CHAPTER V.

THE STATE OF POLITICS IN ENGLAND IN 1817 AND 1818, AND LORD COCHRANE's SHARE IN THEM.—HIS WORK AS A RADICAL IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT.—HIS FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN THE PRIZE MONEY DUE FOR HIS SERVICES AT BASQUE ROADS.—THE HOLLY HILL BATTLE.—THE PREPARATIONS FOR HIS ENTERPRISE IN SOUTH AMERICA.—HIS LAST SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT.

The years 1817 and 1818 were years of great political turmoil. The English people, weary of the European wars, which in two-and-twenty years had raised the national debt from 230,000,000£ to 860,000,000£, thus causing a taxation which amounted, in the average, to 25£ a year upon every family of five persons, were in no mood to be made happy even by the restitution of peace. Partly by necessity, partly by the bad management of the Government and its officials, the war-burdens were continued, and to the starving multitudes they were more burdensome than ever. Angry complaints were uttered openly, and repeated again and again with steadily-increasing vehemence, in all parts of the country. That the ministers and agents of the Crown were grievously at fault was patent to all; and it is not strange that, in the excitement and the misery that prevailed, they should be blamed even more than was their due. But the men in power did not choose to be blamed at all; they denied that any fault attached to them, and fiercely reprobated every complaint as sedition, every opponent as a lawless and unpatriotic demagogue. Hence the Government and the people came to be at deadly feud. Most right was with the people, and their bold assertion of that right, albeit sometimes in wrong ways, has secured memorable benefits in later times; but power was still with the Government, and it was used even more roughly than in former years.

That Lord Cochrane, having suffered so much from the vindictive persecution of the Tories, should have thrown in his lot with its most extreme opponents, is not to be wondered at. During 1817 he was intimately associated with the popular party in all its efforts for the redress of grievances and in all the assertions of its real and fancied rights. In and out of Parliament he was alike active and outspoken. The history of his public conduct at this time forms no small section of the history of the Radical movement during the period. It resulted naturally from the circumstances in which he had lately been placed. Energetic in thought and action, a ready writer and an able speaker, his recent sufferings helped to place him in the foremost rank of patriots, as they were called by friends—demagogues, as they were called by enemies. With the exception of Sir Francis Burdett, than whom he even went further, the people had, outside their own ranks, no sturdier champion.

If there had been any doubt before as to his line of action, there could be no doubt after the re-assembling of Parliament in January, 1817. During the recess, monster meetings had been held in all parts of the country to consider the popular troubles and to insist upon popular reforms. Lord Cochrane agreed to present to the House of Commons many of the petitions that resulted from these meetings, and this he did on the 29th of January, the very day of the re-opening of Parliament.

In anticipation of this measure, there was a great assembling of reform delegates from all parts of England, and of others favourable to their purpose, in front of Lord Cochrane's residence at No. 7, Palace Yard, Westminster. Shortly before two o'clock Lord Cochrane showed himself at the window, and announced that he was now on his way to the House, there to watch over the rights and liberties of the people, and that he would shortly return and let them know what was passing. This he did at four o'clock, part of the interval being occupied with a fervid address from Henry Hunt. On his reappearance, Lord Cochrane stated that the speech with which the Prince Regent had opened Parliament had not disappointed his expectations, for it was wholly disappointing to the people. The Regent had complained of the disaffection pervading the country, and had announced his intention of using all the power given him by the Constitution for its suppression. Lord Cochrane expressed his confident hope that the people, having the right on their side, would so demean themselves as to give their enemies no ground of charge against them; for those enemies desired nothing so much as riot and disorder.

Thereupon an immense bundle of petitions was handed him, and he himself was placed in a chair, and so conveyed on men's shoulders to the door of Westminster Hall, where the crowd dispersed in an orderly way.

