obligation of a people living under a representative system, is to make the representation true and perfect. In this year One of the people's cause, the people were ready; and they were blessed with rulers who were willing to make a beginning so large and decided as to secure the permanence of the work, as far as they carried it, and its certain prosecution through future generations. It is nothing that they did not foresee this further prosecution, nor believe it when it was foretold to them. Great deeds naturally so fill the conceptions and sympathies of the doers, that they are-except a great philosopher here and there-finality-men; but those who are not so immediately engaged see further, and remember that sound political institutions are made perfect very slowly, and by a succession of improvements. There were many, therefore, who in that day of exultation saw more cause for rejoicing than did those who were proudest of the immediate triumph. They saw in the parliamentary reform of Lord Grey a noble beginning of a great work which it might take centuries to perfect, and in every stage of which the national mind would renew its strength, and gain fresh virtue and wisdom. They appreciated the greatness of the first effort, by which the impediments to true representation were to be removed, and some steps taken towards a recognition of the vast commercial interests which had risen up in modern times; but they saw that the due equalisation of the landed and commercial interests, and the true proportion of the representation of property and numbers, could not be attained at a stroke, and that much of the noble work of parliamentary reform must remain to occupy and exalt future generations. The wisest and the most eager, however, the oldest and the youngest, desired nothing more than what they now saw; their nation, as a whole, demanding and achieving its own selfimprovement, instead of ringing bells and firing cannon about bloody victories obtained in the cause of foreign governments.

It was news enough for one day that this great era was opening, and that Lord Grey stood on the threshold. By the next day, the people were eager to know who were to be his helpers. The newspapers could not give the list of the ministry fast enough. In reading-rooms, and at the corners of streets, merchants, bankers, and tradesmen took down the names, and carried them to their families, reading them to every one they met by the way; while poor men who could not write, carried them well enough in their heads; for most of the leading names were of men known to such of the labouring class as understood their own interest in the great cause just coming on.

Next on the list to Lord Grey was Lord Althorp, as chancellor of the exchequer. He was known as an advocate of the ballot; as having been forward in questions of retrenchment and reform; and as being a man, if of no eminent vigour, of great benevolence, and an enthusiastic love of justice. His abilities as a statesman were now to be tried. Mr Brougham's name came next. He was to be lord chancellor. It was amusing to see how that announcement was everywhere received with a laugh; in most cases,

with a laugh which he would not have objected toa laugh of mingled surprise, exultation, and amusement. The anti-reformers laughed scornfullydwelling upon certain declarations of his against taking office, and upon his incompetency as an equity lawyer; facts which he would not himself have disputed, but which his party thought should be put aside by the pressure of the time. To his worshippers there was something comic in the thought of his vitality fixed down upon the woolsack, under the compression of the chancellor's wig. Some expected a world of amusement in seeing how he got on in a position so new; how the wild and mercurial Harry Brougham would comport himself among the peers, and as the head of the law. Some expected from him the realisation of all that he had declared ought to be done by men in power; and as the first and most certain boon, a scheme of national education which he would carry with all the power of his office and his pledged political character. Others sighed while they smiled; sighed to give up the popular member for Yorkshire, and feared that his country had had the best of him. Lord Lansdowne, the president of the council, was held in a quiet, general respect. Lord Durham, the John George Lambton who had ever fought the people's battle well, was hailed with great warmth. He was lord privy seal. There were some 'Canningites,' who were received with good-will, without much expectation. Charles Grant, president of the Board of Control; Lord Palmerston, foreign secretary; Lord Melbourne, home secretary; and Lord Goderich, as colonial secretary. The only anti-Catholic and antireform member of the cabinet was the Duke of Richmond, who was postmaster-general.

