last Session. The decision of the House of Lords has, I fear, excited in the public mind feelings of resentment which will not soon be allayed. What, then, it is said, would you legislate in haste? Would you legislate in times of great excitement concerning matters of such deep concern? Yes, Sir, I would: and if any bad consequences should follow from the haste and the excitement, let those be held answerable who, when there was no need of haste, when there existed no excitement, refused to listen to any project of Reform—nay, who made it an argument against Reform, that the public mind was not excited. When few meetings were held, when few petitions were sent up to us, these politicians said, "Would you alter a Constitution with which the people are perfectly satisfied?" And now, when the kingdom from one end to the other is convulsed by the question of Reform, we hear it said by the very same persons, "Would you alter the Representative system in such agitated times as these?" Half the logic of misgovernment lies in this one sophistical dilemma:—If the people are turbulent, they are unfit for liberty: if they are quiet, they do not want liberty. I allow, that hasty legislation is an evil. I allow that there are great objections to legislating in troubled times. But Reformers are compelled to legislate fast, because bigots will not legislate early. Reformers are compelled to legislate in times of excitement, because bigots will not legislate in times of tranquillity. If, ten years ago—nay, if only two years ago, there had been at the head of affairs, men who understood the signs of the times and the temper of the nation, we should not have been forced to hurry now. If we cannot take our time, it is because we have to make up their lost time. If they had reformed gradually, we might have reformed gradually; but we are compelled to move fast, because they would not move at all. Though I admit, Sir, that this Bill is in its details superior to the former Bill, I must say, that the best parts of this Bill—those parts for the sake of which principally I support it—those parts for the sake of which I would support it, however imperfect its details might he, are parts which it has in common with the former Bill. It destroys nomination; it admits the great body of the middle orders to a share in the government; and it contains provisions which will, as I conceive, greatly diminish the expense of elections. Touching the expense of elections, I will say a few words, because that part of the subject has not, I think, received so much attention as it deserves. Whenever the nomination boroughs are attacked, the opponents of Reform produce a long list of eminent men who have sat for those boroughs, and who, they tell us, would never have taken any part in public affairs but for those boroughs. Now, Sir, I suppose no person will maintain that a large constituent body is likely to prefer ignorant and incapable men, to men of information and ability? Whatever objections there may be to democratic institutions, it was never, I believe, doubted that those institutions are favourable to the development of talents. We may prefer the constitution of Sparta to that of Athens, or the constitution of Venice to that of Florence, but no person will deny that Athens produced more great men than Sparta, or that Florence produced more great men than Venice. But to come nearer home: the five largest English towns which now have the right of returning two Members each by popular election, are Westminster, Southwark, Liverpool, Bristol, and Norwich. Now let us see what Members those places have sent to Parliament. I will not speak of the living, though among the living are some of the most distinguished ornaments of the House. I will confine myself to the dead. Among many respectable and useful Members of Parliament, whom these towns have returned, during the last half century, I find Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Windham, Mr. Tierney, Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. Canning, Mr. Huskisson. These were eight of the most illustrious parliamentary leaders of the generation which is passing away from the world. Mr. Pitt was, perhaps, the only person worthy to make a ninth with them. It is, surely, a remarkable circumstance that, of the nine most distinguished Members of the House of Commons who have died within the last forty years, eight should have been returned to Parliament by the five largest represented towns. I am, therefore, warranted in saying, that great constituent bodies are quite as competent to discern merit, and quite as much disposed to reward merit, as the proprietors of boroughs. It is true that some of the distinguished statesmen whom I have mentioned would never have been known to large constituent bodies if they had not first sate for nomination boroughs. But, why is this? Simply, because the expense of contesting popular places, under the present system, is ruinously great. A poor man cannot defray it; an untried man cannot expect his constituents to defray it for him. And this is the way in which our Representative system is defended. Corruption vouches corruption. Every abuse is made the plea for another abuse. We must have nomination at Gatton, because we have profusion at Liverpool. Sir, these arguments convince me, not that no Reform is required, but that a very deep and searching Reform is required. If two evils serve in some respects to counterbalance each other, this is a reason, not for keeping both, but for getting rid of both together. At present you close against men of talents that broad, that noble entrance which belongs to them, and which ought to stand wide open to them; and in exchange you open to them a bye-entrance—low and narrow—always obscure—often filthy—through which, too often, they can pass only by crawling on their hands and knees, and from which they too often emerge sullied with stains never to be washed away. But take the most favourable case. Suppose that the Member who sits for a nomination borough, owes his seat to a man of virtue and honour, to a man whose service is perfect freedom, to a man who would think himself degraded by any proof of gratitude which might degrade his nominee. Yet, is it nothing that he comes into this House wearing the badge, though not feeling the chain of servitude? Is it nothing that he cannot speak of his independence without exciting a smile? Is it nothing that he is considered, not as a Representative, but as an adventurer? This is what your system does for men of genius. It admits them to political power, not as, under better institutions, they would be admitted to power, erect— independent—unsullied—but by means which corrupt the virtue of many, and in some degree diminish the authority of all. Could any system be devised, better fitted to pervert the principles and break the spirit of men formed to be the glory of their country? And, can we mention no instance in which this system has made such men useless, or worse than useless, to the country of which their talents were the ornament, and might, under happier circumstances, have been the salvation? Ariel—the beautiful and kindly Ariel, doing the bidding of the loathsome and malignant Sycorax, is but a faint type of genius enslaved by the spells, and employed in the drudgery, of corruption—

"A spirit too delicate

"To act those earthy and abhorred commands,"

