During the interval that elapsed between the opening of Parliament and

the introduction of this measure, society was in a state of nervous

anxiety and suspense, which became at length almost unbearable.

Petitions poured into the House of Commons from every part of the

United Kingdom, conveying the earnest desire of the people for a

real representation, which would put an end to the influence of the

aristocracy in returning its members. They recommended, as the best

means of effecting these objects, that the duration of Parliament

should be shortened, that the suffrage should be extended, and that

elections should be by ballot. They expressed their conviction that a

fair representation of the people would prevent manufacturing distress,

commercial embarrassment, and violent fluctuations in the currency;

that it would prevent unjust and unnecessary wars, and would restrain

the profligate expenditure of the public money on placemen and

pensioners. Itinerant orators were employed by the political unions to

hold meetings for the discussion of all questions of this kind, while

the press put forth its gigantic power with tremendous effect, in the

provinces as well as in the metropolis.

At length the fated 1st of March arrived, when the Paymaster of the

Forces arose amidst profound silence, to state the Bill. Lord John

Russell's speech was remarkable for research, accuracy, and knowledge

of constitutional law, but not for oratory. He showed that the

grievances of which the people complained, in connection with the

Parliamentary representation, were three--first, the nomination of

members by individuals; secondly, elections by close corporations;

and thirdly, the enormous expenses of elections. Sixty nomination

boroughs, not having a population of 2,000 each, were to be totally

disfranchised; 46 boroughs, having a population of not more than

4,000, and returning two members each, would be deprived of one. The

seats thus obtained were to be given to large towns and populous

counties. In boroughs, the elective franchise was to be extended to

householders paying £10 rent; in counties, to copyholders of £10 a

year, and leaseholders of £50. Persons already in possession of the

right of voting were not to be deprived of it, if actually resident.

Non-resident electors were to be disfranchised, and the duration of

elections was to be shortened by increasing the facilities for taking

the poll. No compensation was to be given to the proprietors of the

disfranchised boroughs, which was justified under the precedent

of the forty-shilling freeholders of Ireland, who had received no

compensation for the loss of their votes. The question of the duration

of Parliaments was reserved for future consideration.

Scotland, before the Reform Bill, was ruled by an oligarchy. The

population was two millions and a half, the constituency was only

2,500. The power was to be taken from this small junto, and extended

to the great middle class of that intelligent and loyal people. In

Ireland, a host of rotten boroughs, some without any constituency at

all, was to be swept away. The general result would be an increase

for the United Kingdom of half a million electors, making the whole

number enjoying the franchise 900,000. Of these 50,000 would be found

in the new towns, created into Parliamentary boroughs in England,

110,000 additional electors in boroughs already returning members. For

instance, London would have 95,000; the English counties, 100,000;

Scotland, 60,000; Ireland, 40,000. The House would consist in all of

596 members, being a reduction of sixty-two on the existing number of

658. The number of seats abolished was 168, which reduced the House to

490. Five additional members were given to Scotland, three to Ireland,

one to Wales, eight to London, thirty-four to large English towns, and

fifty-five to English counties.

"No words," says Sir Archibald Alison, "can convey an adequate idea

of the astonishment which the announcement of this project of Reform

created in the House of Commons and the country. Nothing approaching

to it had ever been witnessed before, or has been since. Men's minds

were prepared for a change, perhaps a very considerable one, especially

in the enfranchising of new cities and towns which were unrepresented;

but it never entered into the imagination of any human being out of

the Cabinet that so sweeping and entire a change would be proposed,

especially by the king's Ministers. The Tories had never dreaded such

a revolution; the Radicals had never hoped for it. Astonishment was

the universal feeling. Many laughed outright; none thought the Bill

could pass. It was supposed by many that Ministers neither intended

nor desired it, but wished only to establish a thorn in the side of

their adversaries, which should prevent them from holding power if they

succeeded in displacing them. So universal was this feeling, that it is

now generally admitted that had Sir Robert Peel, instead of permitting

the debate to go on, instantly divided the House, on the plea that the

proposed measure was too revolutionary to be for a moment entertained,

leave to bring in the Bill would have been refused by a large majority.

The Cabinet Ministers themselves are known to have thought at the

time that their official existence then hung upon a thread." Such a

result, however, was most unlikely, as Sir Robert Inglis and other Tory

orators were eager to speak, having collected precedents, arguments,

and quotations against the Bill. These they proceeded to impart to the

House. After a debate of seven nights, the Bill was read a first time,

without a division, and the second reading was set down for the 21st of

March.

In the meantime the nation began to form itself rapidly into two

parties--Reformers and Anti-Reformers. The Tories were all reunited,

driven together by the sense of a common danger; divisions occasioned

by the currency and agricultural distress were all forgotten--all

merged in one mighty current of Conservative feeling. The whole

strength of that party rallied under the leadership of Sir Robert

Peel. His bitterest opponents, such as Lord Winchilsea and Sir Edward

Knatchbull, were among the most ardent and cordial of his allies. On

the other hand, the Reformers were in transports of joy and exultation.

"I honestly confess," said Mr. John Smith, "that when I first heard

the Ministerial proposal, it had the effect of taking away my breath,

so surprised and delighted was I to find the Ministers so much in

earnest." This was the almost universal feeling among Reformers, who

comprised the mass of the middle and working classes. No Bill in the

Parliamentary annals of Britain was ever honoured like this. It was

accepted by universal suffrage as the Charter of Reform. Every clause,

every sentence, every word in it was held sacred; and the watchword

at every meeting was, "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the

Bill." Petitions were got up in every town, and almost every parish,

some of them bearing twenty thousand or thirty thousand signatures,

demanding the passing of the Bill untouched and unimpaired.

On the 21st of March Lord John Russell moved the second reading of this

great Reform Bill. Sir Richard Vivian moved, as an amendment, that it

be read a second time that day six months. There was nothing new in

the debate that followed, though it lasted two nights. On the 22nd the

division occurred. The second reading was carried by a majority of one.

This was hailed with exultation by the Conservatives, as equivalent

to a defeat. But there were prophets who saw something ominous in

this majority of one. They remembered that the first triumph of the

_Tiers Etat_ in the National Assembly, in 1789, when they constituted

themselves a separate Chamber, was carried by one. The House was the

fullest on record up to that time, the numbers being 302 to 301, the

Speaker and the four tellers not included. A remarkable circumstance

connected with the division was, that about two to one of the county

members in England and Ireland were in favour of the Bill. No less

than sixty votes on the same side were for places to be disfranchised

or reduced. Although in the House it was felt that the division was

equivalent to a defeat, the Reformers out of doors were not in the

least disheartened; on the contrary, they became, if possible, more

determined. The political unions redoubled their exertions, and the

country assumed an attitude of defiance to the oligarchical classes

which excited serious alarm, from which the king himself was not

exempt. The pressure from without accumulated in force till it became

something terrific, and it was evident to all reflecting men that the

only alternative was Reform or Revolution.

On the 18th of April Lord John Russell moved that the House should

go into committee on the Bill, stating that he proposed to make

certain alterations in the details of the measure, but none affecting

its principles. General Gascoigne then moved that it should be an

instruction to the committee that the number of members composing the

House of Commons ought not to be reduced. The motion was seconded

by Mr. Sadler, and resisted by Lord Althorp, who declared that the

object of the motion was to destroy the Bill. It was nevertheless

carried, after an animated debate, by a majority of eight against

the Government. Ministers had been placed in a position of peculiar

difficulty--they had to humour the king's vanity and love of popular

applause, in order to prevent his becoming sulky, and refusing to

consent to a dissolution, which they felt to be inevitable. They had

also to proceed with great caution in dealing with the Opposition,

lest, irritated by the threat of dissolution, they should resolve

to stop the supplies, it being impossible to dissolve Parliament in

the present state of the estimates. They had been fortunate enough,

however, to guard against this danger. On the 23rd of March supply had

been moved, and a large portion of the army estimates voted. On the

25th Sir James Graham moved portions of the navy estimates, and on the

same night the Civil List was provided for. Further supplies of various

kinds having luckily been granted, on the 30th the House was adjourned

for the Easter holidays, till the 12th of April.

The affairs of Ireland had been entrusted in the House of Commons to

the vigorous hands of Mr. Stanley (afterwards Earl of Derby), who had

been sent over as Chief Secretary with Lord Anglesey, and whom, from

his firmness in administering the law, Mr. O'Connell denounced as

"scorpion Stanley." On the 24th of March Mr. Stanley moved the first

reading of the Bill to amend the representation of Ireland. A long and

a violent debate ensued, in which Ireland was not so much thought of

as the vast general interests involved in the impending revolution.

In the meantime Ministers had done what they could to make the king

comfortable with regard to his revenue. They proposed £510,000 a

year for the Civil List, instead of £498,480, as recommended by the

committee, while the liberal jointure of £100,000 a year was settled

upon Queen Adelaide. This gratified his Majesty in the highest degree,

and reconciled him to the dissolution, his decision being hastened by

the attempt of the Tories to stop supplies. When the royal carriages

were not ready to take him to the House of Lords, the king said, "Then

call a hackney coach."

An extraordinary scene of confusion was being enacted in the House

of Commons at the moment when the king's reluctance was overcome.

Sir R. Vivian took occasion to arraign Ministers violently for their

intention of dissolving Parliament. Sir Francis Burdett contended

that he was out of order. The Speaker ruled that he was in order. The

Reformers differed from the Chair. Loud cries of "Sir Robert Peel! Sir

Robert Peel!" were answered by counter-cries of "Sir Francis Burdett!

Sir Francis Burdett!" and some wiser cries of "Chair! Chair!" The

Speaker rose and stilled this unprecedented storm--rebuked those who

had disputed his authority, and again called on Sir Robert Peel, who

proceeded thereupon, in undisguised anger, to address the House. But as

the noise of the cannon, which announced the king's approach, boomed

into the House, the Reform members loudly cheered, each discharge

being greeted with overbearing and triumphant shouts. Suddenly Sir

Robert's angry speech, and the loud cheers of the Reformers, were

stilled by the three admonitory taps of the Usher of the Black Rod,

who came to summon the members to attend his Majesty in the House of

Peers. The Speaker at once obeyed, the Commons following. A similar

scene of confusion in the Upper House was interrupted by the approach

of the king. Lord Londonderry said, "I protest my lords, I will not

submit to----." Further than this his speech did not proceed, as the

Lord Chancellor, who heard the king approaching, clutched the seals,

left the woolsack, and darted out of the House. Lord Londonderry, not

yet despairing, moved Lord Shaftesbury again to act as Speaker, and

Lord Mansfield began a furious harangue in a loud and angry voice. In

the meantime the Lord Chancellor met the king entering the House, and

proceeding in procession to the robing-room. As the king advanced, the

noise in the House became distinctly audible. "What's that, my Lord

Chancellor?" said the king. "Only, may it please you, sire, the House

of Lords amusing themselves while awaiting your Majesty's coming." The

king, knowing what was meant, hastily robed, and as hastily entered the

House--cutting short Lord Mansfield's speech, and putting an end to all

chance of passing the resolution under debate. The king ascended the

throne, and commanded the attendance of the Commons. The bar of the

House of Lords was thronged by the mass of members who now entered.

The Speaker addressed the king, stating that the House of Commons

approached the king with profound respect; and that the Commons had at

no time more faithfully responded to the real feelings and interest

of his Majesty's affectionate people; "while it has been," he added,

"their earnest desire to support the dignity and honour of the Crown,

upon which depend the greatness, the happiness, and the prosperity

of this country." The Royal Assent being given to the bills that had

passed, and, among others, to the Civil List Bill, the Chancellor

presented to his Majesty the Speech he was to deliver, and the king,

with the high shrill tone he always employed, but with more than

wonted energy, read the first, which, indeed, was the really important

paragraph of the Speech, and that which alone men cared to listen to or

hear.

[Illustration: WILLIAM IV.]

"My lords and gentlemen," said his Majesty, "I have come to meet you

for the purpose of proroguing this Parliament, with a view to its

instant dissolution." The voice of the king rose, and became still more

shrill and piercing, as he reached the last clause of the sentence;

and a loud buzz and hum, the loudest such a presence permitted,

immediately followed, and nearly drowned all the succeeding sentences.

The dissolution speedily followed the prorogation, and a new Parliament

was summoned to meet on the 14th of June.

The press played a most important part in the agitation for Reform.