In the House, before the motion for an address in answer to the Prince Regent's speech, Lord Cochrane rose to present a petition, signed by more than twenty thousand inhabitants of Bristol, setting forth the present distress of the country, the increase of paupers and beggars, the grievous lack of employment for industrious persons, and the misery that resulted from this state of things. In these circumstances, the petitioners urged, it was in vain to pretend to relieve the sufferers by giving them soup, while, for the support of sinecure placemen, pensioners without number, and an insatiable civil list, half their earnings were taken from them by the enormous taxation under which the country groaned. After considerable opposition, the petition was allowed to lie on the table.

Lord Cochrane then presented a smaller but much more outspoken petition from the inhabitants of Quirk, in Yorkshire. "The petitioners," it was there urged, "have a full and immovable conviction—a conviction which they believe to be universal throughout the kingdom—that the House does not, in any constitutional or rational sense, represent the nation; that, when the people have ceased to be represented, the Constitution is subverted; that taxation without representation is a state of slavery; that the scourge of taxation without representation has now reached a severity too harassing and vexatious, too intolerable and degrading, to be longer endured without resistance by all possible means warranted by the Constitution; that such a condition of affairs has now been reached that contending factions are alike guilty of their country's wrongs, alike forgetful of her rights, mocking the public patience with repeated, protracted, and disgusting debates on questions of refinement in the complicated and abstruse science of taxation, as if in such refinement, and not in a reformed representation, as if in a consolidated corruption, and not in a renovated Constitution, relief were to be found; that thus there are left no human means of redressing the people's wrongs or composing their distracted minds, or of preventing the subversion of liberty and the establishment of despotism, unless by calling the collected wisdom and virtue of the community into counsel by the election of a free Parliament; and therefore, considering that, through the usurpation of borough factions and other causes, the people have been put even out of a condition to consent to taxes; and considering also that, until their sacred right of election shall be restored, no free Parliament can have existence, it is necessary that the House shall, without delay, pass a law for putting the aggrieved and much-aroused people in possession of their undoubted right to representation co-extensive with taxation, to an equal distribution of such representation throughout the community, and to Parliaments of a continuance according to the Constitution, namely, not exceeding one year."

A long discussion ensued as to whether this petition should be accepted by the House or rejected as an insulting libel. Several members of the House denounced it. Other members, while objecting to its terms, urged its acceptance. Among them the most notable was Mr. Brougham. The petition, he said, was rudely worded, and its recommendations were such as no wise lover of the English Constitution could wholly subscribe to; but it pointed to real grievances and recommended improvements which were necessary to the well-being of the State, and therefore it ought to be admitted. Mr. Canning was one of those who insisted upon its rejection, and this was ultimately done by a majority of 87, 48 being in favour of the petition, and 135 against it.

Four other petitions presented by Lord Cochrane, being to the same effect, were also rejected; and two, more moderate in their language, were accepted. Lord Cochrane thus succeeded, at any rate, in forcing the House during several hours to take into consideration the troubled state of the country, and the pressing need, as it seemed to great masses of the people, of thorough parliamentary reform.

"You will see by the 'Debates,'" he wrote next day to a friend, "that I presented a number of petitions last night, and had a hard battle to fight. Today I am quite indisposed, by reason of the corruption of the Honourable House. It is impossible to support a bad cause by honest means. God knows where all these base projects will end." That his own cause was a good one, and that the means used by him were honest, he had no doubt. In the same letter he referred to the opposition offered to him, even by some of his own relatives, on account of his conduct. "Mr. Cochrane has thought proper to disavow, through the public papers, any connection with my politics. The consciousness that I am acting as I ought makes that light which I should otherwise feel as a heavy clog in following that course which I think honour and justice require."