We cannot do a greater service to men of real merit, than by destroying that system which has been called their refuge—which is their house of bond age; by taking from them the patronage of the great, and giving to them in its stead the respect and confidence of the people. The Bill now before us will, I believe, produce that happy effect. It facilitates the canvass; it reduces the expense of legal agency; it shortens the poll; above all, it disfranchises the out-voters. It is not easy to calculate the precise extent to which these changes will diminish the cost of elections. I have attempted, however, to obtain some information on this subject. I have applied to a gentleman of great experience in affairs of this kind—a gentleman who, at the three last general elections, managed the finances of the popular party in one of the largest boroughs in the kingdom. He tells me, that at the general election of 1826, when the borough was contested, the expenses of the popular candidate amounted to 18,000l.; and that, by the best estimate which can now be made, the borough may, under the reformed system, be as effectually contested for one-tenth part of that sum. In the new constituent bodies there are no ancient rights reserved. In those bodies, therefore, the expense of an election will be still smaller. I firmly believe, that it will be possible to poll out Manchester for less than the market price of Old Sa-rum. Sir, I have, from the beginning of these discussions, supported Reform on two grounds, first, because I believe it to be in itself a good thing—and secondly, because I think the dangers of withholding it to be so great, that even if it were an evil, it would be the less of two evils. The dangers of the country have in no wise diminished. I believe that they have greatly increased. It is, I fear, impossible to deny, that what has happened with respect to almost every great question that ever divided mankind has happened also with respect to the Reform Bill. Wherever great interests are at stake there will be much excitement, and wherever there is much excitement there will be some extravagance. The same great stirring of the human mind which produced the Reformation produced also the follies and crimes of the Anabaptists. The same spirit which resisted the Ship-money, and abolished the Star-chamber, produced the Levellers and the Fifth-monarchy-men. And so, it cannot be denied that bad men, availing themselves of the agitation produced by the question of Reform, have promulgated, and promulgated with some success, doctrines incompatible with the existence—I do not say of monarchy, or of aristocracy—but of all law, of all order, of all property, of all civilization, of all that makes us to differ from Mohawks or Hottentots. I bring no accusation against that portion of the working classes which has been imposed upon by these doctrines. Those persons are what their situation has made them—ignorant from want of leisure—irritable from the sense of distress. That they should be deluded by impudent assertions, and gross sophisms—that, suffering cruel privations, they should give ready credence to promises of relief—that, never having investigated the nature and operation of government, they should expect impossibilities from it, and should reproach it for not performing impossibilities—all this is perfectly natural. No errors which they may commit, ought ever to make us forget that it is in all probability owing solely to the accident of our situation that we have not fallen into errors precisely similar. There are few of us who do not know from experience, that, even with all our advantages of education, pain and sorrow can make us very querulous, and very unreasonable. We ought not, therefore, to be surprised that, as the Scotch proverb says, "it should be ill talking between a full man and a fasting;" that the logic of the rich man who vindicates the rights of property, should seem very inconclusive to the poor man who hears his children cry for bread. I bring, I say, no accusation against the working classes. I would withhold from them nothing which it might be for their good to possess. I see with pleasure that, by the provisions of the Reform Bill, the most industrious and respectable of our labourers will be admitted to a share in the government of the State. If I would refuse to the working people that larger share of power which some of them have demanded, I would refuse it, because I am convinced that, by giving it, I should only increase their distress. I admit that the end of government is their happiness. But, that they may be governed for their happiness, they must not be governed according to the doctrines which they have learned from their illiterate, incapable, low-minded flatterers. But, Sir, the fact that such doctrines have been promulgated among the multitude is a strong argument for a speedy and effectual Reform. That government is attacked is a reason for making the foundations of government broader, and deeper, and more solid. That property is attacked, is a reason for binding together all proprietors in the firmest union. That the agitation of the question of Reform has enabled worthless demagogues to propagate their notions with some success, is a reason for speedily settling the question in the only way in which it can be settled. It is difficult, Sir, to conceive any spectacle more alarming than that which presents itself to us, when we look at the two extreme parties in this country—a narrow oligarchy above—an infuriated multitude below,—on the one side the vices engendered by power; on the other side the vices engendered by distress; the one party blindly averse to improvement, the other party blindly clamouring for destruction—the one party ascribing to political abuses the sanctity of property, the other party crying out against property as a political abuse. Both these parties are alike ignorant of their true interest. God forbid that the State should ever be at the mercy of either, or should ever experience the calamities which must result from a collision between them! I anticipate no such horrible event. For, between those two parties stands a third party, infinitely more powerful than both the others put together, attacked by both, vilified by both, but destined, I trust, to save both from the fatal effects of their own folly. To that party I have never ceased, through all the vicissitudes of public affairs, to look with confidence, and with a good hope. I speak of that great party which zealously and steadily supported the first Reform Bill, and which will, I have no doubt, support the second Reform Bill with equal steadiness, and equal zeal. That party is the middle class of England, with the flower of the aristocracy at its head, and the flower of the working classes bringing up its rear. That great party has taken its immovable stand between the enemies of all order, and the enemies of all liberty. It will have Reform: it will not have Revolution: it will destroy political abuses—it will not suffer the rights of property to be assailed—it will preserve, in spite of themselves, those who are assailing it, from the right and from the left, with contradictory accusations—it will be a daysman between them— it will lay its hand upon them both—it will not suffer them to tear each other in pieces. While that great party continues unbroken, as it now is unbroken, I shall not relinquish the hope that this great contest may be conducted, by lawful means, to a happy termination. But, of this I am assured, that, by means, lawful or unlawful, to a termination, happy or unhappy, this contest must speedily come. All that I know of the history of past times—all the observations that I have been able to make on the present state of the country—have convinced me, that the time has arrived, when a great concession must be made to the democracy of England—that the question, whether the change be in itself good or bad, has become a question of secondary importance—that, good or bad, the thing must be done—that a law as strong as the laws of attraction and motion has decreed it. I well know that history, when we look at it in small portions, may be so construed as to mean any thing—that it may be interpreted in as many ways as a Delphic oracle. "The French Revolution," says one expositor, "was the effect of concession." "Not so," cries another, "the French Revolution was produced by the obstinacy of an arbitrary government." "If the French nobles," says the first, "had refused to sit with the tiers état, they would never have been driven from their country." "They would never have been driven from their country," answers the other, "if they had agreed to the reforms proposed by M. Turgot. These controversies can never be brought to any decisive test, or to any satisfactory conclusion. But, as I believe that history, when we look at it in small fragments, proves any thing, or nothing, so I believe that it is full of useful and precious instruction when we contemplate it in large portions—when we take in, at one view, the whole life-time of great societies. I believe that it is possible to obtain some insight into the law which regulates the growth of communities, and some knowledge of the effects which that growth produces. The history of England in particular, is the history of a government constantly giving way—sometimes peaceably, sometimes after a violent struggle—but constantly giving way before a nation which has been constantly advancing. The forest-laws—the law of villen-age—the oppressive power of the Roman Catholic Church—the power, scarcely less oppressive, which, for some time after the Reformation, was exercised by the Protestant Establishment—the prerogatives of the Crown—the censorship of the Press—successively yielded. The abuses of the Representative system are now yielding to the same irresistible force. It was impossible for the Stuarts—and it would have been impossible for them if they had possessed all the energy of Richelieu, and all the craft of Mazarin,—to govern England as it had been governed by the Tudors. It was impossible for the princes of the House of Hanover to govern England as it had been governed by the Stuarts. And so it is impossible that England should be any longer governed as it was governed under the four first princes of the House of Hanover. I say impossible. I believe that over the great changes of the moral world we possess as little power as over the great changes of the physical world. We can no more prevent time from changing the distribution of property and of intelligence—we can no more prevent property and intelligence from aspiring to political power—than we can change the courses of the seasons and of the tides. In peace or in tumult—by means of old institutions, where those institutions are flexible—over the ruins of old institutions, where those institutions oppose an unbending resistance, the great march of society proceeds, and must proceed. The feeble efforts of individuals to bear back are lost and swept away in the mighty rush with which the species goes onward. Those who appear to lead the movement are, in fact, only whirled along before it; those who attempt to resist it, are beaten down and crushed beneath it. It is because rulers do not pay sufficient attention to the stages of this great movement—because they underrate its force—because they are ignorant of its law, that so many violent and fearful revolutions have changed the face of society. We have heard it said a hundred times during these discussions—we have heard it said repeatedly, in the course of this very debate, that the people of England are more free than ever they were—that the Government is more democratic than ever it was; and this is urged as an argument against Reform. I admit the fact; but I deny the inference. It is a principle never to be forgotten, in discussions like this, that it is not by absolute, but by relative misgovernment that nations are roused to madness. It is not sufficient to look merely at the form of government. We must look also to the state of the public mind. The worst tyrant that ever had his neck wrung in modern Europe might have passed for a paragon of clemency in Persia or Morocco. Our Indian subjects submit patiently to a monopoly of salt. We tried a stamp-duty—a duty so light as to be scarcely perceptible—on the fierce breed of the old Puritans; and we lost an empire. The government of Louis 16th was certainly a much better and milder government than that of Louis 14th; yet Louis 14th was admired, and even loved, by his people. Louis 16th died on the scaffold. Why? Because, though the government had made many steps in the career of improvement, it had not advanced so rapidly as the nation. Look at our own history. The liberties of the people were at least as much respected by Charles 1st, as by Henry 8th—by James 2nd, as by Edward 6th. But did this save the crown of James 2nd? Did this save the head of Charles 1st? Every person who knows the history of our civil dissentions, knows that all those arguments which are now employed by the opponents of the Reform Bill, might have been employed, and were actually employed, by the unfortunate Stuarts. The reasoning of Charles, and of all his apologists, runs thus:—"What new grievance does the nation suffer? What has the King done more than what Henry did—more than what Elizabeth did? Did the people ever enjoy more freedom than at present—did they ever enjoy so much freedom?" But what would a wise and honest counsellor—if Charles had been so happy as to possess such a counsellor—have replied to arguments like these? He would have said, "Sir, I acknowledge that the people were never more free than under your government. I acknowledge that those who talk of restoring the old Constitution of England use an improper expression. I acknowledge that there has been a constant improvement during those very years, in which many persons imagine that there has been a constant deterioration. But though there has been no change in the government for the worse, there has been a change in the public mind, which produces exactly the same effect which would be produced by a change in the government for the worse. Perhaps this change in the public mind is to be regretted. But no matter; you cannot reverse it. You cannot undo all that eighty eventful years have done. You cannot transform the Englishmen of 1640 into the Englishmen of 1560. It may be that the submissive loyalty of our fathers was preferable to that inquiring, censuring, resisting spirit which is now abroad. It may be, that the times when men paid their benevolences cheerfully were better times than these, when a gentleman goes before the Exchequer Chamber to resist an assessment of 20s. And so it may be, that infancy is a happier time than manhood, and manhood than old age. But God has decreed that old age shall succeed to manhood, and manhood to infancy. Even so have societies their law of growth. As their strength becomes greater—as their experience becomes more extensive, you can no longer confine them within the swaddling-bands, or lull them in the cradles, or amuse them with the rattles, or terrify them with the bugbears of their infancy. I do not say, that they are better or happier than they were; but this I say;—they are different from what they were: you cannot again make them what they were, and you cannot safely treat them as if they continued to be what they were." This was the advice which a wise and honest Minister would have given to Charles 1st. These were the principles on which that unhappy prince should have acted. But no. He would govern—I do not say ill—I do not say tyrannically; I say only this, he would govern the men of the seventeenth century as if they had been the men of the sixteenth century; and therefore it was, that all his talents and all his virtues did not save him from unpopularity—from civil war—from a prison—from a bar—from a scaffold. These things are written for our instruction. Another great intellectual revolution has taken place; our lot has been cast on a time analogous, in many respects, to the time which immediately preceded the meeting of the Long Parliament. There is a change in society. There must be a corresponding change in the government. We are not—we cannot, in the nature of things be—what our fathers were. We are no more like the men of the American war, or the men of the gagging bills; than the men who cried "privilege" round the coach of Charles 1st were like the men who changed their religion once a year, at the bidding of Henry 8th. That there is such a change, I can no more doubt than I can doubt that we have more power-looms, more steam-engines, more gas-lights, than our ancestors. That there is such a change, the Minister will surely find—if ever such a Minister should arise—who shall attempt to fit the yoke of Mr. Pitt to the necks of the Englishmen of the nineteenth century. What then can you do to bring back those times when the constitution of this House was an object of veneration to the people? Even as much as Strafford and Laud could do to bring back the days of theTudors—as much as Bonner and Gardiner could do to bring back the days of Hildebrand—as much as Villéle and Polignac could do to bring back the days of Louis 14th. You may make the change tedious; you may make it violent; you may—God in his mercy forbid I—you may make it bloody; but avert it you cannot. Agitations of the public mind, so deep and so long continued as those which we have witnessed, do not end in nothing. In peace or in convulsion; by the law, or in spite of the law; through the Parliament, or over the Parliament, Reform must be carried. Therefore, be content to guide that movement which, you cannot stop. Fling wide the gates to that force which else will enter through the breach. Then will it still be, as it has hitherto been, the peculiar glory of our Constitution that, though not exempt from the decay which is wrought by the vicissitudes of fortune, and the lapse of time, in all the proudest works of human power and wisdom, it yet contains within it the means of self-reparation. Then will England add to her manifold titles of glory this the noblest and the purest of all—that every blessing which other nations have been forced to seek, and have too often sought in vain, by means of violent and bloody revolutions, she will have attained by a peaceful and a lawful Reform.