A host of the most witty, brilliant, and powerful writers of the day

wielded their pens against monopoly with tremendous effect, assailing

it with argument and ridicule, like a continual storm of shot and

shell. Of these, the most distinguished was the Rev. Sydney Smith, who

mingled argument, sarcasm, humour, and pathos, in his ardent advocacy

of the popular cause, with a power and effect that made him a host in

himself. In answer to the objection that the Reform Bill was a mere

theory, he furnished the most telling illustrations, from life, of the

way in which the existing system kept down merit and damaged the public

service. So far from Reform being a mere theoretical improvement, he

said, "I put it to every man who is himself embarked in a profession,

or has sons in the same situation, if the unfair influence of

borough-mongers has not perpetually thwarted him in his lawful career

of ambition and professional emolument? 'I have been in three general

engagements at sea,' said an old sailor; 'I have twice been wounded;

I commanded the boats when the French frigate _Astrolabe_ was cut out

so gallantly.' 'Then, you were made a post captain?' 'No, I was very

near it, but Lieutenant Thomson cut me out as I cut out the French

frigate; his father is town-clerk of the borough of which Lord F----

is member, and there my chance was finished.' In the same manner all

over England, you will find great scholars rotting on curacies, brave

captains starving in garrets, profound lawyers decayed and mouldering

in the Inns of Court, because the parsons, warriors, and advocates

of borough-mongers must be crammed to saturation before there is a

morsel of bread for the man who does not sell his votes and put his

country up for auction; and though this is of every-day occurrence,

the borough system, we are told, is no practical evil...." Another

witty and brilliant writer, Mr. Fonblanque, rendered important services

to the cause of Reform by his writings in the _Examiner_, which have

been collected under the name of "Seven Administrations." Though

Radical in its tendencies, he wrote, "Ministers have far exceeded our

expectations. The plan of Reform, though short of Radical Reform, tends

to the utter destruction of borough-mongering, and will prepare the

way for a complete improvement. The ground, limited as it is, which it

is proposed to clear and open with popular influence, will suffice,

as the spot desired by Archimedes, for the plant of the power which

must ultimately govern the whole system. Without Reform, convulsion

is inevitable. Upon any Reform further improvement is inevitably

consequent, and the settlement of the Constitution on the democratic

basis certain."[1] At this period the _Times_ was by far the greatest

power of the newspaper press, and its advocacy of the cause of Reform

was distinguished by a vigour and boldness which rendered it obnoxious

to the House of Lords, and provoked an attack on the liberty of the

press that caused a great deal of excitement during the discussions

on the first Reform Bill. Mr. Lawson, the printer, was arrested, but

released after a reprimand.

Such was the state of public feeling that preceded the dissolution

of Parliament. This event was the signal for the wildest exultation

and triumph among the people. There was a general illumination in

London, sanctioned by the Lord Mayor. In Edinburgh and other cities

where the civic authorities did not order it, the Reform Clubs took

upon themselves to guide the people in their public rejoicings. In

many places the populace broke the windows of those who refused to

illuminate; and in some cases those who did comply had their windows

smashed, if suspected of Tory principles. In Scotland the mobs are said

to have been peculiarly violent. Sir Archibald Alison states that the

windows of his brother, Professor Alison, whose life had been devoted

to the relief of the poor, though illuminated, "were utterly smashed

in five minutes, as were those of above a thousand others of the most

respectable citizens." The Lord Provost of Edinburgh was seized by the

mob on the day of the election, who tried to throw him over the North

Bridge, a height of ninety feet--a crime for which the ringleaders were

afterwards convicted and punished by the judiciary court. The military

were called out, but withdrawn at the request of Lord Advocate Jeffrey.

At Ayr, he says, "the Conservative voters had to take refuge in the

Town Hall, from which they were escorted by a body of brave Whigs,

who, much to their honour, had them conveyed to a steamboat." "No

person anywhere in Scotland could give his vote for the Conservative

candidate." At Lanark a dreadful riot occurred, and the Conservative

candidate was seriously wounded in the church where the election

was going forward. At Dumbarton the Tory candidate, Lord William

Graham, only escaped death by being concealed in a garret, where he

lay hidden the whole day. At Jedburgh a band of ruffians hooted the

dying Sir Walter Scott. "I care for you no more," said he, "than for

the hissing of geese." Sir Walter, in his diary, says:--"The mob were

exceedingly vociferous and brutal, as they usually are now-a-days. The

population gathered in formidable numbers--a thousand from Hawick--sad

blackguards. I left the burgh in the midst of abuse and gentle hints

of 'burke Sir Walter!'" In London the windows in the houses of the

leading Anti-Reformers were all broken. The Duke of Wellington was

not spared in this raid against the opponents of popular rights.

The windows of Apsley House were smashed with volleys of stones. It

happened, unfortunately, that the duchess lay dead within at the time.

She had expired just as the booming of the guns in St. James's Park

announced the approach of the king to dissolve Parliament. The crowd

knew nothing of this. The Duke, however, was determined that he would

not suffer an outrage like this another time. He had iron shutters put

up, so as to guard every window which was liable to be assailed, either

from Piccadilly or Hyde Park; and to the day of his death they remained.

The general election brought a large accession of strength to the

Reform Party. The new Parliament met on the 21st of June, and Mr.

Manners Sutton was again elected Speaker. In the Speech from the

Throne the king said, "Having had recourse to the dissolution of

Parliament, for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of my people

on the expediency of a Reform in the Representation, I have now to

recommend that important question to your earliest and most attentive

consideration, confident that, in any measures which you may prepare

for its adjustment, you will adhere to the acknowledged principles

of the Constitution, by which the rights of the Crown, the authority

of both Houses of Parliament, and the rights and liberties of the

people are equally secured." The usual assurances were then given of

the friendly disposition of all foreign Powers; reference was made to

the contest then going on in Poland, to the Belgian Revolution, and

the right of its people to regulate their own affairs, so long as the

exercise of it did not endanger the security of neighbouring States. A

paragraph was devoted to Portugal, lamenting that diplomatic relations

with its Government could not be re-established, though a fleet had

been sent to enforce our demands of satisfaction. Strict economy was

recommended, in the stereotype phraseology of Royal Speeches. Having

referred to reduction of taxation, the state of the revenue, and to the

desire to assist the industry of the country, by legislation on sound

principles, the Speech described the appearance of Asiatic cholera, and

the precautions that had been taken to prevent its introduction into

England. The rest of the Speech was devoted to Ireland, where "local

disturbances, unconnected with political causes," had taken place in

various districts, especially in Clare, Galway, and Roscommon, for the

repression of which the constitutional authority of the law had been

vigorously and successfully applied; and thus the necessity of enacting

new laws to strengthen the executive had been avoided, to avert which,

the king said, would ever be his most earnest desire.

Addresses were agreed to in both Houses without a division. The

only discussion of interest that took place in connection with them

referred to the dissolution, and the circumstances in which it

occurred. The Opposition denounced it as an impolitic proceeding,

bearing the appearance of a revolutionary _coup d'état_. They charged

the Lord Chancellor with making a false statement, in alleging that

the Commons had stopped the supplies, which, if true, was not the

real cause of the dissolution, the Cabinet having previously resolved

upon that measure. Some of the Ministers also, in their addresses to

their constituencies--Sir James Graham, for example--conveyed the

same injurious impression, stating that "the last division, which

had the effect of delaying the supplies, left no alternative but

that of abandoning the Bill or of appealing to the people." With

this "factious" conduct the Tory candidates were taunted at the

elections, and they complained that they suffered in consequence

much unmerited odium. The Chancellor denied the imputation. Not only

had the Ministers decided upon the measure of dissolution, but the

requisite commission had been actually prepared; and Lord Brougham

said, "Knowing this, I must have been the veriest dolt and idiot in

the creation, if I had said what has been attributed to me. I stated a

fact--that the dissolution being resolved upon, if there were wanting

any justification for the step, the conduct of the House of Commons the

night before furnished ample justification for that proceeding." But

the truth is, the Opposition were smarting under the sense of defeat;

they had been out-manœuvred by Lord Grey, and defeated by the use of

their own tactics.

Another ground of attack upon the Government at the opening of

the Session was their conduct in not bringing up Mr. O'Connell

for judgment. It was alleged that they had entered into a corrupt

compromise with the great Irish agitator, in order to avert his

hostility and secure his support at the elections. This was indignantly

denied both by Mr. Stanley and Lord Plunket. They contended that as

the Act expired with the Parliament, so did the conviction, and that

Mr. O'Connell could not be legally punished. This was the opinion of

the law officers of the Crown in Ireland, an opinion in which the

English law officers concurred. Mr. Stanley said:--"Not only was there

no collusion or compromise, but I should have been most glad if Mr.

O'Connell could have been brought up for judgment; but then we have

been told that we ought not to have dissolved Parliament, because by

so doing Mr. O'Connell had escaped. Now, no man can be more sensible

than I am of the importance of showing to the people of Ireland that if

Mr. O'Connell chooses to go beyond the law, he is not above the law;

but, without meaning the slightest disrespect to Mr. O'Connell, I must

say that if I put on the one hand the success of a great and important

measure like the Reform Bill, and on the other the confinement of Mr.

O'Connell in his Majesty's gaol of Kilmainham for three, six, or nine

months, I must say that what became of Mr. O'Connell was as dust in the

balance. Besides, the impression of the supremacy of the law was made

upon the people by the fact of the verdict having been obtained against

him, and an immediate change was wrought in the system of agitation,

which, indeed, ceased. Such being the case, the question of what might

be the personal consequences to any individual by the dissolution

became of still less importance than it was before."

[Illustration: JEDBURGH ABBEY. (_After the Painting by Sir George Reid,

P.R.S.A._)]

On the 24th of June Lord John Russell proposed his second edition of

the Reform Bill, which did not substantially differ from the first.

His speech on this occasion was a perfect contrast to the one with

which he had introduced the measure at first. There was no longer any

hesitation or timidity. He was no longer feeling his way doubtfully on

an untried path, or navigating without compass along a dangerous coast.

He boldly launched out to sea, with his eye steadily fixed on the north

star, certain of his course and confident of the issue. The discussions

of the previous Session had thrown a flood of light upon the whole

question. Sustained by the enthusiasm of the people, and animated by

the sympathy of the majority around him on the Ministerial benches, he

spoke as if a greater and more vigorous mind had taken possession of

his frame. He was strong in argument, cutting in sarcasm, defiant in

tone, powerful in declamation. Borne by the power of public opinion

to a higher and more commanding position, and proudly conscious of the

elevation, he seemed ashamed of the petty proposals of former years,

and felt his heart as well as his intellect expanding to the greatness

of the new position. The Bill was read a first time without opposition,

the discussion being expressly reserved by Sir Robert Peel for the

second reading, which was fixed for the 4th of July. In the meantime

the Irish Bill was brought in by Mr. Stanley on the 30th of June,

Messrs. O'Connell and Sheil complaining bitterly of the difference

existing, to the disadvantage of Ireland, between the proposed plans of

Reform for the two countries. On the following day the Lord Advocate

brought in the Bill relating to Scotland. On the 4th of July Lord

John Russell moved the second reading of the English Reform Bill. A

debate of three nights followed, containing little or no novelty in the

argument, nothing but a wearisome repetition of points that had been

discussed all over the country, hundreds of times, during the last few

months. The most interesting feature was the attitude of Sir Robert

Peel, who unfortunately placed himself in the front of the battle

against Reform, in which he proved himself so able a general that all

enlightened friends of the country lamented his false position. It was

remarked, however, that he confined himself to a criticism of details.

[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF WILLIAM IV.]

The division on the second reading took place on the 6th of July, when

the numbers were--for the Bill, 367; against it, 231; majority, 136.

