Great Britain might possibly hold Ireland by the sword; . . . but to govern Great Britain by the sword, so wild a thought has never occurred to any public man of any party. . . . In old times, when the villeins were driven to revolt by oppression, when a hundred thousand insurgents appeared in arms on Blackheath, the king rode up to them and exclaimed, 'I will be your leader,' and at once the infuriated multitude laid down their arms and dispersed

Lord Palmerston: from a seated figure in Hayter's Reformed Parliament
in the National Portrait Gallery.

at his command. Herein let us imitate him. Let us say to our countrymen 'We are your leaders. Our lawful power shall be firmly exerted to the utmost in your cause; and our lawful power is such that it must finally prevail.'" It was a timely warning. Outside Parliament there were men who thought that nothing but force would bear down the resistance of the Lords. The Birmingham Political Union (see p. 899) held a meeting at which those

1831-1832

THE FIRst reforRM ACT

905

who were present engaged to pay no taxes if the Reform Bill were again rejected. At Bristol there were fierce riots in which houses were burnt and men killed.

The

19. The Reform Bill becomes Law. 1831-1832. On December 12, 1831, the Reform Bill was again, for a third time, brought into the House of Commons. On March 23, 1832, it was passed, and the Lords had then once more to consider it. On April 14 they passed the second reading. On May 7, on the motion of Lord Lyndhurst, who had been Chancellor in Wellington's ministry, they adopted a substantial alteration in it. ministers at once asked the king to create fifty new peers to carry the Bill, in the same way that the address on the Treaty of Utrecht had been carried by the creation of twelve new peers in the reign of Anne. The king, who was getting frightened at the turmoil in the country, refused, and ministers resigned. Wellington was ready to take office, giving his support to a less complete Reform Bill, but Peel refused to join him, and Lord Grey's Government was reinstated, receiving from the king a promise to create peers if necessary. On this Wellington, unwilling to see the House of Lords swamped by fresh creations, persuaded many of his friends to abstain from voting. The Bill met with no further obstacles, and, on June 7, became an Act of Parliament by the Royal Assent.

20. Character of the Reform Act. 1832. In its final shape the Reform Act absolutely disfranchised forty-one boroughs and took away one member from thirty others. Thereby, and by its alteration of the franchise, it accomplished a great transference of power, in favour of the middle classes in the towns. Though it did not establish a democracy, it took a long step in that direction.

21. Roads and Coaches. 1802-1820. The advent of the middle classes to power was prepared by a series of material improvements by which they were especially benefited. The canals made in the beginning of the reign of George III. no longer sufficed to carry the increased traffic of the country. Attention was therefore paid to the improvement of the roads. Telford, a Scotchman, taught road-makers that it was better to go round a hill than to climb over it, and, beginning in 1802, he was employed for eighteen years in improving the communications in Scotland and Wales by making good roads and iron bridges. The Menai suspension bridge, his best known work, was begun in 1819. He and another Scotchman, Macadam, also improved the surface of the roads, which had hitherto been made of gravel or flint, thrown down at random. Telford ordered the large stones to be broken and 3 N

III.

mixed with fine gravel, and Macadam pursued the same course round Bristol. He declared that no stone should ever be used in mending roads which was not small enough to go into a man's mouth. Through these improvements travelling became more easy, and coaches flew about the country at what was considered to be the wonderful rate of ten miles an hour.

1811-1825.-The first

22. Steam Vessels and Locomotives. application of steam to locomotion was in vessels. The first steamboat in Great Britain, 'The Comet,' the work of Henry Bell, plied on the Clyde in 1812, and though Fulton in America had made a steam-boat in 1811, it is almost certain that he derived his ideas from Bell. It was not till later that a steam-engine was made to

Early steamboat: from the Instructor of 1833.

draw travellers and goods by land. Of many attempts, none succeeded till the matter was taken in hand by George Stephenson, the son of a poor collier in Northumberland. He had learnt something about machinery in the colliery in which he worked as a boy, and when he grew up he saved money to pay for instruction in reading and writing. He began as an engineer by mending a pumping-engine, and at last attempted to construct a locomotive. His new engine, constructed in 1814, was not successful at first, and it made such a noise that it was popularly known as 'Puffing Billy.' In 1816 he improved it sufficiently to enable it to draw trucks of coal on tramlines from the colliery to the river. At last, in 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway was opened for the conveyance of passengers as well as goods, and both the line and the loco

1825-1829

GEORGE STEPHENSON

907

motive used on it were constructed under Stephenson's management. The new engine was able to draw ninety tons at the rate of eight miles an hour.

23. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 1825-1829.-In 1825 it was resolved to make a railway between Liverpool and Manchester, and Stephenson was employed as the engineer. In

1829, when it was finished, the proprietors were frightened at the idea of employing steam-engines upon it, till Stephenson persuaded them to offer a prize for an improved locomotive. Four inventors,