would not enter into a comparison of the speech which the learned Gentleman (Mr. Macauley) had just made, with the speech which he had made on the same subject upon a former occasion. He found no fault with the remarkable change which had taken place in the language of the hon. and learned Gentleman; on the contrary, he hailed it with great satisfaction. Undoubtedly, the learned Gentleman had spoken in a very different tone to-night, from that in which he had formerly addressed the House. He (Mr. Croker) was glad to hear it; he was willing to receive the alteration as a proof of the improved opinions and corrected sentiments which the learned Gentleman had formed during the last two months. Nor was he surprised at the change, for the events of that period could hardly fail to excite serious reflections in every well-constituted mind. On the last occasion, the learned Gentleman had used a language, as he had then told him, utterly subversive of all order in society. He had recourse to declamation, which had little to do with the argument in hand, but which, nevertheless, might have had a great and dangerous effect upon the excited public mind. From the course the learned Gentleman then pursued, he had now retreated; and he thanked and applauded the learned Gentleman for his palinode, and hoped that others would benefit by the amendment. The learned Gentleman had begun by accusing the Opposition, and particularly his right hon. friend (Sir R. Peel), of having acted in a manner unworthy of himself, in expressing his gratification at the changes which his Majesty's Government had been compelled to make in the measure; while he, at the same time, refused his approbation to the measure, so changed. The learned Member had then drawn a picture of the different line of conduct pursued by a former Opposition, when his right hon. friends had changed their conduct with respect to Catholic Emancipation; and "why," said the learned Gentleman, "do you not accept the change you recommended, with the same approbation with which your own change was received by us, your opponents? The answer to that question was easy. That approbation would not have been withheld if his Majesty's Ministers had shown any desire to conciliate their opponents, if they had abated one jot of the evil principle of their measure of last Session, or even if they had shown any disposition to give up the obnoxious details of that measure, if they had abandoned any one of the provisions which endangered the Constitution. Had they changed any of those principles? No. They, themselves, boasted that they had in essentials changed nothing—conceded nothing. The parallel, therefore, which the learned Gentleman had attempted to draw between the opposition to the present, and the opposition to a former Government, did not hold. He would tell the learned Gentleman why the opponents of the measure had a right to reproach its authors for their conduct with respect to the former Bill. The opponents of the Bill introduced in the last Session of Parliament objected to the principle of the measure; but, when that Bill went into the Committee, they said to its authors, "If you mean to carry your own principle into effect, you are not taking the way to do so; you are showing, in some cases, the most flagrant partiality; and, in others, doing the greatest injustice." The antagonists of the Bill dealt with it in the Committee, not on their own principles, but on the principles of its authors. In the Committee they opposed it, not on the general principle of the Bill itself,—but— waiving, for the moment, that principle—on the case of each individual borough which it was attempted, unjustly even according to the principles of the Bill, to despoil of its rights. The opponents of the Bill had now this great triumph—the triumph of honesty, of integrity, of legal acuteness, and of constitutional doctrine—that there was hardly one single suggestion on which they had divided in the Committee in the last Bill, which the Ministers had not adopted in the present. When his right hon. friend (Sir R. Peel) had expressed an opinion, that the country ought to be grateful to the House of Lords for having saved it from the crude legislation of last session, he was met by the question, "Why the House of Lords had not consented to go into a Committee, where they might have removed what they considered the objectionable parts of the last Bill, and sent it back to this House so amended?" But was it to be forgotten that the noble Earl by whom that Bill had been introduced to the Lords had said, that no alteration whatever would be allowed? did he not expressly lay down as a principle that, relying on the House of Commons for support, the Bill was not to be altered? If, in that House, with their individual and local knowledge of the several boroughs, they had occupied weeks, nay months, in discussion, and yet had been unable to prevail upon the authors of the Bill to make a single alteration in it, what benefit could have been expected from a discussion of the details in the other House? Details with which the Members of that House must be completely acquainted, and in which the Prime Minister had dogmatically asserted, he would suffer no change. Had our examination, our exposure of the errors of the Bill, been such as to encourage the Lords to hope for any good from a similar process? Let him recall to the memory of the House, one or two circumstances of the proceedings in that Committee, which would show the shameless, and now avowed, disregard for justice, with which the fairest propositions were negatived—propositions now so confessedly fair that they were even adopted in the new Bill. Let it be remembered, that the opponents of the Bill contended, that, according to the principles of the friends of the Bill, Aldborough ought not to be in schedule B, but that it ought to be in schedule A. On a division, however, the numbers were, 149 to 64 for retaining it in schedule B. Yet now, Aldborough was placed in schedule A. Similar were the cases of Chippenham, Cockermouth, Guildford, Dorchester, and Sudbury. On those respective boroughs the opponents of the Bill unsuccessfully divided; yet the noble Lord had now adopted all their recommendations, had ingrafted them in this new Bill, and advocated them as important improvements. The learned Gentleman said, he did not like the present Bill quite so well as the last. He was not surprised at that; for there was one important difference between the two measures,—namely, that in the present Bill, Calne was, in schedule B. The learned Gentleman also contended, that any amendment in the Bill was more than counterbalanced by the delay in giving the people satisfaction. "I would rather (said the learned Gentleman) have had a worse measure, that is a measure less perfectly expressed, but one passed expeditiously according to the wishes of the people." Did the learned Gentleman mean by this to assert, that the alterations in the Bill were merely alterations of expression—that they were not substantial alterations? If this were his meaning, what became of his charge of ingratitude against them for not supporting changes which were mere verbal variations? But he would state one fact, which would shew from what extensive and severe injustice the opposition to the former Bill had preserved the country. When the original Bill was first introduced into that House, it contained forty-six names in schedule B. Would it be believed, that in that schedule alone, forty-nine changes had been made? In forty-six articles there had been, incredible as it might appear, forty-nine changes! Some places had been put out, some had been put in, some had been replaced. If anybody doubted the fact, he was ready to go over the list and prove it. Was it not a great cause of congratulation to the opposition, that they had prevented the full perpetration of such numerous and such vital errors? The learned Gentleman had affirmed, that the present Government were not to blame for the extent to which they had gone in their proposition for Reform; but that those were to blame who had refused to move the subject at all—that "their refusal to walk had compelled the present Government to run." This argument of the learned Gentleman had been fully answered by the noble Lord who introduced the Bill: on that occasion the noble Lord said, "If I am asked, why in this Bill I introduce a larger amount of Reform than on any former occasion I have submitted to the consideration of Parliament, I have no hesitation in saying, that it is because we saw that the first move was the whole question, and that it would be in vain to attempt to satisfy the public mind by any thing short of that whole." That was also the reason why he (Mr. Croker) and his friends opposed the measure, but with a very different opinion of its results. He himself had been in favour of some of the early propositions for Reform, but not of any systematic or general arrangement on that subject; and he opposed this "move," for the very reason stated so forcibly and clearly by the noble Lord; he feared this was only the first step, that it must necessarily lead to further changes, and that they might ultimately be plunged into an abyss of doubt, uncertainty, and danger—the bottom of which no man living could pretend to fathom or discern. Had the learned Gentleman—who was so eloquent on the necessity of proceeding forward—who had told the House that argument was vain, that there was no resisting the mighty torrent—that there was a dire necessity for the whole measure—that the Legislature had no choice but to embark on this ocean of uncertainty and danger, of doubtful experiment, of desperate adventure—had he given the slightest intimation of what would be, even in his opinion, the end of the career—the result of the experiment—the issue of the danger? Had he scanned with the eye of a philosopher the probable progress of future events? Had he given us any reason to believe, that he foresaw the termination of the course which he was running? Not at all. Any thing more vague, any thing more indefinite, any thing more purely declamatory, than the statements of the learned Gentleman on that point, had never fallen from human lips. It was true that the learned Gentleman had told them, that the town was besieged by superior forces, and had advised them to open the gates of the fortress, lest it should be stormed at the breach. But did he tell them that they could open the gates with safety? Did he tell them that they could open the gates without exposing their property to plunder, and their persons to massacre? They were not, under the learned Gentleman's advice, to attempt to make any terms; but they were at once to throw open the gates, and await the consequences, however fatal, and submit to the tender mercies of the victors, even though they should be pillage, bloodshed, and extermination. The learned Gentleman did not recommend them to open the gates on conditions; he did not say, "Here are the terms which the invading army is disposed to concede." And who were at the head of this army? The Whigs? Alas no! not even the Whigs. The learned Gentleman did not venture to call them its leaders, but modestly and truly described them as only foremost of the throng—pressed forward by those who were behind with a dire and irresistible force. But it did not need the confession of the learned Gentleman to establish this fact. It was evident in all the occurrences of the day. Had they not seen what had taken place at public meetings, at which the people, deceived as the learned Gentleman forcibly and justly expressed it, by demagogues and artful incendiaries, had adopted doctrines, alike incompatible with all government, all law, and all order—doctrines which, if carried into effect, would be a greater curse to the country than a foreign conquest, and must in their working, sweep arts, commerce, science, and manufactures in one common ruin. One of those meetings, consisting of 150,000 persons assembled somewhere in Birmingham, came to a resolution of approbation of the conduct of the two noble Lords opposite. That approbation was accompanied by a profession of principles (he did not know whether at the same time, but certainly by a meeting composed of the same persons) which must have startled, not only his Majesty's Government, but the most violent members of the popular party. These persons came to two resolutions among others, which, he would venture to say, had astounded all England—the one was, that the people ought no longer to pay taxes; the other, that hereditary rank was an abuse which ought no longer to be tolerated. Yet these were the persons who, for their own purposes, and to answer their own views, thought they should do honour to the two noble Lords opposite by presenting them an address of gratulation and gratitude. It was certainly somewhat singular, that a body of persons who had just resolved that taxes ought no longer to be paid, should address his Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his Majesty's Paymaster of the Forces, to compliment them on their conduct. If the resolutions were to prove effective, there would be no money to receive and none to pay, and those financial functionaries would find themselves in the possession of sinecure offices. It was, perhaps, even more singular, and, one would suppose, not a very felicitous selection, that a body of persons who had just resolved that hereditary rank was an intolerable abuse, should address—whom? My Lord John Russell, and my Lord Althorp. And those noble Lords, seeing nothing extraordinary in all these proceedings; not looking at the assembly in question with the same prophetic eye as the learned Gentleman; not seeing in them a mob driving them forward, instead of a body of which, they were the leaders; not seeing in them a hydra of despotic dictators, but a crowd of adulators and admirers; these noble Lords felt themselves so flattered by their praises and cajollery, that—entirely forgetting the resolutions that taxes ought not to be paid, and that hereditary rank ought to be abolished—they regarded the persons by whom those resolutions had been passed, not as their future plunderers and butchers, but as their friends and admirers—poor innocents,

"Pleased to the last, they cropped the flowery food, [blood!"