This result was a sufficient vindication of the appeal made to the

country. The nation had now spoken constitutionally as to the evils

of the old system of representation and unmistakably expressed its

determination to have it reformed. The measure might be delayed in the

Commons by vexatious opposition; but if it were to be defeated it must

be by the House of Lords, and it required some boldness in the majority

of that assembly to take upon itself to hinder the other branch of

the legislature from effecting its own reform. The Bill now went into

committee, when the case of each borough which it was proposed to

disfranchise came under separate consideration. In Schedule A were

placed, alphabetically, all the boroughs which had less than 2,000 of

population, and these were to be disfranchised. When Appleby, the first

on the list, came under consideration, there was a keen contest as to

the actual numbers then in the town, and the question turned upon the

census by which the committee were to be guided. By the census of 1821

the place would be disfranchised, but the inhabitants affirmed that

by the census of 1831, then in progress, they were shown to have more

than the requisite number; and Sir Robert Peel contended strenuously

that they should wait for the more correct information. Mr. Wynn having

moved a general resolution that the consideration of the schedules

should be postponed till the result of the census was published, Sir

Robert Peel said, with great show of reason, "After having obtained

so large a majority as 136 on the principle of the Bill, Government

would have acted wisely, even for the interests of the measure itself,

to have postponed going into details till they were in possession of

better documents on which to proceed. They know what is coming; they

are aware of the event which is casting its shadow before--namely, that

the boroughs will be overtaken by the population returns of 1831. In

another fortnight these returns would be laid before the House; and

though his Majesty's Ministers now proceed expressly on the doctrine of

a population of 2,000 and 4,000, they are guilty of the inconceivable

absurdity of proceeding on the returns of 1821, when they can so

soon be in possession of the census of 1831." The House, however,

determined, by a majority of 118, to proceed upon the old census. A

series of tiresome debates upon the details of each particular borough

proceeded from day to day, and lasted for two months, the Ministry

invariably carrying their points by triumphant majorities. The tone of

the discussion was acrimonious, as might naturally be expected from

the weighty personal interests involved. Sir Edward Sugden solemnly

declared that he considered the tone and manner, as well as the

argument, of the Attorney-General as indicating that they were to be

dragooned into the measure. In the opinion of Sir Charles Wetherell

all this was "too capricious, too trifling, too tyrannical, and too

insulting to the British public, to carry with it the acquiescence

either of the majority within or the majority without the House." The

ill-temper and factious obstruction of the Opposition greatly damaged

the Tory party out of doors and exasperated the people against them.

During the passage of the Bill through committee three important

proposals were made--the first by Lord Chandos, that tenants paying

fifty pounds per annum for their holdings should have a vote in the

counties. This was known as "the Chandos clause" of the Reform Bill,

which was carried on the 18th of August by a majority of 84, the

numbers being 232 and 148. Mr. Hume proposed that the colonies should

be represented in the House of Commons; but the motion was negatived

without a division. Mr. Hunt, the celebrated Radical Reformer, moved

that all house-holders paying rates and taxes should have votes; but,

strange to say, household suffrage had in the committee but a single

supporter, Mr. Hunt himself, who upon a division constituted the

minority. Mr. Hume asked only nineteen members to represent 100,000,000

of inhabitants, including our Indian empire, to which he would give

four representatives. It was certainly a small demand, but as a

representation of our colonies and dependencies it was ludicrously

inadequate.

At length, after every clause of the Bill, and every word and every

place in each of the schedules had been the subjects of all possible

motions and discussions--after a warfare which, for animosity and

duration, was unparalleled in our Parliamentary history, the Bill was

read a third time on the 21st of September, and passed by a majority of

109, the numbers being 345 to 236. The result was received with loud

and long-continued cheering by the Reformers in the House. The anxious

and impatient multitude in the streets caught up the sounds of triumph

with exultant enthusiasm; the acclamations of all classes of the

people rang throughout the agitated metropolis. The news spread like

wildfire through the country, and was everywhere received with ringing

of bells and other demonstrations of joy. As soon as the Bill passed

an illumination of London was proposed, and an application was made to

the Lord Mayor, in order to obtain his sanction, which was granted.

The illumination was extensive, and those who refused to comply had

their windows broken by the populace. In many places the people, whose

patience had been so severely tested, began to lose their self-control,

and were betrayed into riotous conduct. Mr. Macaulay, and other leading

Reformers in Parliament, had warned the Opposition of this danger, and

it turned out that their apprehensions were not altogether visionary.

At length, on the 22nd of September, Lord John Russell, attended by

Lord Althorp, and a great body of the most distinguished Reformers,

appeared at the bar of the House of Lords, and handed the English

Reform Bill to the Lord Chancellor, praying the concurrence of

their Lordships. This scene has been made the subject of a great

historical painting. The Bill, without any opposition or remark from

any Conservative peer, was read a first time on the motion of Earl

Grey, and ordered to be read a second time on Monday week. The debate

on the second reading commenced on the 3rd of October, with a speech

from Lord Grey--grave, elaborate, earnest, and impressive; simple, yet

dignified. He described his own efforts in regard to Parliamentary

Reform, spoke of the changes which had of necessity attended his

opinions on the subject, and of the circumstances which, at the

close of his long career, when the conservative spirit is naturally

strongest in every man, had led him to endeavour to put in practice

the theories and speculations of his youth and manhood. Lord Eldon

described the progress of the debate from day to day in letters to

members of his family. Lord Dudley and Lord Haddington quite surprised

and delighted the zealous old man--they spoke so admirably against

the Bill. Lord Carnarvon delivered a most excellent speech; but Lord

Plunket's speaking disappointed him. The fifth night of the debate

was occupied by the lawyers. Lord Eldon--following Lord Wynford and

Lord Plunket--solemnly delivered his conscience on this momentous

occasion. He was ill and weak, and being an octogenarian, he might be

said to be speaking on the edge of the grave. He expressed his horror

of the new doctrines which had been laid down with respect to the law

of the country and its institutions. He could not consent to have all

rights arising out of Charters, and all the rights of close boroughs,

swept away. Boroughs, he contended, were both property and trust.

Close corporations had as good a right to hold their charters under

the Great Seal as any of their lordships had to their titles and their

peerages. He said that he was a freeman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; he

had received his education in the corporation school of that town on

cheap terms, as the son of a freeman; he had a right to it; and he had

hoped that, when his ashes were laid in the grave, he might have given

some memorandum that the boys there, situated as he was, might rise

to be Lord Chancellors of England, if, having the advantage of that

education, they were honest, faithful, and industrious. The closing

night of the debate brought out the two most illustrious law lords in

the House, who had long been rivals and competitors in the arenas of

professional and political life--Lord Brougham and Lord Lyndhurst.

Each was holding back in order to have the opportunity of replying to

the other; but Lord Lyndhurst managed to have the last word, the more

excitable Lord Chancellor having lost patience, and flung himself into

the debate. He implored the House on his knees to pass the Bill. But

the _coup de théâtre_ miscarried, owing to the obvious anxiety of his

friends lest he should be thought to be suffering from too much mulled

port.

The last night's debate continued till between six and seven o'clock on

the morning of Saturday, the 8th of October. It was a night of intense

anxiety, both in the House and out of doors. The space about the throne

was crowded with foreigners and members of the other House. There was

a number of ladies, peeresses, and their daughters, sitting there the

whole night, manifesting their excitement in every way consistent with

decorum. Palace Yard and the space all round the House was thronged

with people waiting to hear the result of the division. The night was

wet, however, and the debate was so protracted that the crowd had

dispersed before morning. This was a matter of consolation to the

Opposition peers, who dreaded a mobbing. It was now broad daylight,

and no sound was heard outside except the rolling of the carriages of

the peers, who passed up Parliament Street as quietly as if they had

come from disposing of a road Bill. The fate of the Bill was that day

decided, for it, 158; against it, 199--leaving a majority of 41. "The

night was made interesting," wrote Lord Eldon, "by the anxieties of all

present. Perhaps, fortunately, the mob on the outside would not wait so

long."

The result produced intense excitement, and led to rioting and outrage

in the metropolis, and in some of the provincial towns. In London,

the Duke of Wellington, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Marquis of

Londonderry, were assaulted in the street, and rescued with difficulty

from the fury of the mob. Lord Londonderry, who had signalised

himself during the debate by the violence of his opposition, was

struck senseless from his horse by a shower of stones at the gate of

the palace, amidst cries of "Murder him! Cut his throat!" Persons

respectably dressed, and wearing ribbons round their arms, took the

lead on these occasions, giving orders, and rushing from the crowd.

The houses of the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Bristol, and all other

anti-Reform peers, had been visited by the mob, and left without glass

in their windows. All the shops in town were shut. "The accounts from

Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and other places," wrote Lord Eldon, "are

very uncomfortable. I heard last night that the king was frightened by

the appearance of the people outside of St. James's."

Although the division took no one by surprise, as the rejection of

the Bill by the Lords was expected, yet the shock to society was very

violent. The Funds suddenly fell, and there was that feeling of vague

anxiety in the public mind which often portends some great calamity.

At Derby they broke open the gaol and demolished the property of

the anti-Reformers of the place. At Nottingham there was serious

rioting, which ended in the utter destruction by fire of the ancient

castle, once the property of the Duke of Newcastle, who had given

violent offence by his rash declaration with regard to his voters at

Newark, "that he had a right to do what he pleased with his own." The

popular fury, however, soon subsided, and the public mind regained

tranquillity, in the full assurance that the carrying of the Bill was

only a question of time, and that the popular cause must ultimately

triumph. What most materially contributed to the restoration of

public confidence was the fact that the king, alarmed at the prospect

of a revolution, implored the Ministers to retain their places, and

to shape their Bill so as to disarm their opponents; and on the

following Monday, in the House of Commons, Lord Ebrington moved a

vote of confidence in the Government, to the effect that, while the

House lamented the present state of a measure in favour of which the

opinion of the country had been so unequivocally expressed, and which

had been matured after the most anxious and laborious discussions,

they felt imperatively called upon to reassert their firm adherence to

its principles and leading provisions, and their unabated confidence

in the integrity, perseverance, and ability of the Ministers, who,

in introducing it and conducting it so well, had consulted the best

interests of the country. This motion was carried by the large

majority of 131; the numbers being 329 to 198. Thus supported by the

Commons, the Ministers retained their places; and the king, on the

20th of October, prorogued Parliament in person, in a Speech which the

Lords might take as the king's answer to their vote, telling them in

effect that by their obstinate bigotry they were setting themselves

in antagonism to the two other estates of the realm, and that in

their conduct and position lay the real danger to the Constitution.

His Majesty said: "To the consideration of the important question of

the Reform of the House of Commons the attention of Parliament must

necessarily again be called at the opening of the ensuing Session; and

you may be assured of my unaltered desire to promote its settlement by

such improvements in the representation as may be found necessary for

securing to my people the full enjoyment of their rights, which, in

combination with those of the other orders of the State, are essential

to the support of our free Constitution."

In the trying circumstances in which they were placed, Lord Grey and

his colleagues displayed a firmness and courage which entitled them

to the everlasting gratitude of the country. The pluck of Lord John

Russell in particular had quite an inspiriting effect on the nation.

Replying to a vote of thanks to him and Lord Althorp, which had been

passed by the Birmingham Political Union, the noble Paymaster of the

Forces used an antithetical expression, which has become historical,

and which, considering that the faction to which he alluded was the

majority of the order to which he himself belonged, must be admitted

to be one of extraordinary boldness. He said: "I beg to acknowledge

with heartfelt gratitude the undeserved honour done me by 150,000 of my

countrymen. Our prospects are now obscured for a moment, and I trust

only for a moment. It is impossible that the whisper of faction should

prevail against the voice of the nation."

[Illustration: ATTACK ON SIR CHARLES WETHERELL AT BRISTOL. (_See p._

340.)]

Encouraged by language like this from Ministers of the Crown, the voice

of the nation became louder and more menacing every day. Meetings,

attended by vast multitudes of angry and determined men, were held in

Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and most of the large towns, especially

where the democratic element was predominant. The worst and most

destructive of the riots was at Bristol. The recorder of Bristol was

Sir Charles Wetherell, noted for his vehemence in opposing Reform.

Considering the excitement and desperation that had been recently

exhibited throughout the kingdom, it was scarcely prudent for Sir

Charles Wetherell to appear in Bristol at all on that occasion. At

all events, he should have entered the city privately, and discharged

the duties of his office as quietly as possible. Instead of that, he

made a public and pompous entry into the city on the 20th of October,

accompanied by the magistrates and a cavalcade of the Tory gentry.

This offensive pageant was naturally followed by a mob of disorderly

characters, hissing and groaning. They soon began to throw stones and

brickbats, especially when the respectable citizens at the commercial

rooms received their polemical recorder with three cheers. The

mansion-house was assailed with a shower of missiles. The mayor having

called upon them in vain to retire, the Riot Act was read, but the

military were not called out to enforce it. Instead of dispersing, the

mob overpowered the constables and drove them back, forced open the

doors of the mansion-house, smashed the furniture, and armed themselves

with the iron rails which they tore up from the front of the building.