Therefore he persevered in his Herculean task. Having presented and spoken upon others in the interval, he presented another monster petition to the House on the 5th of February. It was signed, he said, by twenty-four thousand inhabitants of London and the neighbourhood. It complained of the unbearable weight of taxation and the distresses of the country, and of the squandering of the money extracted from the pockets of an oppressed and impoverished people to support sinecure placemen and pensioners. "It appears to me," he said, "surprising that there should be any set of men so cruel and unjust as to wallow in wealth at the public expense while poor wretches are starving at every corner of the streets." He represented that the petition was drawn up in temperate, respectful language,—more temperate, indeed, than he should have employed had he dictated its phrases. He urged that the people had good cause for complaint as to the way in which Parliament neglected their interests, and good ground for asserting that the system of parliamentary representation then afforded them was no real representation at all. Members entered the House only in pursuit of their own selfish ends, and the Government encouraged this state of things by fostering a system of wholesale bribery and corruption, degrading in itself and fraught with terrible mischief to the community. What wonder, then, that the people should pray, as they did in this petition, for a thorough reform, and should point to annual Parliaments and universal suffrage as the only efficient remedies?

It is needless to recapitulate all the arguments offered again and again by Lord Cochrane, with ever fresh-force and cogency, in presenting massive petitions to the House, and in introducing into the occasional debates on reform with which the House amused itself a vigour and practicalness in which few other members cared to sympathize. Nor need we enumerate all the meetings, in London and the provinces, in which he took prominent part. It is enough to say that in Parliament he always spoke with exceeding boldness, and that upon the people, notwithstanding the contrary assertions of his detractors, he always enjoined, if not conciliation and forbearance, at any rate such action as was within the strict letter of the law, and most likely, in the end, to obtain the realization of their wishes. On all occasions he defended them from the charges of sedition and conspiracy brought against them by their opponents, and proved, to all who were open to proof, that their objects were patriotic, and were being sought in patriotic ways.

Of this, however, the Government did not choose to be convinced. Taking advantage of some intemperate speeches of demagogues, making much of some violent handbills circulated by police-officers under secret instructions, mightily exaggerating a few lawless acts,—as when a drunken old sailor summoned the keepers of the Tower of London to surrender,—they procured, on the 26th of February, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Therefrom resulted, at any rate, some good. The Whigs, who had hitherto mainly supported the Tory Government, were now turned against it, and with them the wiser Radicals, like Lord Cochrane, sought to effect a coalition. "You will perceive by the papers," he said in a letter dated February the 28th, "that I have resolved to steer another political course, seeing that the only means of averting military despotism from the country is to unite the people and the Whigs, so far as they can be induced to co-operate, which they must do if they wish to preserve the remainder of the Constitution. The 'Times' of yesterday contains the fullest account of the late debates on the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and by that report you will perceive that the Whigs really made a good stand."

In that temper, Lord Cochrane spoke at a Westminster meeting, held on the 11th of March, "to take into consideration the propriety of agreeing to an address to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, beseeching that he will, in his well-known solicitude for the freedom and happiness of His Majesty's subjects, remove from his royal councils those ministers who appear resolved to adopt no effectual measures of economy and retrenchment, but, on the contrary, to persevere in measures calculated to drive a suffering people to despair."

There was some flattery or some mockery, or something of both, in that announcement; and both, with much earnest enunciation of popular grievances, were in Lord Cochrane's speech on the subject. He said that the Regent had as much cause as the people to complain of his present ministers, seeing how shamelessly they sought to hide from him the real state of the country. It was to be expected, from the early habits and character of the Regent, that he would anxiously pursue the interests of the nation, if, instead of being in the hands of an odious oligarchy, he could act for himself. This, at any rate, Lord Cochrane maintained should be urged upon him, for if something were not quickly done for the relief of the nation, trade and commerce would soon be utterly ruined, and the whole community would share the misery that had so long oppressed the lower orders. He again dwelt forcibly on the causes of this misery, and again denounced the conduct of the ministers and placemen who, while squandering the hardly-earned pounds of the people, claimed respect for their exemplary charity in doling out a few farthings for "the relief of the poor." In the previous year, he showed, Lord Castlereagh, "the bell-wether of the House of Commons," and thirteen other persons, had drawn from the revenues of the country 309,861£, and out of that amount had given back, in "sinecure soup," only 1505£

On a hundred other occasions, both outside of the House of Commons and within its walls, Lord Cochrane continued fearlessly to set forth the troubles of the people and the wrong-doing of its governors. In Parliament petitions without number were presented, and, amid all sorts of contumely, defended by him; and he took a no less active part in various important discussions, of which it will suffice, by way of illustration, to name the debates of the 3rd, 14th, and 28th of March, on the famous Seditious Meetings Bill, and that of the 13th of March on the depressed condition of English trade and its causes—a subject which was recurred to by Mr. Brougham in his memorable motion of the 11th of July on the state of the nation.