And licked the hands just raised to shed their

Such was the simple and lamb-like disposition of the Administration with which the country was now blessed! But the Ministers had also, according to the learned Gentleman, a due degree of firmness and dignity, and a resolute spirit to protect property, to vindicate the authority of violated laws, and to watch over the personal safety of his Majesty's subjects. Such had been the learned Gentleman's praise of his Majesty's Ministers. A more keen irony—a more bitter satire he had never heard. [Mr. Macauley denied having used such words. He had never alluded to the protection of property by his Majesty's Ministers.] It was clear that the learned Gentleman's praises of the Administration had been so entirely ironical, that he had forgotten what he had said. He did not charge the learned Gentleman with using the exact words, that "his Majesty's Ministers had protected the persons and properties of his Majesty's subjects." No—no—that would have been too bold, nay, too ridiculous; but he had said, that the great party to which he (Mr. Macauley) had the honour to belong, would use all the powers of the State to preserve property, to defend persons, and to restrain the violence of demagogues. Now, who the learned Member could allude to by this "great party," if he did not mean the Ministers and their friends, he (Mr. Croker) could not guess. But, whether the learned Gentleman meant to defend the Government, or to abandon them, he (Mr. Croker) would ask, not the learned Gentleman, but the House and the country, whether his Majesty's Ministers had exhibited any spirit or any firmness on any of those points? Let Bristol speak for itself; let Derby, let Coventry, let Nottingham, bear witness to the facts. Ministers possessed neither firmness nor vigour; and so far from protecting others, they had not shown even the power of defending their own dignity—their own houses. Their privacy had been assailed at midnight by the delegates of Political Unions. They had been publicly insulted by combinations of persons who declared their resolution to pay no more taxes. Even when his Majesty had been advised to issue a Proclamation against the Societies to which his Ministers had previously truckled, these Societies were induced by negotiation to yield obedience to his Majesty's Proclamation. That was what the learned Gentleman probably meant by putting the law into vigorous execution. He would not say that Ministers had concealed views in acting as they had done, for he could not dive into men's motives; but it would appear that they were desirous that it should not appear as if these Societies had been induced to yield to the royal Proclamation. They knew, that if the Birmingham Union went on until after the appearance of the Proclamation, and if it had then submitted, it would thereby have given, with a good grace, an example of obedience to the law. But an example of obedience to law seemed by no means the object of any of the parties. He had no doubt that the Birmingham Union had been previously apprized of the intended Proclamation, and by rescinding their resolutions to organize, before the Proclamation had been made public, they flattered themselves that they had rendered it both inoperative and ludicrous. Had they dissolved themselves on receiving it, that would have been to show deference to authority—that would have been to set a graceful example of loyalty and good order; but it was quite another thing to dissolve themselves on the evening before the Proclamation was issued, and thus to make that which ought to have been a strong and respected exercise of the royal authority, a dead-born abortion, alike ridiculous, from the argumentative absurdity with which it was worded, and the utter imbecility of its practical effects, nothing remaining on which the brutum fulmen could operate. The learned Gentleman had gone on to say, that there was one subject which had not yet been sufficiently adverted to, and on which he would, therefore, touch; namely, the argument in favour of the present system which was derived from the many eminent men whom the close boroughs had introduced into public life, and he professed to answer this argument by instances in which eminent men were returned for populous places. It was certainly very natural that the learned Gentleman, who scattered the flowers of his eloquence with so generous a profusion, should occasionally fail to remember his own liberality: but he could assure the learned Gentleman, that he had not on former occasions forgotten this topic. On the contrary he had before stated, as he had done to night, that Mr. Fox and Sir S. Romilly, had been returned for Westminster; Mr. Canning, and Mr. Huskisson for Liverpool; Mr. Tierney for Southwark, and last, not least, but indeed the greatest of all, Mr. Burke, for Bristol; and he had descanted on the great authority they had brought into that House, in consequence of having been elected for such popular places. As, however, the learned Gentleman had repeated the argument, he (Mr. Croker) would repeat the answer, which was in the mouths of all who were acquainted with the political history of the country, and which ought, especially, to have been present to the mind of the learned Gentleman himself. It was true that the eminent men in question were chosen for popular places. But how did they become known to the electors in those popular places? Did they not first sit for nomination boroughs; and was it not by the splendid talents which they displayed while they sat for those nomination boroughs, that they recommended themselves to the electors of popular places? Let him ask the learned Gentleman, which of the names he had arrayed would have been heard of, had there been no nomination boroughs? In his opinion, one of the greatest merits of the nomination boroughs was, that they afforded a preliminary trial, a sort of political apprenticeship, which enabled the electors of large and popular places to ascertain the qualifications of individuals with whom they would otherwise have been wholly unacquainted. Such being the case, he could not agree with the learned Gentleman in stigmatising as Sycoraxes, as the mothers of mischief, places which had given a Pitt, a Fox, a Windham, or a Burke, to the House of Commons. He (Mr. Croker) had said, that this answer was in the mouths of all who were familiar with the political history of the country; and he had added, that it ought especially to have been present to the mind of the learned Gentleman. Did not the learned Gentleman owe the honour of an invitation to become the Representative of the town of Leeds, should the Bill pass, to representing a nomination borough? (Would to God that so much of the Bill might pass—separated from the dangers and difficulties attendant upon the rest of its provisions—as would enable the learned Gentleman to represent the town of Leeds!) How did the learned Gentleman become known in Leeds? How had he had an opportunity of showing his great talents? By sitting for one of those nomination boroughs, which he now so loudly condemned. Let him not blush at following the traces of those eminent and lamented men whose names he had mentioned. But if he must blush, let it be at the momentary ingratitude which had induced him to stigmatize with such offensive epithets, the very system to which he was indebted for the high station which he himself held in public opinion. The learned Member, in defending the conduct of large public assemblies, had said, that he did not blame the working classes, that it was the frailty of human nature, when great masses were assembled, to follow the direction of the most violent. He agreed with the learned Gentleman, and he therefore objected to placing large and uncontrolled power in the hands of masses of the people, whom, when once excited, it was impossible to calm, and equally impossible to guide. It was a different thing to excite large masses of persons, and such an assembly as that he had the honour to address; but he had witnessed, on more than one occasion, the dangerous consequences of exciting even that House, and he affirmed, that the adoption of a measure which would continually excite the whole people, would lead not only to the dissolution of that House, but the abolition of the House of Lords, the extinction of the Monarchy, the utter disorganization of all the existing institutions of the country, and, finally, the dissolution of the whole frame of civilized society. The learned Gentleman had told them they must 'go on,' that the times had changed, and they must change with them. He remembered, on a former occasion, that the hon. Member said, in reply to those who expressed their apprehensions of the change, "Oh! do not he alarmed, the character of the House will not be changed—the class of persons returned to it as Representatives will not be altered." If that was to be the case, he asked, what came of all that the hon. Gentleman had said about a new House of Commons—a Reformed House of Commons—and of all the great the unexampled good it was to do for the country? The learned Member had, on a former occasion, made some remarkable, but not very successful allusions to the history of France; but to-night, he had warned them not to look to the history of other countries—to France, or to Spain; but that they should read the history of England, and take lessons from the fates of the Stuarts—He pointed to the year 1640, when the great rebellion began to wear its more serious aspect—that year in which began that series of calamities by which the King was first forced into the field, then into a dungeon, and at last to the scaffold. He had, as well as the learned Gentleman, looked into that history, and, with the leave of the House, he would read some extracts from Mr. Hume's description of that period. He knew that reading extracts was not popular in that House; but he hoped he might be permitted to bring them forth upon the present occasion, when it was recollected how much use the learned Member had made of his reference to the history of this period. The House would see how just, how apposite were those extracts—how closely, how wonderfully closely they applied to the existing state of things:—"Charles finding that nothing less would satisfy his Parliament and people, at