Sir Charles Wetherell and the magistrates providentially escaped by

a back door, and the recorder made an undignified retreat from the

city. The military were at length called out, and after some time the

disturbance seemed to be quelled, and the dragoons, who had been much

fatigued, retired for the night. Bristol, it is said, has always been

distinguished for a bad mob. On the next day the rioters proceeded

to the mansion-house, broke open its cellars, and regaled themselves

with the contents. The military were again brought out to quell the

now intoxicated rioters; but there was no magistrate there to give

orders, and the troops were marched back to the barracks. The mob

then proceeded in detached parties, each having a work of destruction

assigned to it. One party went to the bridewell, broke open the doors,

liberated the prisoners, and then set the building on fire. Another

went to the new gaol and performed a similar operation there. The

Gloucester county prison was next broken open and consigned to the

flames. The principal toll-houses about the city shared the same fate.

The bishop's palace was pillaged and burned to the ground. Becoming

more maddened as they proceeded, their passions raging more furiously

at the sight of the conflagration as it spread, the mob resolved that

no public building should be left standing. The mansion-house, the

custom-house, the excise office, and other public buildings were wrapt

in flames, which were seen bursting forth with awful rapidity on every

side. The blackened and smoking walls of buildings already burned were

falling frequently with terrific crashing, while Queen's Square and

the adjoining streets were filled with a maniacal multitude, yelling

in triumph and reeling with intoxication; many of them lying senseless

on the pavement, and not a few consumed in the fires which they had

raised. In addition to the public buildings, forty-two dwelling-houses

and warehouses were burned. The loss of property was estimated at

half a million sterling. This work of destruction was commenced on

Sunday, and carried on during the night. The sky was reddened with the

conflagration, while the military (who had been sent into the country

to avoid irritating the people) and the paralysed authorities looked

on helplessly from a distance at the progress of destruction. On

Monday morning, however, they recovered from their consternation, and

resolved to make an effort to save the city. The magistrates ordered

the military to act, and under the command of an officer of the 14th,

the dragoons charged the rioters in earnest. A panic now seized the

mob, who fled in terror before the flashing swords of the troops and

the trampling hoofs of their horses, some of them so terror-stricken

that they rushed for safety into burning houses. The number of persons

killed and wounded during this terrible business was ascertained to

be 110, and it is supposed that many more that were never heard of

lost their lives in the burning houses. The ringleaders were tried in

December, when many persons were convicted, of whom three underwent the

punishment of death.

Early in the following year the mayor and the commanding officer,

Colonel Brereton, were brought to trial for neglect of duty. The mayor

was acquitted, as not having been adequately supported by the military;

but Colonel Brereton's humanity led to the most painful consequences.

His trial began on the 9th of January following, and lasted four days,

during which, as the proofs against him accumulated, he was overwhelmed

with agony of mind. On the night of the 12th he did not visit, as was

his custom, the chamber of his two motherless daughters. He was heard

walking for hours about his room during that night, and in the morning,

when the court assembled, it was announced that the prisoner had shot

himself through the heart.

This tragedy produced a painful sensation through the whole community.

The facts brought to light at the trial had the effect of dissociating

the Bristol outrages from the cause of Reform, with which they had

no real connection. Still the leading anti-Reformers were extremely

obnoxious to the people; and as men's minds became more and more

heated, in reiterating demands for national rights, withheld by a

faction, extreme opinions grew into greater favour. For example,

a national political union was formed in London, and held a great

meeting, at which Sir Francis Burdett presided. This body issued

a manifesto, in which they demanded annual Parliaments, universal

suffrage, and vote by ballot. This was a legitimate demand; but

they broached more disputable topics when they proclaimed "that all

property honestly acquired is sacred and inviolable; that all men are

born equally free, and have certain natural and inalienable rights;

that all hereditary distinctions of birth are unnatural, and opposed

to the equal rights of man, and ought to be abolished; and that they

would never be satisfied with any laws that stopped short of these

principles." The union was proclaimed by Lord Melbourne, but continued

to assemble. Altogether, the country was in a most dangerous crisis in

the autumn of 1831.

[Illustration: CLERKENWELL GREEN, LONDON.]

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 1: _Examiner_, March 6th, 1831.]

CHAPTER IX.

REIGN OF WILLIAM IV. (_continued_).

The Coronation--Fears of Eminent Men--The Cholera--The

Waverers--Lord John Russell introduces the third Reform Bill--Its

Progress through the Commons--The Second Reading carried in the

Lords--Behind the Scenes--Feeling in the Country--Disfranchisement

Clauses postponed--Grey resigns--Ebrington's Resolution--Wellington

attempts to form a Ministry--Popular fury--The Run on the

Bank--Wellington abandons his post--Grey exacts the King's

Consent to the creation of Peers--The Opposition withdrawn--The

Bill becomes Law--The Irish Reform Bill--The Bill in the

Lords--The Scottish Reform Bill--Becomes Law--Result of the

Reform Bills--Mr. Stanley in Ireland--The Tithe-proctor--The

Church Cess--Tithe Legislation of 1831--Irish Education--Wyse's

Report--Stanley's Bill--Its Provisions for Religious

Instruction--General Election--New Parliament--The Coercion

Bill--The Church Temporalities Bill--The Poor Law Commission--Its

Report--Sketch of the Poor Law System--Provisions of the Poor

Law Amendment Act--History of the Emancipation Movement--Mr.

Stanley's Resolutions--Provisions of the Act of Emancipation--The

Dorsetshire Labourers--The Copenhagen Fields Meeting--Other

Meetings and Strikes--Sheil and Lord Althorp--O'Connell's Motion

on the Union--Baron Smith--Littleton's Tithe Bill--Mr. Ward's

Motion--Resignation of Mr. Stanley and his Friends--An Indiscreet

Speech of the King's--The Debate on Mr. Ward's Motion--Final

Collapse of the Cabinet--Retrospect of Lord Grey's Ministry.

Meanwhile the coronation had taken place. It was fixed for the 8th

of September, and the necessary alterations were made in Westminster

Abbey for the occasion. On the morning of the appointed day numerous

labourers, in scarlet jackets and white trousers, were busy completing

the arrangements. Forty private gentlemen acted as pages of the

Earl Marshal, and devised a novelty in the way of costume, clothing

themselves in blue frock coats, white breeches and stockings, a

crimson silk sash, and a small, ill-shaped hat, with a black ostrich

feather, each provided with a gilt staff. Their duty was to conduct

persons provided with tickets to their proper places. Three-fourths

of the members of the House of Commons were in military uniform, and

a few in Highland costume. The equipages produced for the occasion

were magnificent, the Lord Chancellor rivalling the Lord Mayor in

this display; but neither of them came up to the Austrian ambassador

in finery. The street procession commenced on Constitution Hill, and

attracted thousands of spectators. Their Majesties' carriage was drawn

by eight horses, four grooms being on each side, two footmen at each

door, and a yeoman of the guard at each wheel. The crowds were in good

humour with the spectacle, and manifested no disposition to dispense

with royalty. The presence of the queen offered a contrast to the

coronation of George IV. Of the regalia, the ivory rod with the dove

was borne by Lord Campbell, the sceptre and the cross by Lord Jersey,

and the crown by the Duke of Beaufort. The queen followed, supported

by the Bishops of Winchester and Chichester, and attended by five

gentleman pensioners on each side, the train borne by the Duchess of

Gordon, assisted by six daughters of earls. There was no banquet,

Government having the fear of the economists before their eyes, and

the nation having too lively a recollection of the coronation folly of

George IV.; but the king entertained a large party of the Royal Family

and nobility, with the principal officers of his household.

Otherwise the prospect was dismal enough, and some of the greatest

thinkers of the age were profoundly affected by the conviction that

they were on the eve of a vast convulsion--that the end of the world

was at hand, and that the globe was about to emerge into a new state of

existence. The unsettled state of society accounts, in some measure,

for the prevalence of the delusions of Edward Irving--then in the

height of his fame; delusions from which such minds as Dr. Arnold's did

not wholly escape. In reply to inquiries about the gift of tongues,

this great man wrote:--"If the thing be real, I should take it merely

as a sign of the coming day of the Lord. However, whether this be a

real sign or no, I believe the day of the Lord is coming--_i.e._ the

termination of one of the great ages of the human race; whether the

final one of all, or not, that, I believe, no created being knows, or

can know.... My sense of the evils of the times, and to what purpose I

am bringing up my children, is overwhelmingly bitter. All the moral and

physical worlds appear so exactly to announce the coming of the great

day of the Lord--_i.e._ a period of fearful visitation, to terminate

the existing state of things--whether to terminate the whole existence

of the human race, neither man nor angel knows--that no entireness of

private happiness can possibly close my mind against the sense of it."

Another cause of the general uneasiness and depression of the public

mind was the appearance, in the autumn of this year, of the mysterious

visitant, cholera morbus. This disease had been long known in India,

but it was only of late years that it began to extend its ravages over

the rest of the world. Within two years it had carried off nearly a

million of people in Asia. It made its first appearance in England at

Sunderland, on the 26th of October, 1831. Its name had come before,

spreading terror in every direction. It appeared in Edinburgh on

February 6th, 1832, at Rotherhithe and Limehouse on February 13th,

and in Dublin on March 3rd, 1832. In all these places, and in many

others, the mortality was very great. But it was still more severe on

the Continent. We know now that cholera could have been in a great

measure averted, and that its mystery lay in our ignorance. We know

that it always fell most heavily on the inhabitants of towns, hamlets,

or houses where deficient drainage and ventilation, accumulations of

putrescent matters, intemperance, and want of personal cleanliness

most prevailed. It selected for the scenes of its habitation and its

triumphs the usual haunts of typhus fever; and it effected its greatest

ravages in the neighbourhoods of rivers and marshes. In London it was

most virulent on the level of the Thames, and lost its power in exact

arithmetical ratio to the height of the districts above that level.

If it attacked a town or an army, and the inhabitants or the soldiers

decamped, and scattered themselves over the country, in the clear air

and pure sunshine, they escaped. It was possible, therefore, to guard

against its power by a proper system of drainage and sewage; by proper

ventilation; by personal cleanliness, temperance, and regularity; by

the abolition of nuisances, stagnant pools, and open ditches; and by

wholesome regimen and regular exercise in the open air. As it was,

a general fast was appointed and the Privy Council issued stringent

regulations which were not of much effect.

[Illustration: EARL GREY STREET, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. (_From a

Photograph by Poulton & Son, Lee._)]

[Illustration: LORD BROUGHAM.]

As the Government was determined to persevere, and to carry the Reform

Bill by means of a large creation of peers, if necessary, some of the

leading members of the Opposition in the Upper House began to think

seriously of their position, a sort of appeal having been made to

them in a letter from the king's private secretary, suggesting the

prudence of compromise and concession in order to save his Majesty from

the painful alternative of a creation of peers. Accordingly, Lords

Wharncliffe and Harrowby put themselves in communication with Lord

Grey, and this fact was announced by the former in a letter to the Duke

of Wellington, stating that he entertained good hope of being able to

arrange such a plan of compromise as would prevent the necessity of a

second rejection of the Bill by the Lords, and so enable them to alter

and amend it when it came into committee. The Duke, in reply to this,

said that he was glad of a possibility of an arrangement by mutual

concession on the Reform question; and that, for his part, all that

he desired to see, under the new system, was a chance of a Government

for this hitherto prosperous, happy, and great country, which should

give security to life and property hereafter. "The political unions,"

he said, "had assumed an organisation which any man who could read

would pronounce to be for military purposes, and nothing else." In the

meantime Lord Wharncliffe had waited by appointment upon the Prime

Minister at his house, in Sheen, where he discussed the Reform question

with him for two hours, without ever adverting to the political unions,

and he reported the issue in a long letter to the Duke of Wellington.

The result was that Lord Grey made some trifling concession in matters

of detail, and in return Lord Wharncliffe gave him the assurance

that he would do what he could to bring the Opposition lords to take

a more favourable view of the Ministerial scheme and its probable

consequences. This was followed by cordial shaking of hands, and

permission was given on each side to communicate with intimate friends

and colleagues. The Duke of Wellington, however, declined to take any

part in these deliberations. He believed that the Government could be

carried on, though with difficulty, under the existing system; but

under the system which the Reform Bill would introduce he doubted

if the Government could be carried on at all. Nothing came of Lord

Wharncliffe's negotiation with the Government, which declined to make

any material concession. It had the effect, however, of splitting

the Conservative party in the Upper House, breaking the phalanx of

the Opposition, and thus preparing the way for the triumph of the

Government.