How he found himself there was a subject of speculation on all hands. The other members of the cabinet were Sir James Graham, at the Admiralty; Lord Auckland, at the Mint and Board of Trade; and Lords Holland and Carlisle. Out of the cabinet, there were the names, among others, of Lord John Russell, pledged to parliamentary reform; Mr Charles Poulett Thomson, pledged to repeal of the corn-laws; and Sir Thomas Denman and Sir William Horne, as attorney and solicitor general. Lord Anglesey was again viceroy of Ireland, and Lord Plunket the Irish lord chancellor. The chief-secretary for Ireland was Mr Stanley. Such was the government about to conduct the great organic change in the British constitution which the anti-reformers were still resolved should never take place.

There was a suspension of business in parliament while the re-election of some of the ministers went on. One defeat was ludicrous enough. Mr Stanley, the heir of the house of Derby, was thrown out at Preston by Henry Hunt, who was not yet, it thus appears, seen through by all his followers as by Bamford.

The first business to be proceeded with was the Regency Bill, which had already been delayed too long. By this bill it was provided, that in case of the birth of a posthumous child of the king's, the queen should be regent during the minority. In the other case, the Duchess of Kent was to be regent, if the Princess Victoria should come to the throne

CHAP. III.]

during her minority; unless, indeed, the Duchess should marry a foreigner.

Lord Wynford proposed a grant of additional powers to the magistracy in the disturbed districts, where matters were going on from bad to worse; but the ministers declared that the existing powers of the law were sufficient, if duly put in force: but they did not conceal their opinion that a more active and sensible set of men might be brought into the commission of the peace. How serious was the aspect of the times we find by the gazetting of an order in council, that the Archbishop of Canterbury should prepare a prayer for relief from social disturbance; which prayer was to be read in all the Episcopal churches and chapels of England and Scotland.

In the Commons a select committee was appointed, on the motion of the chancellor of the exchequer, to inquire what reductions could be made in the salaries and emoluments of offices held by members of either House of parliament, during the pleasure of the crown. This was a graceful beginning of the business of retrenchment by the ministers-this offer to reduce, in the first place, their own salaries. As the new administration had much to do in preparing, during the recess, the great measures to which they were pledged, they moved for a long interval, and parliament was adjourned to the 3d of February 1831.

At the close of this year One of the people's cause, there was as much disturbance in Ireland as if the government in London had been composed of the rankest anti-Catholics. O'Connell set himself up against Lord Anglesey; organised insults to him on his arrival; encouraged tumultuous processions and meetings, by which he was himself to be thanked for his advocacy of repeal of the union; and put out addresses, in defiance and reply to the proclamations of the viceroy, the whole tenor of which was to rouse the strong passions of the Irish artisans and peasants against the government, the law, and the imperial connection, from which, at this juncture, so many benefits might be expected. His interspersed exhortations were to observe the law; his influence went to excite that fever of the mind which is sure to throw off law, sooner or later: and thus inauspiciously began the new reign of the popular viceroy, Lord Anglesey.

By this time the dread of something more awful than Irish disturbance and Kentish rick-burning was stealing into the heart of the nation. All reports of the Asiatic cholera which Englishmen had listened to, had been to their ears and imaginations like the accounts which have come down to us of the desolating plagues of the middle ages-something horrible to conceive of, but nothing to be afraid of, as if it could ever reach us. But now it was knownknown by orders of the privy-council-that the plague had spread from Asia into Europe, and was travelling north-westwards, exactly in the direction of our islands. All that was at present proposed was an attention to the quarantine laws; but the imagination of the people naturally went further than the letters of the privy-council. If George IV. and the Wellington ministry had lived through the year,

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its close would have been a season of almost unequalled gloom. But the nation now had an honest-hearted and unselfish king, a popular ministry, and a prospect of immeasurable political benefits. So that it was in a mood, on the whole, of hope and joy that they saw the expiration of the year One of the people's cause.

CHAPTER III.