last gave his assent to this bill, which produced so great an innovation in the Constitution." It was a bill for triennial Parliaments; this first step in the path of concession was made in the year l640, nine years before the final martyrdom of the Monarch; but these nine years were marked in their bloody progress by the successive murders of his unfortunate Ministers—some of whom, be it remembered, had instigated the commotions, of which they were the earliest victims. The historian proceeded to say, "Solemn thanks were presented him by both Houses. Great rejoicings were expressed both in the city and throughout the nation; and mighty professions were everywhere made of gratitude and mutual returns of supply and confidence. In the next year however after his Majesty's granting this triennial bill, this healing and conciliatory measure, Lord Strafford was dragged from the Cabinet to the scaffold, and Charles himself was degraded to the still severer fate of consenting to the legal murder of his illustrious, however unfortunate, Minister." This was the first effect of concession—this was the first stage in the bloody tragedy of Reform. Mark how it went on. The Commons were constant in their project of change, and the historian went on to say—"But, notwithstanding these efforts of the Commons, they could not expect the concurrence of the Upper House, either to this law, or to any other, which they should introduce for the further limitation of royal authority. The majority of the Peers adhered to the King, and plainly foresaw the depression of nobility, as a necessary consequence of popular usurpations on the Crown. The insolence, indeed, of the Commons, and their haughty treatment of the Lords, had already arisen to a great height, and gave sufficient warning of their future attempts upon that order. They muttered somewhat of their regret that they should be enforced to save the kingdom alone, and that the House of Peers would have no part in the honour. Nay, they went so far as openly to tell the Lords, 'That they themselves were the Representative body of the whole kingdom, and that the Peers were nothing but individuals, who held their seats in a particular capacity; and, therefore, if their Lordships will not consent to the passing of Acts necessary for the preservation of the people, the Commons, together with such of the Lords as are more sensible of the danger, must join together, and represent the matter to his Majesty.'" The Reformers of 1640, did not say the Peers were a 'faction'—they were modest in those days. They did not call the solemn resolution of the House of Lords "the whisper of a faction." But they spoke of the Peers simply as 199 individuals, who, in their private capacity, were opposed to the Representatives of the country. Such also was the language now commonly used with regard to the House of Peers, and the parallel was sufficiently obvious and curious with reference to the present times. "Meanwhile the tumults still continued, and even increased about Westminster and Whitehall. The cry continually resounded against Bishops and rotten-hearted Lords;"—the cry now was with the change of a single word, "Down with the Bishops, and the rotten-borough Lords." The parallel was in all other respects complete. "The Bishops especially being distinguished by their habits were exposed to the most dangerous insults and contumely. The Commons considered that, in a violent attempt, such as an invasion of the ancient Constitution, the more leisure was afforded to the people to reflect, the less would they be inclined to second that rash and dangerous enterprise." The historian did not say whether that House of Commons was dismissed in the latter end of October, to be re-assembled on the 6th of December, by the orders of the excitors of tumults, and under the pretence of considering a bill which was not ready—which could not be laid on the Table until the 12th; and the basis of which was laid on information, which could not be presented to them for a month after. But the present Ministers knew, as well as Charles's refractory Commons, that "the more time was afforded the people to reflect, the less inclined would they be to support their rash innovations." They foresaw, as the historian said, "that the Peers would certainly refuse their concurrence, nor were there any hopes of prevailing on them, but by instigating the populace to tumult and disorder." They therefore represented, as the hon. Gentlemen opposite now do, that delay was as dangerous as denial. "They expressed their great grief on account of his Majesty's answer to their just and necessary petition. They represented that any delay, during danger and distractions so great and pressing, was not less unsatisfactory and destructive than an absolute denial; they insisted, that it was their duty to see put in execution a measure so necessary for public safety; and they affirmed, that the people in many counties had applied to them for that purpose, and, in some places, were of themselves, and by their own authority, providing against those urgent dangers with which they were threatened." The very words adopted by the Political Unions of this day! They professed to be the protectors of property and life, they called upon all men to arm themselves, under the pretence of securing their personal safety and public property, while their main object was, to foment the tumults of which they feigned themselves afraid, and to consummate the downfall of the House of Lords and of the Established Church, and the overthrow of the Throne. Well might the learned Gentleman say, that "these things were written for our use." Written, indeed, for our special instruction they seem to have been—happy if we know how wisely to apply them to our present use. The extracts which he had read from the history of 1640 and 1641, afforded an exact parallel to the events of 1830 and 1831. And perhaps he might not be rash in asserting, that according to what he foresaw, the parallel might still hold good between the years 1645 and 1835—unless, indeed, the present revolution should, as he was inclined to suspect, move more rapidly than the former, and bury, at an earlier period, the country in the like lamentable ruin. He was not without his apprehensions that one Reformed Parliament would pursue the course which had been already taken by another. They saw that in the period alluded to, the popular Representatives extorted the first Act from the King; he said extorted, because his Majesty knew the purposes which were to be effected by that first victory; his Ministers knew it too, and had given the bill, however otherwise unimportant, their strenuous resistance. He had thus stated to them the first stage of Parliamentary Reform—it was the bill for frequent Parliaments—and what was the result? The very Parliament which passed the measure, so far from being legally prorogued, and legally reassembled at proper intervals, as the Act provided, assumed, in defiance of all written law and all constitutional right, to make itself permanent, and is distinguished by the name (a name infamous in the constitutional history of the country) of the Long Parliament; a Parliament which after overthrowing church and state, and harassing the land with confiscation and deluging it with blood, was itself annihilated by a military despotism, which its own folly and its own crimes had created. The learned Member, sore from the ill success of his former allusions to French history, warned them against studying the history of foreign nations; and told them rather to look at home, to the history of the past, and the signs of the present. Why would the learned Member confine them within such narrow limits? Would he not permit them to look to Paris or to Lyons? They all knew there had been a glorious revolution in France—a revolution accomplished in the three great days of July, which had given to France a happy reformed Constitution; and no constitutional change was ever, as they boast, accomplished under happier auspices; nothing was injured, little altered: it had been epigrammatically said, that there were only three Frenchmen less in the country. They had merely got rid of Charles, and his son, ant his grandson; they had succeeded in maintaining tranquillity, they had established liberal institutions upon the basis of the most extensive Reform. But what was the result? Not one month had passed under this reformed Constitution, which was to allay all animosities, quiet all disturbances, and settle every perturbed spirit—not one month had since passed in which dangerous sedition were not put down by force of arms, under the eyes of the reforming Ministers in the very seat of government itself. Look, too, to the men who stood forth as the heroes of the three great days—he leaders of the movement—those who boasted of being the persons selected by the people as their leaders in the day of battle, and as their representatives in he time of peace. Look to those men—watch their elevation—their progress—and mark the consequence. M. de Tracy, one of the ablest, and one of the most violent partizans of the Movement, had spoken, and what lad he said? "That the very spirit of the movement was to give to those who had gained by the change, and to take away from those who had lost, all that yet remained to them." And yet this insatiable Reform, this never-ending movement, was the Juggernaut before which the learned Member would have them, like the votaries of a mad idolatry, fling their prostrate limbs, and suffer themselves to be crushed without resistance. Then there was M. Lameth, who declared that this restless Movement would destroy the happiness of the people; and exhorted his countrymen "to endeavour to imitate the wise and well-balanced constitution of England, which matured and perfected by time, had won the admiration of Montesquieu, and of the entire world." These were the opinions of a man whose name must be familiar to all who knew anything of France; the oldest civil Grenadier of the Revolution, and he refers you to the Constitution of England, as a system brought to well-balanced perfection, deserving the imitation of France, and the admiration of the entire world; while the noble Lord, with the assistance of the hon. Gentleman and the learned Lord Advocate, would not only, with