So strongly did the latter feel the urgency of the case that Parliament

was called together again on the 6th of December. It was opened by the

king in person, who, in his Speech, recommended the speedy settlement

of the Reform question; referred to the opposition made to the payment

of tithes in Ireland; announced the conclusion of a convention with

France for the suppression of the African slave trade; deplored the

outrages at Bristol; and recommended improvements in the municipal

police of the kingdom. On the 12th Lord John Russell introduced the

Reform Bill the third time. It is said that his manner, like his

proposal, had undergone a striking alteration. His opening speech

was not now a song of triumph, inspired by the joyous enthusiasm of

the people. He no longer treated the Opposition in a tone of almost

contemptuous defiance. The spirit which had dictated the celebrated

reply to the Birmingham Political Union about the voice of the nation

and the whisper of a faction seemed to have died within him. Lord John

Russell proceeded to explain the changes and modifications that had

been made in the Bill since it was last before the House. As the census

of 1831 was now available, the census of 1821 was abandoned. But a new

element was introduced in order to test the claim of a borough to be

represented in Parliament. Numbers alone were no longer relied upon.

There might be a very populous town consisting of mean houses inhabited

by poor people. With numbers therefore, the Government took property,

ascertained by the amount of assessed taxes; and upon the combination

of these two elements the franchise was based. The calculations needed

to determine the standard were worked out by Lieutenant Drummond,

afterwards Under Secretary for Ireland. Upon the information obtained

by the Government as to the limits of each borough, its population,

and the amount of assessed taxes it paid, he made out a series of a

hundred boroughs, beginning with the lowest, and taking the number of

houses and the amount of their assessed taxes together, as the basis of

their relative importance. Thus Schedule A was framed. In the original

Bill this schedule contained sixty boroughs; in the present Bill it

contained only fifty-six. The consequence of taking Mr. Drummond's

report as a basis of disfranchisement was, that some boroughs, which

formerly escaped as populous and large, were now placed in Schedule A;

while others, which were better towns, were taken out of that schedule

and placed in Schedule B, which now contained only thirty instead of

forty boroughs, as in the former Bill. The diminution in this schedule,

consisting of boroughs whose members were to be reduced from two to

one, was owing to the fact that the Government had given up the point

about reducing the number of members in the House of Commons, which

was to remain as before, 658. Thus a number of small boroughs escaped

which ought to have but one member each--so small that every one of

them ought to have been in Schedule A, that their members might be

given to new, prosperous, and progressive communities. Twenty-three

members were now to be distributed. Ten were given to the largest towns

placed in the original Schedule B, one to Chatham, one to the county of

Monmouth, and the rest to the large towns, which, by the former Bill,

obtained power to return one member only. The new Bill retained the

£10 qualification. Every man who occupied a house of the value of £10

a year was to have a vote, provided he was rated for the poor. It was

not the rating, however, that determined the value; it did not matter

to what amount he was rated, if only at £5 or £1, if the holding was

really worth £10 a year.

The second reading was moved on the 14th by Lord Althorp, the

Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Porchester moved that the Bill be

read a second time that day six months. His motion was supported by

Sir Edward Sugden. Sir Robert Peel had taunted the Government with

inconsistency in adopting alterations, every one of which they had

resisted when proposed by the Opposition. Mr. Macaulay retaliated with

powerful effect, with respect to the conduct of the Tories on the

question of Catholic Emancipation. On a division the numbers were, for

the second reading, 324; against it, 162--majority, 162. The House of

Commons having thus carried the Reform measure a third time by an

increased majority, which was now two to one, the House was adjourned

to the 17th of January, when it resumed its sittings. On the 19th

of that month the Irish Reform Bill was brought in by Mr. Stanley,

and the Scottish Bill by the Lord Advocate. On the 20th the House

resolved itself into a committee on the English Bill, and continued to

discuss it daily, clause by clause, and word by word, pertinaciously

and bitterly wrangling over each, till the 10th of March, when the

committee reported. The third reading was moved on the 19th, when the

last, and not the least violent, of the debates took place. The Bill

was passed on the 23rd by a majority of 116, the numbers being 355 and

239.

The Bill having passed, amidst the enthusiastic cheers of the

Reformers, Lord John Russell and Lord Althorp were ordered to carry it

in to the Lords, and "to request the concurrence of their Lordships

in the same." They did so on Monday, the 26th, followed by a large

number of members. It was read by the Lords the first time, and the

debate on the second reading commenced on the 9th of April. On that

day the Duke of Buckingham gave notice that--in the event of the Bill

being rejected, a result which he fully anticipated--he would bring

in a Reform Bill, of which the principal provisions would be to give

members to large and important towns, to unite and consolidate certain

boroughs, and to extend the elective franchise. Lord Grey then rose

to move the second reading of the Reform Bill. The principle of the

Bill, he remarked, was now universally conceded. It was admitted in

the Duke of Buckingham's motion. Even the Duke of Wellington did not

declare against all reform. They differed with the Opposition then

only as to the extent to which reform should be carried. He adverted

to the modifications that had been made in the Bill, and to the

unmistakable determination of the people. At this moment the public

mind was tranquil, clamour had ceased--all was anxious suspense and

silent expectation. Lord Grey disclaimed any wish to intimidate

their lordships, but he cautioned them not to misapprehend the awful

silence of the people. "Though the people are silent," he said, "they

are looking at our proceedings this night no less intently than they

have looked ever since the question was first agitated. I know it is

pretended by many that the nation has no confidence in the Peers,

because there is an opinion out of doors that the interests of the

aristocracy are separated from those of the people. On the part of

this House, however, I disclaim all such separation of interests;

and therefore I am willing to believe that the silence of which I

have spoken is the fruit of a latent hope still existing in their

bosoms." The Duke was severe upon the "waverers," Lords Wharncliffe and

Harrowby, who defended themselves on the ground that the Bill must be

carried, if not by the consent of the Opposition, against their will,

by a creation of peers that would swamp them. The Earl of Winchilsea,

on the third day, expressed unbounded indignation at the proposed

peer-making. If such a measure were adopted he would no longer sit in

the House thus insulted and outraged; but would bide his time till

the return of those good days which would enable him to vindicate the

insulted laws of his country by bringing an unconstitutional Minister

before the bar of his peers. The Duke of Buckingham would prefer

cholera to the pestilence with which this Bill would contaminate the

Constitution. This day the Bill found two defenders on the episcopal

bench, the Bishops of London and Llandaff. The Bishop of Exeter, in

the course of the debate, made remarks which called forth a powerful

and scathing oration from Lord Durham. The Bill was defended by Lord

Goderich, and Lord Grey rose to reply at five o'clock on Friday

morning. Referring to the attack of the Bishop of Exeter, he said, "The

right reverend prelate threw out insinuations about my ambition: let me

tell him calmly that the pulses of ambition may beat as strongly under

sleeves of lawn as under an ordinary habit." He concluded by referring

to the proposed creation of peers, which he contended was justified by

the best constitutional writers, in extraordinary circumstances, and

was in accordance with the acknowledged principles of the Constitution.

The House at length divided at seven o'clock on the morning of the

13th, when the second reading was carried by a majority of nine; the

numbers being--contents present, 128; proxies, 56-184; non-contents

present, 126; proxies, 49-175. The Duke of Wellington entered an

elaborate protest on the journals of the House against the Bill, to

which protest 73 peers attached their signatures.

This result was due to important negotiations behind the scenes. For

many months the more extreme section of the Cabinet had urged Lord Grey

to recommend the king to swamp the hostile majority by a creation of

peers. Both he and Althorp objected to this course, and fresh overtures

were made to the waverers, while the king undertook to convert the

Bishops. Both attempts failed, and then the Cabinet was nearly rent

in twain. Lord Durham attacked his father-in-law in language which

Althorp declared to be "brutal," and for which, said Lord Melbourne,

he deserved to be knocked down. At last the king resolved to agree to

a creation of peers on condition that the new creations should not

exceed the number of 24. This alarmed the waverers, and with the aid of

Charles Greville they came to terms with the Government. Lord Harrowby

and Lord Wharncliffe secured a majority on the second reading, on

condition that no new peers should be created.

The House then adjourned for the Easter holidays, till the 7th of May.

The interval was one of the greatest possible public excitement. The

narrowness of the majority made the Reformers tremble for the fate

of the Bill in committee. The awful silence was now broken, and the

voice of the nation was heard like peals of thunder. The political

unions which had been resting on their arms, as if watching intently

the movements of armies at a distance, now started to their feet, and

prepared themselves for battle. At Leeds, at Birmingham, Manchester,

Sheffield, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, meetings were held, strong

resolutions passed, and imperative petitions adopted. At Birmingham an

aggregate meeting of the political unions of the surrounding districts

was held on the 7th of May at the foot of New Hall Hill. Of this vast

and formidable assembly, the northern division alone was estimated at

100,000 men, who marched with 150 banners and eleven bands of music,

their processions extending over four miles. The total number of bands

in attendance at the meeting was 200, and the number of banners 700.

The commencement of the proceedings was announced by sound of bugle.

A number of energetic and determined speeches was delivered, and a

petition to the Lords was adopted, imploring them not to drive to

despair a high-minded, generous, and fearless people, nor to urge them

on by a rejection of their claims to demands of a much more extensive

nature; but rather to pass the Reform Bill into law, unimpaired in

any of its great parts and provisions, more especially uninjured

in the clauses relating to the ten-pound franchise. The council of

the Birmingham Union declared its sitting permanent, and the vast

organisation throughout the United Kingdom assumed an attitude of

resolution and menace truly alarming.

[Illustration: CORONATION OF WILLIAM IV.: THE ROYAL PROCESSION. (_See

p._ 343.)]

When the Peers assembled on the 7th it became quite evident that in

allowing the Bill to go into committee they were only practising a

manœuvre. In the first place they wished to prevent the creation of

peers, and in the second they were resolved to mutilate the Bill in

committee. They were aware that they had the sympathy of the king

in this plot, and that he would have been glad of their success,

irritated as he was by the coercion and pressure put upon him by his

Ministers. The first step was taken by Lord Lyndhurst, who proposed

in committee to defer the consideration of the disfranchising clauses

till the enfranchising clauses had been considered. "Begin," he

said, "by conferring rights and privileges, by granting boons and

favours, and not by depriving a portion of the community of the

privileges which they at present enjoy." This ostentatious preference

of boons and favours for the people, postponing disfranchisement to

enfranchisement, ringing changes on the words, was a mere artifice,

but it was at once seen through by the indignant people. Lord Grey and

Lord Brougham promptly exposed the attempted imposition; the former

hoped the noble lords would not deceive themselves. He would not say

that the proposal was insidious, but its object was utterly to defeat

the Bill. He declared that if the motion were successful it would be

fatal to the whole measure. It would then be necessary for him to

consider what course he should take. He dreaded the effect of the

House of Lords opposing itself, as an insurmountable barrier, to what

the people thought necessary for the good government of the country.

The noble earl's warning was on this occasion disregarded. The House

being in committee proxies could not be counted, and the amendment

of Lord Lyndhurst was carried after an angry debate--contents, 151;

non-contents, 116; majority, 35. This division put a sudden stop to the

proceedings in committee. Lord Grey at once proposed that the chairman

should report progress, and asked leave to sit again on the 10th.

Lord Ellenborough endeavoured to dissuade him from this course, and

proceeded to give a description of the measure which he was prepared

to substitute for the Ministerial Bill, and which he presumed to hope

would be satisfactory to the country. This was a critical moment in

the destiny of England, and the awful nature of the crisis seemed to

be felt by all present, except those who were blinded by faction.