HE year 1831 opened gloomily: Those who believed that revolution was at hand, feared to wish one another a happy new year; and the anxiety about revolution was by no means confined to anti-reformers. Society was already in a discontented and tumultuous state; its most ignorant portion being acted upon at once by hardship at home and example from abroad; and there was every reason to expect a deadly struggle before parliamentary reform could be carried. The ignorant and misled among the peasantry and artisans looked upon the French and other revolutions as shewing that men had only to take affairs into their own hands, in order to obtain whatever they wanted; and, in their small way, they took matters into their own hands. Machine-breaking went on to such an extent, that men were tried for the offence in groups of twelve or twenty at a time; and the January nights were lighted up by burning barns and ricks, as the preceding months had been. On the 3d of January, a Manchester manufacturer was murdered in a manner which gave a shock to the whole kingdom. He left his father's house to go to the mill, in the evening, when it was dark; he was brought home dead within ten minutes, shot through the heart, in the lane, by one of three men who were lying in wait for him. The significance of the case lay in the circumstance that it was a murder from revenge, occasioned by a quarrel about the trade union. There was fear lest the practice should spread; lest every manufacturer who refused to employ men belonging to a trade union-and there were many such -should be liable to be picked off by an assassin, appointed by lot to be the instrument of the vengeance of his union. A reward of £1000 for the detection of the murderer was offered by the secretary of state, and another £1000 by the father and family of the victim; but no clue was obtained at the time, nor for some years afterwards.

As for the dangers which might follow upon the action of government on the great question, the coolest heads had the strongest sense of them. The apprehensions of the anti-reformers were all about the consequences of the Reform Bill, if carried. The apprehensions of the most thoughtful reformers were of the perils attending its passage. On a superficial view it might appear that the result was so certain, that the way could not be much embarrassed; but there was not only the anti-reforming aristocracy to be encountered on the one hand, but large masses of

malcontents on the other. In the estimate of the anti-reform forces might be included-possibly, under certain circumstances-the sovereign; certainly, the House of Peers-almost a whole House of Peers, made desperate, not only by fear of loss of political power, but by spoliation of what they considered their lawful, and a wholly inestimable property; next, the aristocracy, in the House of Commons and out of it, who had influence and property of the same kind at stake; and, lastly, the whole body of Toryism in England-a party never small, and at this time made particularly active and desperate by a sincere belief that the constitution was likely to be overthrown, and that the English nation would presently be living under mob-rule. Large numbers of this party, who had not the remotest interest in borough property, were as fierce against the reform measure as the peers themselves, from this tremendous fear. There was quite as much folly among the lowest classes on the other side. The hungry and the desperately ignorant, who are always eager for change, because they may gain and cannot lose, believed that parliamentary reform would feed and clothe them, and bring work and good wages, and a removal of all the taxes. It was too probable that a protracted opposition would raise these poor people in riot, and turn the necessary revolution, from being a peaceable one, into an overthrow of law and order. It is necessary to take note of this state of things, in order to understand and appreciate the action of the middle classes during the two following years.

While the ministers were hard at work, preparing their mighty measure, the middle classes were preparing for their support. The action of the non-electors during this month of January was as powerful a satire on the then existing system of representation as could have been displayed. The vast populations of Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester, and countless hosts of intelligent and enlightened tradesmen and artisans elsewhere, sent shoals of petitions to parliament for a reform of the House of Commons; and they did something more effectual by forming political unions, or preparing for their immediate formation, in case of need. This was the force which kept the peace, and preserved us from disastrous revolution. These people knew what they were about, and they went calmly to their work. Of course, the anti-reformers complained of compulsion, of extorted consent, of unconstitutional forces being put in action. This was true, since they themselves compelled the compulsion, and called out the unconstitutional forces. There was no question about the fact, but only about the justification of it. No one denies that occasions may and do occur when the assertion of a nation's will against either a corrupt government or a tyrannical party is virtuous, and absolutely required by patriotic duty. The fearful and trying question is, when this ought to be done, and how men are to recognise the true occasion when it comes. There probably never was an occasion when the duty was more clear than now. The sovereign and his ministers were on the side of the people; and if the opposing party should prove disloyal to sovereign and people, for the sake