unfilial hands, tear it to pieces, so 'that not a shred not a rag should remain,' but trample it like something noxious to the ground, and vilify it with every term of degradation, in order that its character might perish with its substance. But he would call their attention, more particularly to the warning example of actual leaders of the revolt in July, and first to M. Guizot, Home Minister of the citizen King: he was carried on the very shoulders of the people into power. But he remained not long; his position was slippery with blood; he was willing to dry it up, and wipe away the stains; but his moderation was incompatible with the principles of his elevation, and he was forced to abandon a post to which a few weeks before he had been exalted by national acclamation. In accounting for his retirement, he said, "I left the government because I found myself unequal to stem the torrent of the Movement." Did the hon. Gentlemen or noble Lords opposite—Did any English Guizot fancy, that he or they could stem the torrent here? M. Guizot was a writer of pamphlets, of treatises upon government, and so forth—indeed, he believed he had the honour of translating a production of Lord John Russell's; and yet he gave up in despair the attempt to check the violence of popular fury; and did the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Russell) hope and believe, that he was to be more successful than M. Guizot? What next? There was a lawyer—bold, voluble, slippery, enterprising, universal, at everything in the ring. He spoke at the Bar—he harangued in the House—wrote pamphlets—wrote in reviews—wrote in the newspapers—[Here there was considerable interruption from the Ministerial Benches.] There might be those who despised reviews and newspapers, and the expressions on the other side of the House seemed to imply, that he himself had mixed in this species of literature, like the Minister to whom he alluded. To that sneer he would only reply, that he considered that those who possessed the power of writing and of speaking were much to be envied; he wished he had that power; he would not be ashamed of it. He had rather be a writer, honestly giving forth his sentiments to the people, and endeavouring to instruct them, through any medium, however humble, than be one of those who were incapable of composing even their own election addresses, and who were content to be the mere signers of some miserable radical letter, written for them by a low attorney. He had rather speak feebly, as he knew he did—and be interrupted, as he had been interrupted by those sitting on the opposite Benches—than be one of the mutes of a despotic Government, who could do nothing but attempt to strangle a discussion of which their masters were afraid [loud and repeated cheers]. He would take care, however, that the discussion should not be strangled, so far as he was concerned. To proceed however—the eminent lawyer to whom he alluded—M. Dupin, [a laud laugh] who was undoubtedly a distinguished man, and the hero of the day; his triumphs at the bar were only equalled by his triumphs in the legislature, and only surpassed by the popular acclamation that attended, him wherever he went, for his generous, patriotic, innovating, and regenerating efforts. M. Dupin left the bar, and by a sudden turn of fortune's wheel, found himself Keeper of the Seals, or Attorney General, or some such high legal functionary in the new administration. But a few weeks, only had passed, when this popular Minister hastily entered the Chamber with his face pale, and hair dishevelled, to complain, that because he had ventured, in his place in Parliament, to say, that unauthorised combinations were dangerous in a society governed by laws, and because he advised king Louis Phillippe to put forth a proclamation denouncing political unions, which he considered inconsistent with all good government, an infuriated mob had attacked his house. Because these Ministers had at last found it necessary to set themselves in opposition to the very tumults which they themselves had first excited, "these very people," said he, "attacked my house, destroyed my furniture, ill-used all the individuals of my establishment, spared not the females of my family, and endangered my own life." In short, it appeared that the mob had pillaged his house, and burnt his furniture in the court-yard; and the man of three weeks' popularity had escaped by flight to tell the disgraceful, but he (Mr. Croker) did hope instructive tale, to the Chamber of France, as he now told it to the English House of Commons. M. Dupin was succeeded by one whose reputation was not quite so eminent, but who was, perhaps, next to him, he meant M. Persil, who had likewise borne testimony to the advantages of the glorious revolution. And what said M. Persil? He warned the Ministry that the people were not satisfied, nor to be satisfied with any thing short of the full accomplishment of the principle of the Revolution "All these things which you look upon," says he, "as such mighty boons, are nothing in our eyes, and only provoke our appetite for more." This was the history of what was going on in France; this was the history of a popular Ministry, which had brought in a Reform Bill; and created Peers to pass it. This was the history of a popular Ministry, which fancied it was leading the movement, when it was only hurried onward in the torrent's sweep: while two warning voices from two eminent lawyers—the learned member for Calne, and M. Persil, told the Ministers in their respective countries, "You believe yourselves to be the leaders, while you are but the dupes, and will be the victims of this unappeaseable Movement." Such were the scenes in Paris, but what had taken place in Lyons? The city of Lyons had its three days of glorious revolution, like the city of Paris, though the superior glory of the latter had thrown the Movement of Lyons into comparative obscurity. Lyons, however, had gone through its ordeal; and after the revolution, it had every advantage that a theorist could desire for a great manufacturing town. It had its popular prefect—its Deputies to the Chamber to represent its wants—its reforming Ministers and a patriotic King, who walked about the streets, with his umbrella, to learn the wants and wishes of his people. If they had commercial distresses—which he had no doubt was the case; and which, by a singular fatality, they laid to the charge of the competition of Coventry, just the same as the men of Coventry accused the rivalry of Lyons—yet they had a reformed Chamber, and liberal Deputies, by whom they might make their grievances heard. Were those distresses legitimately conveyed to the Chamber of Deputies, or loyally laid at the foot of the Throne? No, but with such arms as they could collect, they attacked the National Guard; that National Guard, which be it understood, had been especially established as an infallible safeguard and protection for the property and lives of the public—and what had been the result? All of the National Guard who did not join the people, abandoned their arms, and left the lives and property of the peaceable inhabitants at the mercy of an infuriated and armed populace, who held uncontrolled possession of that city several days, nay, for weeks. The authorities were wholly subdued. The popular Prefect could do nothing; nor did there exist any power to prevent the enormous mischiefs of a democratic anarchy of the most unbridled kind; and this, too, at a time when it was asserted that reason had made such progress, and information and liberal opinions were so prevalent, that every man had a full consciousness of his duties to society. But notwithstanding all these great lights, it was only by means of 50,000 bayonets that order was again established within the walls of that city. To turn from our neighbours' concerns, and look at home, he would ask, had the royal authority been upheld here? An attack was made on the gaol at Derby, and the courage of one man saved it and probably that great town from destruction. In Nottingham, a mob collected, which, if he was rightly informed, gave some hours' information of their intentions; that mob proceeded and burnt the castle of a noble person, close to that town—not a place in which he personally resided, but one which his liberality had assigned to the purposes of charity. The castle was burnt in broad day, in the face of a great town, in the presence of Magistrates, and within the reach of his Majesty's troops, who were doomed, by the inactivity of the authorities, to remain motionless spectators of the tumult. But Ministers had not thought it worth while to institute any inquiry into so extraordinary an event—the noble owner was only a Tory—that circumstance excused all! The impunity of this crime encouraged the reforming mob to one of the most atrocious violences that ever in a civilized country was inflicted upon a respectable and peaceful family. An attack was made upon the house of a gentleman—not an Anti-reformer, nor connected with politics or party in any way. The mob marshalled themselves without interruption, and proceeded the distance of two or three miles to the scene of their intended mischief—they burst into the house, deliberately plundered it, destroyed every thing they were unable to carry away, and finally endeavoured to set it on fire. The master of the House was absent; his lady in delicate health, ^* was forced from her couch to a precipitate flight; led by her young daughter—another Antigone—to a distant part of the grounds, they both remained for hours on the damp earth, the daughter supporting the mother's head on her bosom, and both concealing themselves under a laurel tree. He observed a smile come over the countenance of a noble Lord opposite (Lord Nugent). It could, he supposed, not be a smile of approbation of the atrocities he was relating. He hoped the noble Lord did not smile at the afflicting story, but only at his imperfect manner of relating it. The story, however, was not yet concluded, for so profound was the terror of these unhappy ladies, that for hours after the wretches had quitted the grounds, the servants sought for their mistress and her daughter in vain. And at last when they found them in the situation I have so feebly endeavoured to describe, half dead with cold and terror,