Lord Grey had now but one alternative, a large creation of peers or

resignation. With a majority against him in the Lords so refractory,

nothing could be done; but the king declined to create the fifty

peerages which the Ministry demanded. Accordingly, on Wednesday, the

9th of May, the resignation of the Ministers (and the king's acceptance

of it) was formally announced by Lord Grey in the House of Lords, and

by Lord Althorp in the House of Commons. Lord Ebrington immediately

rose, and gave notice that he would next day move a call of the House,

and then an Address to his Majesty on the present state of public

affairs. In the course of the debate which ensued, attempts were made

by Mr. Baring and Sir Robert Peel to excite sympathy for the Lords,

as taking a noble stand against the unconstitutional pressure upon

the king for the creation of peers, but in vain. Neither the House of

Commons nor the country could be got to give them credit for any but

the most selfish motives. They considered their obstinacy to be nothing

better than the tenacity of the monopolists in power. Mr. Macaulay

indignantly denounced their inconsistency in pretending that they

wished to carry a measure of Reform. The influence of the Crown, always

powerful, was visible in the division on Lord Ebrington's motion. The

"ayes" were only 288 instead of the 355 that carried the third reading

of the Reform Bill. There were evidently many defaulters; but woe to

them at the next general election! Rigid scrutiny was instituted, and

a black list made out of those who had deserted their constituents on

this momentous question. In the meantime the most angry remonstrances

came to absent members from their constituents. The motion, however,

was carried by a majority of 80. It was evidently a relief to the

king to get rid of the Whigs; and he knew so little of the state of

public feeling as to suppose that a modified Reform measure, a mere

pretence of Reform, would satisfy the country. He therefore sent for

Lord Lyndhurst in order to consult him, assigning the reason, that

being now Chief Baron, he was removed from the vortex of politics,

although he had led the Opposition in their successful attack upon the

Ministerial measure. The first thing Lord Lyndhurst did was to wait

upon the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, to both of whom he

stated the views of the king. His Majesty insisted that some extensive

measures of Reform should be carried. "My advice to the king," said the

Duke, "was not to reappoint his late Ministry, nor was it to appoint

myself. I did not look to any objects of ambition. I advised him to

seek the assistance of other persons well qualified to fill the high

situations of the State, expressing myself willing to give his Majesty

every assistance, whether in office or out, to enable him to resist

the advice which had been given him." The Premiership was offered to

Sir Robert Peel, but he peremptorily declined to take such a perilous

position, declaring that "no authority nor example of any man, nor any

number of men, could shake his determination not to accept office,

under existing circumstances, upon such conditions." On the 12th of May

the Duke undertook to form an Administration, taking the post of Prime

Minister himself. Mr. Manners Sutton was to be leader of the Commons,

Lord Lyndhurst Chancellor, and Mr. Baring Chancellor of the Exchequer.

For five days the courageous Duke was engaged in a desperate effort

to form a Cabinet. But no sooner was it known throughout the country

than a terrific storm of popular fury burst forth, which threatened

to blow down the House of Peers and sweep away the Throne. The king,

from being the popular idol, became suddenly an object of popular

execration. The queen, who had also been a great favourite with the

people, attracted a large share of the odium excited against the Court.

It was understood that her influence had much to do in causing the king

to desert Lord Grey, and to break faith with him with regard to the

creation of peers. The king and queen were groaned at and hissed, and

pursued with tremendous noises by the people, while passing through

the town of Brentford. Dirt was hurled at the royal carriage; and if

the military escort had not kept close to the windows, it is probable

their majesties would have sustained personal injury. Along the road

to London the people expressed their feeling in a similar manner; and

when the carriage entered the Park the mob saluted their majesties with

yells and execrations of every description.

Nothing could exceed the indignation of the public at the attempt that

was being made by the Court, in league with an intriguing faction, to

resist the national will. All classes, high and low, rich and poor,

nobles and commoners, Churchmen and Dissenters, were roused into a

state of wild excitement and fierce determination. Indignation meetings

were everywhere held and threatening resolutions passed. The House of

Commons was called upon to stop the supplies; placards were put up in

the windows of shops expressing the determination of the inhabitants

to pay no taxes. This determination was not confined to the middle

classes; men of the highest rank and largest property, such as Lord

Milton, told the tax-collector not to call again. A complete and

active organisation existed in London for the purpose of stimulating

and directing public feeling in the provinces, and obtaining from the

people vehement petitions, which poured in to both Houses rapidly,

especially to the House of Commons. The political unions were

everywhere preparing for actual insurrection. In London meetings were

held by day and by night, at which the most violent language was used

even by persons of property and rank. The Common Council of London met,

and passed resolutions denouncing those who had advised the king not

to create peers as enemies of their Sovereign, who had put to imminent

hazard the stability of the Throne and the security of the country. A

standing committee was appointed to watch the course of events. The

feeling excited by these extraordinary proceedings proved, beyond the

possibility of doubt, that the whole mercantile and trading classes in

the metropolis were prepared to adopt revolutionary measures, if such

were necessary, for the attainment of the Reform Bill. Immense numbers

of persons who had hitherto considered the proceedings of the National

Political Union in London too violent, were now, says the _Times_ of

the 11th of May, at their own solicitation, admitted members. Similar

excitement prevailed throughout the provinces.

Shortly after the king arrived, on the 12th of May, pursued to his

palace gates by a multitude of his angry and insurgent subjects, he was

waited upon by the Duke of Wellington, who remained in conference with

him about twenty minutes, and then departed amidst the most astounding

yells of the populace. "A week since," said the _Sun_ of that day,

"only a short week since, the king was in full possession of the

greatest popularity any earthly monarch could enjoy; and now behold the

change!" Among the means resorted to for the purpose of coercing the

Peers, was a run upon the banks. The cry was raised, "To stop the Duke,

go for gold!" The advice was acted upon, and in three days no less than

£1,800,000 was drawn out of the Bank of England in specie.

Civil war seems to have been averted only by the Duke's precipitate

abandonment of the undertaking to form a Ministry. No one can for a

moment imagine that the chief members of the Grey Administration ever

intended to proceed to illegal extremities, but that the conduct of

their friends led the Reforming world to think of and prepare for armed

resistance admits of little doubt. Parliament and the country were kept

in suspense and anxiety by varying rumours about the formation of a

Government for several days, during which comments were freely made

on the conduct of the Duke of Wellington and his friends. On the one

hand, it was confidently stated that the king would keep his word as to

Reform, which the Duke had agreed to carry. On the other hand, it was

denied that the Duke could ever consent to tergiversation so base. On

the former supposition, Mr. Macaulay said he was willing that others

should have "infamy and place." But he added, "Let us have honour and

Reform." Sir Robert Inglis was too honest to differ from this view

of the matter, and too candid to conceal his sentiments. He declared

that he could not but regard such a course on the part of his leader

"with the greatest pain, as one of the most fatal violations of public

confidence which could be inflicted."

Mr. Baring, who represented the Duke in the House of Commons, seemed

to regard this declaration from the high-minded member for Oxford

University as fatal to the Tory scheme for recovering power. They

came at length to understand that the new Premier would be equally

unacceptable to the country, whether he appeared with a Reform Bill or

a gagging Bill. Both Baring and Sutton, the late Speaker, sent in their

resignations. The Duke at length confessed that he had failed in his

attempt to form an Administration; and the king had no other resource

but to submit to the humiliation of again putting himself in the hands

of his late Ministers. He had before him only the terrible alternative

of a creation of peers or civil war. Earl Grey was determined not to

resume office, "except with a sufficient security that he would possess

the power of passing the present Bill unimpaired in its principles and

its essential provisions." The consequence was, that on the 17th of

May the following circular was sent to the hostile Lords by Sir Henry

Taylor:--"My dear lord, I am honoured with his Majesty's commands

to acquaint your lordship that all difficulties to the arrangements

in progress will be obviated by a declaration in the House of Peers

to-night from a sufficient number of peers, that in consequence of the

present state of affairs they have come to the resolution of dropping

their further opposition to the Reform Bill, so that it may pass

without delay as nearly as possible in its present shape." Wellington,

as usual, obeyed and withdrew from the House, but his seceding comrades

prefaced their departure by defiant speeches in which they reserved

to themselves the right of resuming their position. Then the Cabinet

insisted on obtaining the royal consent to an unlimited creation; and

it was given on condition that they, in the first instance, called to

the House of Lords the eldest sons of peers or the collateral heirs of

childless noblemen. But Sir Henry Taylor's circular had done its work,

and the extreme step was unnecessary.

After this complete surrender the House resumed its labours in

committee on the Bill on the 1st of June. Few alterations were made,

and the thinned ranks of the Opposition ceased to throw obstacles in

the way. The third reading was carried by a majority of 84, the numbers

being 106 and 22. The Lords' amendments having been acquiesced in by

the Commons, the Bill was referred to the Upper House, and on the 7th

of June it received the Royal Assent by commission, the Commissioners

being Lords Grey, Brougham, Lansdowne, Wellesley, Holland, and Durham.

The king was so hurt by the coercion to which he had been subjected,

and by the insults heaped upon himself, the queen, and all belonging to

him, that nothing could persuade him to go to the House and give his

assent in person. "The question," he said, "was one of feeling, not of

duty; and as a Sovereign and a gentleman he was bound to refuse."

The Irish Reform Bill, which had been introduced by Mr. Stanley, then

Irish Secretary, became the subject of debate on the 26th of May, when

the second reading was moved by him in a speech of great ability. His

main object was to prove that the passing of the measure would not

endanger the Established Church in Ireland; and that it would not

increase the power of O'Connell, whom, instead of conciliating, he

exasperated by the contemptuous and defiant tone of his remarks. As

the great question of Reform had been conceded in the English Bill,

it was only with regard to matters of detail, and to the extent and

nature of the franchise, that the Tories maintained their opposition.

The second reading was carried by a majority of 116, the numbers being,

for the Bill, 246; against it, 130. O'Connell contended that the Bill

was not calculated to benefit Ireland, and he said he was sure it was

framed with no good feeling to the country; but, on the contrary, was

dictated by narrow and bigoted feeling. He complained that certain

classes of the forty-shilling freeholders were not restored by the

Reform Bill. He was supported by a moderate and greatly respected Irish

statesman, the venerable Sir John Newport, who complained of defects

in the measure, especially in the mode of registration, which would go

far to neutralise all its benefits. O'Connell's proposal was made on

the 13th of June, and was rejected by a majority of forty-nine. The

Irish Reform Bill, instead of being the means of conciliation, tending

to consolidate the Union, and taking away the arguments for Repeal,

really furnished O'Connell with fresh fuel for agitation. In a series

of letters which he addressed to the Reformers of England, he pointed

out the defects of the Irish Bill. He objected to it on the ground that

it diminished the elective franchise instead of extending it; that the

qualification for a voter was too high; that the registration of voters

was complicated; and that the number of Irish representatives was

inadequate. The substitution in counties of the ten-pound beneficial

interest franchise for the forty-shilling freehold caused the

disfranchisement of 200,000 voters. He referred to population to prove

the unfairness towards Ireland: thus the county of Cumberland, with a

population of 169,681, got two additional members, and returned four to

Parliament; while the county of Cork, with a population of 807,366, got

no additional member, and sent only two to the Reformed Parliament. A

similar contrast was presented between other English and Irish counties.

The Irish Bill was read a second time in the House of Lords on the

23rd of July. It was strongly opposed by the Duke of Wellington, as

transferring the electoral power of the country from the Protestants

to the Roman Catholics. Lord Plunket, in reply, said, "One fact, I

think, ought to satisfy every man, not determined against conviction,

of its wisdom and necessity. What will the House think when I inform

them that the representatives of seventeen of those boroughs,

containing a population of 170,000 souls, are nominated by precisely

seventeen persons? Yet, by putting an end to this iniquitous and

disgraceful system, we are, forsooth, violating the articles of the

Union, and overturning the Protestant institutions of the country!

This is ratiocination and statesmanlike loftiness of vision with a

vengeance! Then it seems that besides violating the Union Act we are

departing from the principles of the measure of 1829. I deny that. I

also deny the assumption of the noble Duke, that the forty-shilling

freeholders were disfranchised on that occasion merely for the purpose

of maintaining the Protestant interests in Ireland. The forty-shilling

freeholders were disfranchised, not because they were what are called

'Popish electors,' but because they were in such indigent circumstances

as precluded their exercising their suffrage right independently and

as free agents--because they were an incapable constituency." The Bill,

after being considered in committee, where it encountered violent

opposition, was passed by the Lords on the 30th of July, and received

the Royal Assent by commission on the 7th of August.

[Illustration: SCENE IN IRELAND: VISIT OF THE TITHE-PROCTOR. (_See p._

355.)]

Lord Advocate Jeffrey, who had introduced the Scottish Reform Bill as

early as the 19th of January, moved the second reading on the 21st

of May. He had, in the previous Session, proceeded on the principle

that the old system was to be regarded as utterly incurable, and not

to be patched or mended, but abandoned and destroyed. They could not

decimate its abuses, or cut off its vicious excesses; its essence was

abuse, and there was nothing that was not vicious about it. He gloried

in the avowal that no shred, or jot, or tittle of the old abomination

should remain. Indeed, it is a matter of astonishment that the Scottish

people could have so long borne a state of things so humiliating to

a nation which originally formed a kingdom by itself, which still

retained its own laws, religion, interests, feelings, and language;

which was full of generally diffused wealth; in which education had for

ages been extended throughout the very lowest ranks; and whose people

were peaceable, steady, and provident, possessing all the qualities

requisite for a safe exercise of the franchise. The Scots had literally

no share whatever in the representation of the Imperial Parliament. The

qualification for a voter in Parliament was at least thirty or forty

times higher than in any other part of the empire, and above a hundred

times beyond the general qualification in England. Consequently a vote

became a dear article in the Scottish market. Some persons bought

votes as a good investment. The average price was about £500, but it

frequently rose to double that sum. Shortly before the passing of the

Reform Bill six Scottish votes were exposed for sale in one day, and

brought £6,000. The electors were, therefore, cut off from the rest of

the public, and set aside to exercise a high and invidious privilege,

which they regarded not as a trust for the people, but as a privilege

to be prized for its pecuniary value or for its influence in procuring

Government situations.