of their own political power and mercenary interests; if they held out till the one party or the other must yield, it was for the interest of peace, law, order, loyalty, and the permanence of the constitution, that the class most concerned-the orderly middle class, who had the strongest conceivable stake in the preservation of law and peace—should overstep the bounds of custom, and occupy a debatable land of legality, in support of the majority of the government and the nation. They felt that they occupied the strong central position whereby they upheld the patriotic government above them, and repressed the eager, untaught, and impoverished multitude below them; and they saw that whatever might best secure the completion of the act which must now be carried through, they must do. They therefore prepared themselves for all consequences of their determination that parliamentary reform should take place. Some formed themselves into political unions; some held themselves ready to do so, if need should arise; all made a more rapid progress in political knowledge and thought than they could perhaps have antecedently supposed possible in the time: when the period of struggle arrived, they did their duty magnificently; and their conduct stands for ever before the world, a model of critical political action, and a ground of confidence in the political welfare of England in all future times.

When the Houses reassembled, on the 3d of February, Lord Grey made the expected declaration that a measure of parliamentary reform was in readiness to be brought forward in the other House. He intimated that the work had been laborious, and, in its first stages, difficult; but that it had been the desire of the ministers to prepare a scheme 'which should be effective, without exceeding the bounds of a just and well-advised moderation;' and that they had succeeded to their wish-the whole government being unanimous in their adoption of the measure as an exponent of their principle and aim. When Lord John Russell afterwards brought the measure forward, he declared the whole scheme to be Lord Grey's; and there was assuredly no mind in England which had more earnestly, or for more years, meditated the subject. The execution was universally understood to have been confided in chief to Lord Durham; and there was assuredly no heart more in the work, or more true to the principles of popular freedom. The profoundest secrecy was observed as to the scope and details of the measure, to the very last moment. It was of great consequence that it should be so, in order that the eager friends and foes of the measure should not rush into conflict on any misunderstanding or fragmentary knowledge. The very few persons who were necessarily admitted to the confidence of the government felt this confidence to be a heavy burden. One, deeply engaged and hard-worked, said afterwards that he was almost afraid to sleep, lest he should dream and speak of what his mind was full of. The great day of disclosure was the 1st of March, when Lord John Russell had the honour-though not a cabinet minister, but on account of his long advocacy of the cause of bringing forward the measure in the Commons. On that day, the friends of the ministry

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the measure. Whether the further reforms advocated were complete or inadequate, this opened the way to all else. Like Sinbad,' as was said at the time, we have first to dash from our shoulders the "Old Man of the Sea," and afterwards to complete our deliverance.' It will afterwards appear how partial was the representation proposed to be given, and how inadequate and faulty were the constructive arrangements. But there were not two opinions at the time as to the ministers having gone further than anybody expected, and proposed a measure which could never be withdrawn without a deadly struggle, nor stand without becoming a dividing-line between the old history of England and the new.

It was a great night-that night of the 1st of March 1831-when for the first time a response was heard from within the vitiated House to the voice of intelligence without. This House had long been the property or the tool of powers and parties adverse to the general weal. While the world without had been growing wiser and more enlightened in political principle, this assembly had made no progress, or had deteriorated, till the voice of general intelligence had given it unmistakable warning that it must either reform itself or succumb. The last and effectual warning was the demand of an administration which should invite the House of Commons to reform itself; and here, at least, on this memorable night, was the response-the answering hail-for which the stretched ear of the vigilant nation was listening, to the furthest boundary of the empire. While the occasion appeared thus serious to those who brought it about, there were listeners, and not a few, in the House that night, who could not receive Lord John Russell's exposition otherwise than as an audacious jest. Others came away at the end, and said they could give no clear account of it; and that there was no need, as ministers could have no other intention than to render office untenable for those who must presently succeed them. Thus blind were the anti-reformers, after all the long and threatening warnings they had received. But a few hours opened their eyes. The morning newspapers exhibited the scheme, with all its royal and ministerial sanctions; and that which appeared a jest the night before was now pronounced a revolution.