^* Mrs. Musters, lady of John Musters, Esq. of Colewick Hall, celebrated by lord Byron as Miss Chaworth. This lady died on the 5th of February 1832, of the consequences, as is supposed, of the circumstances above mentioned.—H.

there was no apartment, no couch, no bed of that so lately splendid residence fit to receive them, and they were carried inanimate to the only place which had escaped the incendiaries—a groom's bed, over one of the stables. What was the conduct of Ministers on these afflicting and disgraceful occurrences? Was any steps taken, or any reward offered for the apprehension of the offenders? Was a special commission sent to inquire into these excesses? No. If there had been, could any man believe that the atrocities at Bristol would have taken place—atrocities which though more extensive, did not exceed in cruelty that which he had just described? Not only was nothing done to punish these offenders, but no inquiries were instituted, to trace the machinations of the disaffected, although it was well known that there were links connecting the insurgents at one town with those at the other. Was it not known that they were associated, and to a certain degree organized—that they had a watchword among themselves, and that they passed among one another as a fraternity? He had no doubt that, if his Majesty's Ministers had vindicated the dignity of their government, of public justice, and of human nature at Nottingham, the outrages at Bristol would never have occurred. Well, and for the outrages at Bristol, who had been punished? Parliament had been summoned quickly enough to pass the Reform Bill. They were called away from their private affairs, and their public duties in the country, at an unusual time of the year, to meet here on the 6th of December, to consider this Bill, although it was not as he had before stated, ready till the 12th, and its basis was not even yet produced. But it seemed, that a special commission could not be issued for Bristol, till the 6th of January. If Ministers had reversed their course, and prorogued Parliament till the 6th of January, and issued a special commission for Bristol for the 6th of December, it would have been a much more rational and laudable course of proceeding. It was asserted the delay in issuing these special commissions arose from not knowing who the criminals were; but again he asked, why were no inquiries made, no rewards offered? In all these cases, the affairs had taken place in broad day, and the slightest exertion would have traced some, at least, of the criminals. But although the Government could find no culprits, the Political Unions and the Radical press were more active; and the first person arraigned as being connected with the Bristol outrages, was his hon. and learned friend, (Sir C. Wetherell) the Recorder of that city. He was the person who was branded in newspapers, and spoken of and vilified in all societies—certainly with the acquiescence, although he did not say with the consent of Ministers—as the greatest criminal. He really was surprised that his hon. and learned friend had not been taken up; and to have said, "I am the victim, and not the offender" would have been an insufficient defence; for what had since taken place? A person was apprehended with admirable alacrity and excellent judicial speed!—but again, that person, Captain Lewis, was one of the sufferers, and not one of the offenders. He had been one of the Special Constables, and the Coroner's Inquest had found him guilty of manslaughter; under that verdict this gentleman was, all this time, suffering, and thus one of the defenders of the law was as yet its only victim. What he blamed his Majesty's Ministers for was, that they had not taken example by the Unions—that they had not made the same exertions on the side of law and order, as the Radicals had made on the other. He complained of his Majesty's Government because they did not say—"we will visit the sins on the right head—we will send down a special Commission without delay—Captain Lewis has not had justice—the Recorder shall not be slighted by having his name left out of the Commission—and we will not insult the magistrates and people of Bristol by the continued impunity of their plunderers." He would venture to say, the country was not so much alarmed by the threats of disturbance, or even by the violence and outrages at Bristol, as by the death-like apathy of those who ought to be the protectors of persons and property; and had Reform nothing to do with all this? Were not these events links of the same chain which was forged on the 1st of March, the fatal date of this portentous birth? At that time Ministers said—"Pass this Bill, or dread the results! Your rejection will do nothing but exasperate, and on your heads will fall the dreadful consequences of this agitation." And so, up to that moment, had the noble Lords and the hon. Gentlemen sounded their trumpet of dismay in the House—dismay he should not perhaps call it, for in that House it created no terror—but of excitement, unintentional on their part, he was willing to believe, but of which the results were flagrant and fatal. The rash prophecy had caused its own fulfilment. What appeared to be mere declamation in the Senate, proved an incentive to rebellion which had only required a spark to explode. He said, that the Reform Bill had been the cause of all this mischief; he distinctly charged it upon the Bill, and he could trace its steps through the country in riots, robberies, burnings, and blood, as clearly as the track of an Indian through the pathless forest could be traced by the ashes of his fires, or the bones of his victims. There was no step that he could not mark—from the first breach of the domestic peace of the City—when the Lord Mayor of London (who probably fancied himself a Minister, as he had acted like one), had for a time, excited a disturbance which he could not allay—down to the three days anarchy at Bristol. The ebullition of party triumph, which the Lord Mayor had of his own proper motion excited; but which his Majesty's Ministers seemed to approve, not only occasioned the destruction of property in the City, but it was permitted to fall on those who were out of the jurisdiction of the sagacious Chief Magistrate; and the mischievous example had travelled through the country, marking in every stage of its bloody career, the audacity of the populace, the weakness of the Magistrates, and—which was the first cause of both—the imbecility of the Government. The learned Gentleman had treated them again on that night with the presence of his imaginary Stranger, whom he supposed had been brought into this country to wonder at our institutions. He (Mr. Croker) accepted the illustration, and could also fancy his arrival in our metropolis. What would be his astonishment to find our houses barricaded? He would exclaim, "Why, I thought that in England there were no fortifications for your towns, much less for your houses. I thought that the law was your common defence—that an Englishman's house was his castle—a castle protected by the law, and not by buttresses and barricades;" but he would add, "I am a stranger, and the first house I see on my entrance is barricaded." Then, he would be told in explanation, that in these altered times an Englishman's house, if he meant to reside in it, must indeed be a castle. Entering the city by Hyde Park Corner, our stranger would inquire, who lived in that prominent but eyeless house which looks as if prepared for a state of siege? He would naturally suppose it was the abode of some state malefactor—some enemy of his country—some despotic Minister—some disgraced offender against society who was thus compelled to take shelter from the fury of the people. But what would be his surprise to find it belonged to no such individual:—"It is the house of the Duke of Wellington—it is the house of the Duke of Vittoria—it is the house of the Prince of Waterloo;'' a man whose transcendant services to his country, all the nations of the world acknowledge, and whose goodness of heart, integrity, and honour, even the virulence of party will not deny. A few steps further would lead him to another mansion, similarly protected and disfigured. Having learned by the last example, that these violences were directed against those who had performed an honest duty in Parliament, the stranger would now probably exclaim, "This, at least, must be the house of Sir Robert Peel,"—who, he hoped, would never be separated from the Duke of Wellington, either in the affection of the real friends of his country—or in the hostility of her enemies. Again the stranger would find himself mistaken—he would be told, that it was the house of a Prince of the Blood Royal. "What!'' would exclaim the stranger, "with the idol King that you now have—he who has fixed his Throne in the hearts of his people—whose jewelled Crown is less valued than the civic wreath which his people have awarded him; and is it the family of this patriot King that they have attacked?" "Yes," would be the answer, "not only one so nearly allied to him by blood, but one who has married his Majesty's own sister—the sister of King George 4th—the daughter of King George 3rd—a Princess as amiable in her manners, and as exemplary in her character as she is illustrious by her birth." He was very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for introducing the Stranger; it. was an old saying, that no one could see the sights of London, so well as by accompanying a friend from the country; and he was afraid there were many of those Gentlemen on the other side of the House, who would not have seen those marks of the times, but for the stranger who had been so fortunately introduced. Well, but the stranger went a little further, and saw another house in this same state; he inquires to whom it belongs, and says, "This must be the abode of some of those haughty aristocrats—of some overgrown churchman—perhaps of the Bishop of Exeter, who lazily fattens on the enormons wealth of that princely diocese." He (Mr. Croker) was talking in the character of a stranger, and none but a stranger could be so mistaken, either as to the excellent prelate he had named, or the diocese over which he so admirably presided; but led away by the libels and falsehoods of the day, the stranger might imagine this to be the mansion of one of those lay or ecclesiastical aristocrats, who were held up to popular vengeance. What would be his astonishment to learn that it was no such person—that the dwelling belonged to a man as eminent indeed in his own way as the Prince of Waterloo—it was the house of Mr. Baring, a wealthy merchant, who had raised a great fortune, and as great a character, by those honourable means which were once the pride and prosperity of England—by mercantile transactions, conducted with industry and honour—a man who had spent his whole life in advocating liberal principles—against whose private worth not a whisper had ever been raised, and who had extorted applause from even opposing politicians. Thus the stranger would discover that the Blood Royal itself—the greatest hero this country had seen since the days of Marlborough, nay, he would not even except Marlborough—and one of the most eminent merchants of the day—that all ranks and conditions of society, were compelled to defend themselves in this extraordinary and unexampled manner, under the auspicious sway of the Reform Bill. If such was the power of this infant Hercules in his cradle, what strength would he not possess when arrived at his full growth, and when armed with his victorious club! It behoved Ministers above all to ask themselves this question, for he firmly believed that they were themselves likely to be its first victims; indeed they thought so too, and were afraid by a resistance to the despotic will of the populace, to provoke an hostility which would be instantly fatal to them. This he believed was the true secret of the feeble and vacillating conduct of Ministers. They had wished for a certain degree of agitation, but had no desire that it should proceed to such formidable lengths, and although they in their hearts lamented the atrocities committed, they did not venture to risk their popularity by punishing them. They seemed to hope, like the crazy Character in the play, that the fire, if left alone, might go out of its own accord. He did not charge them so much as incendiaries with raising the flame, as for being negligent or faithless watchmen, neither calling for the engines in time, nor working them heartily when they arrived. That was his charge; he went no further. Ministers began their Administration with Reform, and without it they could not hold their places. As the progress of agitation had been tracked through fire and blood, the pusillanimity of Ministers could be also traced through every act of their Administration, even those that seemed the boldest. There was no word that they said, there was no act that they did, there was no act that they abstained from doing, which was not carefully calculated to offend as little as possible, when they could not altogether conciliate, the Political Unions, and similar illegal and anarchical associations. Against those unions the Government had ventured at last to issue a royal proclamation—nothing could look better at first sight—we imagined the Ministers had plucked up a spirit, and were about to enter into serious contest with the anarchists. Alas, no, it was mere bullying—they did not, as he had before said, issue their proclamation, till they had ascertained that it would not be resisted—they did not send their challenge, till they had ascertained that the antagonist would not fight. They, like those duellists, who make a parade of a very hollow courage, seemed to take the field boldly enough, but they had the Bow-street officers ready at hand to interpose to prevent extremities, and they took care to intimate to their antagonists that an apology, however slight, would be thankfully accepted as full satisfaction. The Birmingham Union had no desire to quarrel with its best friends, and so put forth its apology the night before the Proclamation was issued, and thus the official swords were sharpened with the full knowledge that there would be no necessity for using them. Ministers had raised a storm which it was beyond their power—beyond the scope of their minds—to allay. He had read that day of a singular deliverance which the Administration owed to the sole interposition of a right hon. Gentleman in the Cabinet. They owed it, it seems, to him (Mr. Stanley) that a Gentleman, undoubtedly an eminent person, and in every other respect well qualified for places of trust and dignity, but who had been a short time before indicted for assisting at an illegal assembly, or some offence of a seditious nature—they owed it to the right hon. Gentleman, that this Gentleman had not been appointed to the office of Attorney General for Ireland, or some other high office in the law, under the ban of which he had happened so recently to be. There was nothing in all this but what sprang from the timidity of Ministers, and a desire to keep their places. It was no longer in the power of the King to choose his Ministers, even if, in the two Houses of Parliament, the Whigs approved, and if the Tories, who were always foremost in loyalty to the Crown, offered no objection, provided the Unions withheld their sanction—the choice of the monarch must be now ratified, not by Parliament but by the populace. The present state of the realm was unparalleled in history: the danger to which the Government was exposed was greater than the Ministers themselves had ever imagined. Britain—nor indeed any other country—never before exhibited an instance in which the Government was on the side of innovation and agitation. The true secret of our danger was, that the King's name had been abused, that it had been employed in a manner directly the reverse of what the Constitution recognised as the duty of the Monarch and the utility of his office. He was the hereditary guardian of a settled Constitution; it was his duty to protect life, and property, and freedom of opinion; and so he (Mr. Croker) did not doubt that his Majesty would gladly do, but his gracious wishes were unavailing when he delegated his authority to Ministers who were not his servants—who were not even their own masters, but the servants of a faction which they dared not disobey—which in their hearts they detested; but which they were meanly endeavouring to cajole and to propitiate. The Radicals saw with triumph that the rioters at Coventry and Derby, and the authors of the tumults at Nottingham had escaped with impunity, nor did they see with less triumph, that when the Ministers had been at last goaded into sending a special commission to Bristol, justice, instead of being despatched by steam, as might have been expected in those days of improvement, had gone limping down, pede claudo, at the rate of half a mile an hour, to the indignation of every man who valued the dignity of the law, the vindication of public wrongs, and the security of life and property. In conclusion, he could assure the House that in the censures he thus passed on his Majesty's Ministers, and in the appalling prospects he had thus laid before the House, he had urged nothing but what sprung from the most imperious sense of the danger of the country—danger for which he confessed that he did not see a remedy, but he was convinced that there were no means so calculated to aggravate it to a tremendous extent as passing the Reform Bill.