While the Scottish Bill was passing through committee in the Commons

the English Bill was being hotly contested in the Lords, and absorbed

so much attention that only a few members comparatively voted in the

divisions upon the former measure; seldom more than one hundred, often

less. There had previously been no property qualification in Scotland

for members of Parliament representing towns. A provision had been

inserted in the Bill requiring heritable property to the extent of

£600 a year for a county and £300 a year for a borough; but this was

expunged on the third reading, on the ground that if the property

qualification were rigidly enforced it would exclude some of the

brightest ornaments of the House: for example, in past times, it would

have excluded Pitt, Sheridan, Burke, and Tierney. The Scottish Bill

was passed by the Lords on the 13th of July. It increased the number

of members for that country from forty-five to fifty-three, giving

two each to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and one each to Paisley, Aberdeen,

Perth, and Dundee.

The following is the general result of the Reform Acts upon the

constitution of the Imperial Parliament:--In England the county

constituencies, formerly 52, returning 94 members, were increased to

82, returning 159 members. The borough members were 341, giving a

total of 500 for England. In Ireland the number of the constituencies

remained the same, but five members were added, making the total

number 105, representing 32 counties and 41 boroughs including

the University of Dublin. A second member was given to each of

the following:--Limerick, Waterford, Belfast, Galway, and Dublin

University. The proportion of counties and boroughs in Scotland was

30 and 23, giving a total of 53. All the counties of the United

Kingdom returned 253 members, all the boroughs 405, the total number

constituting the House of Commons being 658.

Ireland continued, during 1831 and 1832, in a very unsettled state. The

restraint imposed by the Catholic Association during the Emancipation

struggle was relaxed when the object was attained, and when Mr.

O'Connell was absent from the country, attending his Parliamentary

duties. The consequence was that the people, suffering destitution in

some cases and in others irritated by local grievances, gave vent to

their passions in vindictive and barbarous outrages. O'Connell himself

was not in a mood to exert himself much in order to produce a more

submissive spirit in the peasantry, even if he had the power. He was

exasperated by his collisions with Mr. Stanley, by whom he was treated

in a spirit of defiance, not unmingled with scorn; so that the great

agitator was determined to make him and the Government feel his power.

Had Mr. Stanley when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland possessed the

experience that he afterwards acquired when he became Earl of Derby,

he would have adopted a more diplomatic tone in Parliament, and a more

conciliatory spirit in his Irish administration. His character as it

appeared to the Irish Roman Catholics, sketched by O'Connell, was a

hideous caricature. A more moderate and discriminating Irish sketch of

him by Mr. Fitzpatrick represented the Chief Secretary as possessing a

judgment of powerful penetration and a facility in mastering details,

with a temper somewhat reserved and dictatorial. Popularity was not

his idol; instead of the theatrical smile and plastic posture of his

predecessors, there was a knitted brow and a cold manner. Mr. Stanley

left much undone in Ireland. But this candid Catholic writer gives him

credit for having accomplished much, not only in correcting what was

evil, but in establishing what was good. He is praised for putting down

Orange processions, and for "the moral courage with which he grappled

with the hydra of the Church Establishment." He created as well as

destroyed, and "his creations were marked with peculiar efficiency."

"The Irish Board of Works sprang up under his auspices. The Shannon

navigation scheme at last became a reality, and the proselytism of

the Kildare Place Society received a fatal check by the establishment

of the national system of education. The political philippics which

Baron Smith had been in the habit of enunciating from the Bench were

put a stop to by Mr. Stanley. He viewed the practice with indignation,

and trenchantly reprobated it in the House of Commons. It ought to be

added that Mr. Stanley built a house in Tipperary, chiefly with the

object of giving employment to the poor." It has been often remarked

that the Chief Secretary for Ireland, on his arrival in Dublin, is

always surrounded by men each of whom has his peculiar specific

for the evils of the country. But Mr. Sheil said that Mr. Stanley,

instead of listening to such counsel with the usual "sad civility,

invariably intimated with some abrupt jeer, bordering on mockery, his

utter disregard of the advice, and his very slender estimate of the

adviser." Mr. Stanley made an exception, however, in favour of the

then celebrated "J. K. L." He acknowledged a letter from Dr. Doyle,

on the education question, with warm expressions of thanks for the

suggestions contained in it, and a wish to see him on his arrival in

Dublin. Towards O'Connell, however, Mr. Stanley seems to have cherished

a strong antipathy. They exercised mutual repulsion upon one another,

and they never came into contact without violent irritation.

The Irish peasantry very soon learnt that whatever Emancipation had

done or might do for barristers and other persons qualified to hold

situations under Government, from which Roman Catholics had previously

been almost entirely excluded, it had done nothing to remove or even

to mitigate their practical grievances. They found that the rackrents

of their holdings were not reduced; that the tax-collector went round

as usual, and did not abate his demands; that the tithe-proctor did

not fail in his visits, and that, in default of payment, he seized

upon the cow or the pig, the pot or the blanket. Through the machinery

of the Catholic Association, and the other associations which

O'Connell had established, they became readers of newspapers. They

had read that a single tithe-proctor had on one occasion processed

1,100 persons for tithes, nearly all of the lower order of farmers or

peasants, the expense of each process being about eight shillings. It

would be scarcely possible to devise any mode of levying an impost

more exasperating, which came home to the bosoms of men with more

irritating, humiliating, and maddening power, and which violated more

recklessly men's natural sense of justice. If a plan were invented for

the purpose of driving men into insurrection, nothing could be more

effectual than the tithe-proctor system. Besides, it tended directly to

the impoverishment of the country, retarding agricultural improvement

and limiting production. If a man kept all his land in pasture, he

escaped the impost; but the moment he tilled it, he was subjected to

a tax of ten per cent, on the gross produce. The valuation being made

by the tithe-proctor--a man whose interest it was to defraud both the

tenant and the parson,--the consequence was that the gentry and the

large farmers, to a great extent, evaded the tax, and left the small

occupiers to bear nearly the whole burden; they even avoided mowing

their meadows in some cases, because then they should pay tithe for the

hay.

There was besides a tax called Church Cess, levied by Protestants in

vestry meetings upon Roman Catholics for cleaning the church, ringing

the bell, washing the minister's surplice, purchasing bread and wine

for the communion, and paying the salary of the parish clerk. This

tax was felt to be a direct and flagrant violation of the rights of

conscience, and of the principles of the British Constitution; and

against it there was a determined opposition, which manifested itself

in tumultuous and violent assemblages at the parish churches all

over the country on Easter Monday, when the rector or his curate, as

chairman of the meeting, came into angry collision with flocks who

disowned him, and denounced him as a tyrant, a persecutor, and a robber.

The evil of this state of things became so aggravated that all

reasonable men on both sides felt it must be put a stop to somehow.

In 1831 the organised resistance to the collection of tithes became

so effective and so terrible that they were not paid, except where

a composition had been made and agreements had been adopted. The

terrified proctors gave up their dangerous occupation after some of

their number had been victimised in the most barbarous manner; and

although a portion of the clergy insisted on their rights, not merely

for the sake of their incomes, but for the interest of the Church which

they felt bound to defend, yet many had too much Christian spirit,

too much regard for the interests of the Gospel, to persist in the

collection of tithes at such a fearful cost. At Newtownbarry, in the

county of Wexford, some cattle were impounded by a tithe-proctor. The

peasantry assembled in large numbers to rescue them, when they came

into collision with the yeomanry, who fired killing twelve persons. At

Carrickshock there was a fearful tragedy. A number of writs against

defaulters was issued by the Court of Exchequer, and entrusted to the

care of process-servers, who, guarded by a strong body of police,

proceeded on their mission with secrecy and despatch. Bonfires along

the surrounding hills, however, and shrill whistles soon convinced

them that the people were not unprepared for their visitors. But

the yeomanry pushed boldly on; suddenly an immense assemblage of

peasantry, armed with scythes and pitchforks, poured down upon them.

A terrible hand-to-hand struggle ensued, and in the course of a few

moments eighteen of the police, including the commanding officer, were

slaughtered. The remainder consulted safety and fled, marking the

course of their retreat by the blood that trickled from their wounds. A

coroner's jury pronounced this deed of death as "wilful murder" against

some persons unknown. A large Government reward was offered, but it

failed to produce a single conviction. At Castle-pollard, in Westmeath,

on the occasion of an attempted rescue, the chief constable was knocked

down. The police fired, and nine or ten persons were killed. One of

the most lamentable of these conflicts occurred at Gurtroe, near

Rathcormack, in the county of Cork. Archdeacon Ryder brought a number

of military to recover the tithes of a farm belonging to a widow named

Ryan. The assembled people resisted, the military were ordered to fire,

eight persons were killed and thirteen wounded; and among the killed

was the widow's son.

These disorders appealed with irresistible force to the Government

and the legislature to put an end to a system fraught with so much

evil, and threatening the utter disruption of society in Ireland.

In the first place, something must be done to meet the wants of the

destitute clergy and their families. Accordingly, Mr. Stanley brought

in a Bill in May, 1832, authorising the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland

to advance £60,000 as a fund for the payment of the clergy, who were

unable to collect their tithes for the year 1831. This measure was

designed to meet the existing necessity, and was only a preliminary

to the promised settlement of the tithe question. It was therefore

passed quickly through both Houses, and became law on the 1st of

June. But the money thus advanced was not placed on the Consolidated

Fund. The Government took upon itself the collection of the arrears

of tithes and to reimburse itself for its advances out of the sum

that it succeeded in recovering. It was a maxim with Mr. Stanley that

the people should be made to respect the law; that they should not be

allowed to trample upon it with impunity. The odious task thus assumed

produced a state of unparalleled excitement. The people were driven to

frenzy, instead of being frightened by the Chief Secretary becoming

tithe-collector-general, and the army employed in its collection. The

first proceeding of the Government to recover the tithes under the Act

of the 1st of June was, therefore, the signal for general war. Bonfires

blazed upon the hills, the rallying sounds of horns were heard along

the valleys, and the mustering tread of thousands upon the roads,

hurrying to the scene of a seizure or an auction. It was a bloody

campaign; there was considerable loss of life, and the Church and the

Government thus became more obnoxious to the people than ever. Mr.

Stanley being the commander-in-chief on one side, and O'Connell on the

other, the contest was embittered by their personal antipathies. It was

found that the amount of the arrears for the year 1831 was £104,285,

and that the whole amount which the Government was able to levy, after

putting forward its strength in every possible way, was £12,000, the

cost of collection being £15,000, so that the Government was not able

to raise as much money as would pay the expenses of the campaign. This

was how Mr. Stanley illustrated his favourite sentiment that the people

should be made to respect the law. But the Liberal party among the

Protestants fully sympathised with the anti-tithe recusants.

Mr. Stanley left behind him one enduring monument of his administration

in Ireland which, though afterwards a subject of controversy and

party strife, conferred immense advantages upon the country--the

national system of education. It has been remarked that the principle

of the Irish Establishment was that of a "missionary church;" that

it was never based on the theory of being called for by the wants of

the population; that what it looked to was their future spiritual

necessities. It was founded on the same reasons which prompt the

building of churches in a thinly peopled locality, the running of roads

through an uncultivated district, of drains through a desert morass.

The principle was philanthropic, and often, in its application, wise;

but it proceeded on one postulate, which, unfortunately, was here

wanting--namely, that the people will embrace the faith intended for

them. This was so far from having hitherto been the case that the

reverse was the fact. For nearly three centuries this experiment was

tried with respect to the education of the rising generations of the

Roman Catholics, and in every age it was attended by failures the most

marked and disastrous. The Commissioners of National Education refer

to this uniformity of failure in their sixth report, in which they

observe,--"For nearly the whole of the last century the Government of

Ireland laboured to promote Protestant education, and tolerated no

other. Large grants of public money were voted for having children

educated in the Protestant faith, while it was made a transportable

offence in a Roman Catholic (and if the party returned, high treason)

to act as a schoolmaster, or assistant to a schoolmaster, or even as a

tutor in a private family. The Acts passed for this purpose continued

in force from 1709 to 1782. They were then repealed, but Parliament

continued to vote money for the support only of the schools conducted

on principles which were regarded by the great body of the Roman

Catholics as exclusively Protestant until the present system was

established."