The proper occasion for giving a specific account of the Reform Act will be when its provisions were finally settled. It may suffice now to say that, in the words of Lord Grey, ' representation, not nomination, is the principle of the Reform Bill;' that, in pursuance of this principle, sixty 'rotten boroughs' were deprived of the franchise; and 168 borough seats were abolished. A few small boroughs were retained-to the dissatisfaction of reformers generally-for the purpose of admitting an order of members not likely to be returned for large towns or counties, and providing for some little representation of the small-borough class of citizens. The reformers were also sorry that fifty-four members were given to counties which had hitherto been opposed to popular interests; and the stopping short at the representation of the middle classes was disapproved by a multitude in the middle and upper classes, as much as by the excluded artisans themselves. Wise statesmen and observers know well that the strongest conservative power of a country like ours resides in the holders of the smallest properties. However much the nobleman may be attached to his broad lands, and his mansions and parks, and the middleclass manufacturer or professional man to the station and provision he has secured for his family, this attachment is weak, this stake is small, in comparison with those of the artisan who tastes the first sweets of property in their full relish. He is the man to contend to the last gasp for the institutions of his country, and for the law and order which secure to him what he values so dearly. The commonest

complaint of all, made by the restless and discontented spirits of any time, is that their former comrades become 'spoiled' from the moment they rise into the possession of any ease, property, or social advantage; and they do truly thus become 'spoiled' for any revolutionary or disorderly purpose. By all to whom this fact was clear it was thought a mistake to have stopped at the proposed point in the communication of the franchise; but they knew that it was an error which might and would be corrected in a future time, and were content to wait. They saw how the clumsy ancient methods of conducting political affairs, in the rough, as it were, at the bidding of a few individual wills, were giving way to the more comprehensive, refined, and precise methods of government by representation; and that, when this new philosophical practice had gone somewhat further, the value of the artisan class, as the nicest of political barometers, would be practically acknowledged. To them, to their union of popular intelligence and strong love of property, would rulers and all propertied classes hereafter look for the first warnings of approaching disturbance, the earliest breathings of conservative caution; and to representatives of this class will a welcome assuredly be given in the councils of the nation, as our political procedure improves in elevation and refinement. The reduction of the number of members of the Commons was not at first objected to on any hand. As Lord John Russell observed: 'It is to be considered that when this parliament is reformed, there will not be so many members who enter parliament merely for the sake of the name, and as a matter of style and fashion;' not so many, he went on to say, who were travelling abroad during the whole session, or who regarded the House as a pleasant lounge, and not an arduous field of duty. The 168 displaced members were not therefore to be succeeded by an equal number. There was to be a decrease of 62, making the total number of representatives 596. The parishes and suburbs of London were to send eight new members, and the large towns in the provinces 34; all these together not equalling the new county representation.

On the whole, it was concluded by the reform party that the measure should be received as most meritorious and sufficiently satisfactory, on account of its bold dealing with corruption-of its making a complete clearance for further action; but that it was not a measure of radical reform. As a contemporary observed: 'The ground, limited as it is, which it is proposed to clear and open to the popular influence, will suffice as the spot desired by Archimedes for the plant of the power that must ultimately govern the whole system.'

It was thus that the authors of the measure expected it to be received by the reform party. In the course of the debates on the bill in the House of Peers, Lord Sidmouth, who supposed Lord Grey to have been carried by circumstances far beyond his original intentions, said to him: 'I hope God will forgive you on account of this bill-I don't think I can.' To which Lord Grey replied: 'Mark my words; within two years you will find that we have become unpopular, for having brought forward the