said, the right hon. Gentleman concluded with the words "Reform Bill," or he should have almost doubted what was the subject of his speech, for the latter part of his harangue had, in fact, no reference at all to this Bill. At the commencement of his speech he admitted the right hon. Gentleman did make some observations bearing on the subject, but for the last half or three quarters of an hour he said nothing that could be considered as connected with this measure. It was a very natural speech for him to make, because he had attacked Ministers, but it was not a speech on the question of Reform. The right hon. Gentleman accused his Majesty's Ministers of indifference to the state of the country, charged them with being the cause of the agitation that prevailed, and with want of power to control it. He did not know upon what grounds he could found his charge against Ministers of not having done their duty in preventing disturbance. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to suppose that Ministers thought of nothing but the means of retaining their places, quite indifferent as to what those means might be, or whether they sacrificed the best interests of the country in the attempt. He did not know where the right hon. Gentleman found such feelings, but certainly they were not those of his Majesty's Ministers. He would not retort on the right hon. Gentleman, by accusing him of a desire to get into place, but certain he was, that such feelings as the right hon. Gentleman described were confined to the party with which the right hon. Gentleman acted. When the Ministers came into office they found agitation prevailing, and the country involved in difficulties;—those difficulties they had met and overcome by promptitude and decision. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that they were chargeable with delay in issuing the Special Commission for the trial of prisoners at Bristol. He must be fully aware, that before they sent down a Special Commission some previous inquiry must be made, depositions must be taken, and the facts ascertained. If there were any prisoners to try, means to prove the offences must be prepared. It was the business of Commissioners to try offenders against whom depositions were already taken, and as soon as this necessary preparation had been made, the Commission was sent down. The right hon. Gentleman charged them with being the cause of windows being broken, and told a long and not very interesting story about the windows that were broken and those that were still barricadoed. He must say, that for a long time back he knew of nothing which took place in the metropolis which could render it necessary to keep up those barricadoes. They had some effect it was true, and from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman it might be conceived that there was some reason for keeping them up. He did not mean that this was the object of the individuals mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, but his speech at least rendered them liable to this observation. These, however, were matters which had no relation to the subject before the House. If the hon. Gentleman thought that Ministers were chargeable with misconduct, he should bring forward his charges. He would now come to the question before the House. He must, however, previously observe, that a Commission had been issued for Nottingham.

—Already!

"As soon as it was known that there were prisoners to try for grave offences." He would now apply himself to the few points which the right hon. Gentleman had touched in his address on the subject then before them. He was glad of the admission made by the right hon. Gentleman, that the principle of the Bill remained unchanged; but where, in that case, were they to look for the escape which the country had experienced from the late Bill? He agreed in the opinion, that the alteration in details did not, in the slightest degree, affect the principle of the measure. But, supposing for a moment there had been an escape, he contended, that the condition of the country would more than counterbalance that imaginary advantage. It would have been counterbalanced by continued agitation, even if the improvements had been infinitely greater than the present Bill presented. The right hon. Gentleman had said, there was no single division upon disputed points last Session, on which Ministers had not this Session followed the opinions they last Session resisted. He would not enter into details; they must be in the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman; and he must be fully aware, that the rule by which they had been guided in the last Bill was different from the rule they were now acting on. The change which had taken place, he was prepared to say, was consistent with the general rule they had then laid down, and which had since been acted on, with one exception—that of Saltash—on which, he allowed, they had been deceived, from want of information, which had now been received; and the Bill had been altered accordingly. The rule on which they would proceed in the new Bill was much better than the rule in the last, and would, in effect, obviate many of the objections to which that had been liable. Ministers were ready to do their utmost to preserve the public peace, but their efforts for this purpose would be of no avail, unless they found themselves supported by the middle and intelligent part of the people, whose support they were most anxious to secure. With respect to the description of the persons who were most likely to be returned under the Bill, as Representatives, he was persuaded they would continue to be selected from the same classes as at present, but with this beneficial change, that they would then be acting under the influence of their constituents. This would have the effect of giving satisfaction to the country, and would create that confidence in the decisions of the House, which, he grieved to say, had not existed hitherto, and which was our greatest strength. It was idle to assert that this Bill was the first link in the chain of disturbance. The first links had been forged before their entrance into office. Clamour had existed long ago, and had constantly increased until it was raised to an irrepressible pitch by the declaration of the late Administration. Ministers had brought forward a measure for the purpose of removing this agitation. The right hon. Gentleman, alluding to the illustration in the speech of an hon. and learned friend, that it was better to open the gates of the fortress than to wait for entrance by a breach, said, that the fortress which made a long defence obtained better terms. However trite the remark might be when, applied to the actual fortress, he (Lord Althorp) feared that very different would be the fate of the structure they were labouring to renovate, if resistance were persevered in to the last. His hon. friend had, in the able speech which he had delivered that night, looked with the eye of a statesman at this great question; but the hon. Gentleman who last spoke had applied himself merely to one point. The hon. Gentleman had read long extracts from "Hume's History of England," on the subject of the events which took place in 1640, but he had forgotten to favour the House with one very material quotation from a contemporary author, not particularly attached to popular principles, or the liberty of the subject. Lord Clarendon had observed, that if the King had attended to the advice of the Parliament, which was brought together in 1640, the events which afterwards took place might have been avoided; but the King, by his obstinate resistance to its propositions, excited the anger of the country, and was, in consequence, the cause of the calamitous results which ensued. The noble Lord who commenced the debate with that ability which always distinguished him, expressed his hostility to the present measure, because it was likely to lead to the destruction of the landed interest. Undoubtedly, if he (Lord Althorp) entertained the same opinion of the measure as the noble Lord did, he should not be one of its supporters. If he thought that the Bill would take away from the due influence of the landed interest, he should feel himself guilty of a great dereliction of duty when he recommended it to the House. He did not, however, believe that the Bill would have any such effect. He believed that the landed interest would still possess its full and due weight in the election of Members to serve in Parliament, and he did not think that the alterations which had been made in the Bill at present before the House, at all incurred the charge of endangering the legitimate influence of the landed interest. The hon. and learned member for St. Mawes (Sir Edward Sugden) had contended, that the landed interest would lose, under the provisions of the Bill, no less than 144 Representatives. There were, however, eleven Members added to boroughs in schedule B, which ought to be considered as a counterpoise to the Members added to the great towns, and this arrangement removed one of the great objections urged to these boroughs returning only one Member, which rested on the supposition that that one was certain to be the Representative of the operatives, to the exclusion of the landed interest, whereas, if two Members were returned for each borough, the interest would be divided. The noble Lord opposite had said, that no representative system, and no government could be safe, unless the Representation accorded with the property of the country. He perfectly agreed with the noble Lord in that statement; and if the noble Lord looked to the state of the representation, as it now existed, he would find that the reason why the people were so much dissatisfied with it, was the disproportion between the property of the country and the Representation. The object of the Bill was, to reduce that disproportion, and to render the representative system more correct according to the present distribution of property. It was not his intention to follow the hon. and learned member for St. Mawe's through the various details into which he had gone, for he considered the discussion of those points better suited to the Committee than to the motion for the Second Reading of the Bill. Undoubtedly, if every one of the objections which the hon. and learned Gentleman had urged against the details of the measure had been fully borne out by argument, they would have formed sufficient ground to justify the rejection of the Bill; but he did not think that the House would be of opinion that those objections were unanswerable. The hon. and learned Gentleman had said, that if the Bill were carried, the first act of a Reformed Parliament would be to propose the re-enactment of all those clauses which stood in the former Bill, and that his Majesty's Ministers would not be able to resist that proposition, because they were the authors of that Bill. This argument was not very consistent with what had been subsequently stated by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that the present Bill was more democratic than the former one; because, if this was the case, there could be no apprehension that a Reformed Parliament would be disposed to re-enact less popular provisions. Besides, he saw no reason to expect (if the alterations which had been made were improvements, and it seemed to be agreed, on all hands, that they were improvements), that the minds of the Members of a Reformed Parliament would be so constituted as to desire to undo what was generally considered to be advantageous. He would not, at the present moment, any longer follow the hon. and learned Gentleman over the ground which he had travelled; and with respect to the question itself, he would only say, that he hoped and trusted that Parliament would now settle it. It appeared to him that the continued agitation of this great question, and the suspense in which the public mind was kept with respect to it, were evils most afflicting to the country. It was now generally allowed that Reform was necessary, and it was the part of a wise statesman, not only to look back, but particularly to regard the situation in which he was placed; and any man who reflected what that situation now was, must be convinced that a considerable alteration in the representative system of this country was become necessary. Such being the case, Ministers had come forward with a proposition, with which large bodies of the people had declared themselves perfectly satisfied. They offered to Parliament a plan of Reform, which had given entire satisfaction to the people. Under these circumstances, he put it to the House, whether the wise and proper course would not be, to adopt the principles of the Bill, and not reject the measure without going into Committee? Of course, when he made this observation, he did not mean to express the slightest doubt of the result of the motion before the House—for a bill, containing similar principles to the measure now before the House having been supported by large majorities during last Session, he could not contemplate the possibility of hon. Members not pursuing the same line of conduct they had followed in that instance. He looked, he confessed, with great anxiety to see the present Bill passed into a law. He hoped and trusted—indeed he felt assured—that this Bill would pass; and he was quite certain that the rejection of the Bill a second time would be deplored as a calamity by every man who had the good of his country at heart.

proposed that the debate, if adjourned, should be resumed the next day, and expressed a hope that it might then be brought to a conclusion.

said, the only hesitation he felt in adjourning until to-morrow, arose from its being Saturday, and therefore their time must be limited, to avoid trespassing on the Sabbath.

said, as that was the case, the House had better meet at noon tomorrow.