[Illustration: MR. STANLEY (AFTERWARDS 14th EARL OF DERBY). [_From a

photograph by S. A. Walker, Regent Street, London._]]

In the report drawn up by Mr. Wyse, the chairman of the Select

Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the

Foundation Schools in Ireland, in 1837, an interesting history is

given of the origin, progress, and working of those obnoxious schools,

and of other educational societies which followed. The Incorporated

Society for Promoting English Protestant Schools in Ireland was

established by Royal Charter in 1733, the avowed object being the

education of the poor in the principles of the Established Church. It

is sufficient to remark that the annual grants which were made to the

schools in connection with it (well known as the Charter Schools) were,

in consequence of the report of the Commissioners of 1824, gradually

reduced, and finally withdrawn. In 1824 there were of those schools

32; the number of children in them amounted to 2,255. The grant for

1825 was £21,615. The grant was gradually reduced to £5,750 in 1832,

when it was finally withdrawn. During nineteen years this system cost

the country £1,612,138, of which £1,027,715 consisted of Parliamentary

grants. The total number of children apprenticed from the beginning

till the end of 1824 was only 12,745; and of these but a small number

received the portion of £5 each, allotted to those who served out

their apprenticeship, and married Protestants. The Association for

Discountenancing Vice was incorporated in 1800. It required that the

masters and mistresses in its schools should be of the Established

Church; that the Scriptures should be read by all who had attained

sufficient proficiency; and that no catechism be taught except that

of the Established Church. The schools of the Association amounted

in 1824 to 226, and the number of children to 12,769; of whom it was

stated that 7,803 were Protestants, and 4,804 were Roman Catholics;

but the Rev. William Lee, who had inspected 104 of these schools in

1819 and 1820, stated before the Commissioners of 1824 that he had

found the catechism of the Church of Rome in many of them. The Society

for Promoting the Education of the Poor was founded on the 2nd of

December, 1811, and was managed by a committee of various religious

persuasions. The principles which they had prescribed to themselves

for their conduct were, to promote the establishment and assist in the

support of schools in which the appointment of governors and teachers,

and the admission of scholars, should be uninfluenced by religious

distinctions, and in which the Bible or Testament, without note or

comment, should be read by all the scholars who had attained a suitable

proficiency in reading, excluding catechisms and books of religious

controversy; at the same time it was to be distinctly understood that

the Bible or Testament should not be used as a school book from which

children should be taught to spell or read. A grant was accordingly

made to the society of £6,980, Irish currency, in the Session of

1814-15. The system of this society was manifestly the same as that

which was formerly called the Lancastrian system in England, and which,

although adopted by the great body of the Protestant Dissenters there,

was so much opposed by the bishops and clergy of the Established Church

in general, that they completely prevented its application to schools

for children of their communion. The Roman Catholic prelates and

clergy set themselves with equal resolution against it in Ireland and

with equal success. It was accordingly found in 1824, that of 400,348

children whose parents paid for their education in the general schools

of the country, and whose religion was ascertained, there were 81,060

Protestants, and 319,288 Roman Catholics; while of 56,201 children

educated under the Kildare Place Society--although theirs were schools

for the poor, and the Roman Catholics bear a much greater proportion to

Protestants in the poorer classes than in the higher--there were 26,237

Protestants, and only 29,964 Roman Catholics.

Various inquiries had been instituted from time to time by royal

commissions and Parliamentary committees into the state of education

in Ireland. One commission, appointed in 1806, laboured for six years,

and published fourteen reports. It included the Primate, two bishops,

the Provost of Trinity College, and Mr. R. Lovell Edgeworth. They

recommended a system in which the children of all denominations should

be educated together, without interfering with the peculiar tenets of

any; and that there should be a Board of Commissioners, with extensive

powers, to carry out the plan. Subsequent commissions and committees

adopted the same principle of united secular education, particularly

a select committee of the House of Commons appointed in 1824. These

important reports prepared the way for Mr. Stanley's plan, which he

announced in the House of Commons in July, 1832. His speech on that

occasion showed that he had thoroughly mastered the difficult question

which he undertook to elucidate. It was remarkable for the clearness

of its statements, the power of its arguments, and for the eloquence

with which it enforced sound and comprehensive principles. Mr.

Spring-Rice having moved that a sum of £30,000 be granted for enabling

the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to assist in the education of the

people, and the House having agreed to the motion without a division,

Mr. Stanley, in the following month, wrote a letter to the Duke of

Leinster, in which he explained "the plan of national education," which

afterwards bore his name. The first Commissioners were the Duke of

Leinster, Archbishop Whately, Archbishop Murray, the Rev. Dr. Sadleir,

Rev. James Carlile (Presbyterian), A. R. Blake (Chief Remembrancer, a

Roman Catholic), and Robert Holmes, a Unitarian barrister. Mr. Carlile,

minister of Mary's Abbey congregation in Dublin, was the only paid

commissioner, and to him, during seven years, was committed a principal

share in working the system. He selected the Scripture lessons,

directed the compilation of the schoolbooks, aided in obtaining the

recognition of parental rights, apart from clerical authority; in

arranging the machinery and putting it in working order.

Much opposition was excited by the part of Mr. Stanley's letter to

the Duke of Leinster which spoke of "encouraging" the clergy to give

religious instruction, and requiring the attendance of the scholars at

their respective places of worship on Sunday to be registered by the

schoolmaster. This was treading on religious ground, and committing

both Protestants and Catholics to the actual support of what they

mutually deemed false. But the Government were driven to this course

by the cry of "infidelity" and "atheism" which the new plan encountered

as soon as it was proposed in Parliament. Explanations were afterwards

issued by authority, showing that the "encouragement" of religious

instruction meant only granting "facility of access" to the children

out of school hours, not "employing or remunerating" the teachers. The

Commissioners very properly treated the Bible as a book for religious

instruction; but so far from offering the sacred volume an "indignity,"

or "forbidding" its use, they said: "To the religious instructors of

the children they cheerfully leave, in communicating instruction, the

use of the sacred volume itself, as containing those doctrines and

precepts a knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true

religion." To obviate every cavil, however, as far as possible, without

departing from the fundamental principle of the Board, it was arranged

that the Bible might be read at any hour of the day, provided the

time was distinctly specified, so that there should be no suspicion

of a desire to take advantage of the presence of Roman Catholics.

This satisfied the Presbyterians, who nearly all placed their schools

in connection with the Board. But the great body of the Established

clergy continued for some time afterwards hostile, having put forward

the Church Education Society as a rival candidate for Parliamentary

recognition and support. Its committee declared that the national

system was "essentially defective" in permitting the Catholic children

to refuse the Bible. They said this permission "involves a practical

indignity to the Word of God," and that it was "carrying into effect

the discipline of the Church of Rome, in restricting the use of the

inspired writings." This was the grand charge against the Board, the

vital point in the controversy.

On the 3rd of December Parliament was dissolved, and the first

elections under the Reform Bill promptly followed. Though they were

anticipated not without alarm, everything went off peacefully, and it

was discovered that the new House of Commons was composed of much the

same materials as the old. The two most singular choices were those

of Oldham which retained Cobbett, and of Pontefract which selected

the ex-prizefighter Gully. But the state of parties was considerably

changed. The old Tory party was practically extinct; the Moderates

began to call themselves Conservatives; and Whig and Radical, bitterly

as they disagreed on many points, proceeded to range themselves under

the Liberal banner. The Radicals promptly proved their independence by

proposing Mr. Littleton for the Speakership against the old Speaker,

Mr. Manners Sutton, but the Whigs voted against them, and they were in

a minority of 31 against 241. It was clear from the Royal Speech that

the Session was to be devoted to Irish affairs, and the Cabinet was

much divided over the measures in contemplation. These were a Coercion

Bill, much favoured by Mr. Stanley, and a Church Temporalities Bill,

the pet project of Lord Althorp. After many evenings had been wasted

in bitter denunciations of the Irish Secretary by O'Connell and his

following, Lord Althorp, on the 12th of February, 1833, introduced

the Church Temporalities Bill, and three days afterwards Earl Grey

introduced the Coercion Bill in the House of Lords. It had an easy

course through that House, and was then brought forward by Althorp in

the Commons. Speaking against his convictions, he made a singularly

tame and ineffective defence of the measure. Then Stanley took the

papers which he had given to his leader, mastered their details in a

couple of hours, and in a magnificent speech completely turned the

current of debate, and utterly silenced O'Connell. Before the end

of March the Bill had passed through all its stages in the House of

Commons.

[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, TUAM.]

The Church Temporalities Bill, with some alterations, passed the Lower

House; it encountered strong opposition in the Lords, who defeated

the Ministry on one important amendment, but it ultimately passed, on

the 30th of July, by a majority of fifty-four, several peers having

recorded their protests against it, among whom the Duke of Cumberland

was conspicuous. The Commissioners appointed under the Bill were the

Lord Primate, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Lord Chancellor and Chief

Justice of Ireland, and four of the bishops, and some time afterwards

three laymen were added. The following were the principal features of

this great measure of Church Reform: Church Cess to be immediately

abolished--this was a direct pecuniary relief to the amount of about

£80,000 per annum, which had been levied in the most vexatious

manner--and a reduction of the number of archbishops and bishops

prospectively, from four archbishops and eighteen bishops to two

archbishops and ten bishops, the revenues of the suppressed sees to be

appropriated to general Church purposes. The archbishoprics of Cashel

and Tuam were reduced to bishoprics, ten sees were abolished, the

duties connected with them being transferred to other sees--Dromore to

Down, Raphoe to Derry, Clogher to Armagh, Elphin to Kilmore, Killala

to Tuam, Clonfer to Killaloe, Cork to Cloyne, Waterford to Cashel,

Ferns to Ossory, Kildare to Dublin. The whole of Ireland was divided

into two provinces by a line drawn from the north of Dublin county to

the south of Galway Bay, and the bishoprics were reduced to ten. The

revenues of the suppressed bishoprics, together with those of suspended

dignities and benefices and disappropriated tithes, were vested by the

Church Temporalities Act in the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners,

to be applied by them to the erection and repairs of churches, to

the providing for Church expenses hitherto defrayed by vestry rates,

and to other ecclesiastical purposes. The sales which were made

of perpetuities of Church estates, vested in the Ecclesiastical

Commissioners, produced upwards of £631,353; the value of the whole

perpetuities, if sold, was estimated at £1,200,000. The total receipts

of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1834 were £68,729; in 1835 they

amounted to £168,027; and in 1836 they reached £181,045. The cost of

the official establishment was at one time £15,000; during the later

years, however, it averaged less than £6,000. Its total receipts, up

to July, 1861, were £3,310,999. The Church Temporalities Act imposed

a tax on all benefices and dignities whose net annual value exceeded

£300, graduated according to their amount, from two and a half to

five per cent., the rate of charge increasing by 2s. 6d. per cent. on

every additional £10 above £405. All benefices exceeding £1,195 were

taxed at the rate of fifteen per cent. The yearly tax imposed on all

bishoprics was graduated as follows:--Where the yearly value did not

exceed £4,000 five per cent.; not exceeding £6,000, seven per cent.;

not exceeding £8,000, ten per cent.; and not exceeding £10,000, twelve

per cent. In lieu of tax the Archbishopric of Armagh was to pay to

the Ecclesiastical Commissioners an annual sum of £4,500, and the see

of Derry to pay £6,160. The exact net incomes of the Irish bishops

were as follows:--Armagh, £14,634; Meath, £3,764; Derry, £6,022;

Down, £3,658; Kilmore, £5,248; Tuam, £3,898; Dublin, £7,636; Ossory,

£3,874; Cashel, £4,691; Cork, £2,310; Killaloe, £3,310; Limerick,

£3,987--total, £63,032. The total amount of tithe rent-charge payable

to ecclesiastical persons--bishops, deans, chapters, incumbents of

benefices, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was £401,114. The

rental of Ireland was estimated, by the valuators under the Poor Law

Act, at about £12,000,000--this rental being about a third part of the

estimated value of the annual produce of the land.

[Illustration: AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS AT THE PERIOD OF THE FIRST REFORM

PARLIAMENT.]