Six weeks before that, on the 20th of May, Lord Cochrane spoke on another famous motion—that made by his friend Sir Francis Burdett in favour of parliamentary reform. Once more, he complained that the existing House of Commons in no way represented the people, and was entirely regardless of its interests. Nothing better, he alleged, could be hoped for, without a radical change in the system of representation. "But," he continued, "reform we must have, whether we will or no. The state of the country is such that things cannot much longer be conducted as they now are. There is a general call for reform. If the call is not obeyed, thank God the evil will produce its own remedy, the mass of corruption will destroy itself, for the maggots it engenders will eat it up. The members of this House are the maggots of the Constitution. They are the locusts that devour it and cause all the evils that are complained of. There is nothing wicked which does not emanate from this House. In it originate all knavery, perjury, and fraud. You well know all this. You also know that the means by which the great majority of the House is returned is one great cause of the corruption of the whole people. It has been said, 'Let the people reform themselves;' but if sums of money are offered for seats within these walls, there will always be found men ready to receive them. It is impossible to imagine that the profuse expenditure of the late war would have taken place, had it not been for a corrupt majority devoted to their selfish interests. At least it would have had a shorter duration, from being carried on in a more effective manner, had it not been conducive to the views of many to prevent its speedy termination. Much has been said about the glorious result of the war; but has not lavish expenditure loaded us with taxation which is impoverishing the people and annihilating commerce? Are not vessels seen everywhere with brooms at their mastheads? Are not sailors starving? Is not agriculture languishing? Are not our manufactures in the most distressed state?"

Lord Cochrane asserted that the real revolutionists of England were the ministers and their followers. "I am persuaded that no man without doors wishes the subversion of the Constitution; but within it, bribery and corruption stand for the Constitution. Mr. Pitt himself confessed that no honest man could hold the situation of minister for any length of time. There can be no honest minister until measures have been taken to purge and purify the House. If this be not done, it is in vain to hope for a renewal of successful enterprise in this country: the sun of the country is set for ever. It may indeed exist as a petty military German despotism, with horsemen parading up and down, with large whiskers, with sabres ringing by their horses' sides, with fantastically-shaped caps of fantastical colours on their heads; but this country cannot thus be made a great military power. A previous speaker has instanced juries as one of the benefits of the Constitution; but I will affirm, with respect to the manner in which juries are chosen under the present system, that justice is much better administered, in a more summary manner, with less expense, and no chicanery, by the Dey of Algiers. If this country were erected at once into a downright, honest, open despotism, the people would be gainers. If a judge or despot then proved a rogue, he would at once appear in his true character; but now villany can be artfully concealed under the verdict of a packed jury. I am satisfied that the present system of corruption is more detrimental to the country than a despotism."

No other speaker spoke so boldly as Lord Cochrane; but his eloquent words were substantially endorsed by many; by Sir Samuel Romilly and Mr. Brougham in especial; and on a division, though 265 voted against Sir Francis Burdett's motion, it was supported by a minority—unusually large for the time—of 77.

Slowly but surely the better principles of government for which Lord Cochrane fought so persistently were gaining ground, destined ultimately to produce the changes in national temper which made plain the duty and expediency of adopting the changes in political systems in which the years 1832 and 1867 are epochs. In after years, Lord Cochrane himself clearly saw that he had been rash in his advocacy of the sweeping reforms which the excited people deemed necessary for their welfare in the years of trouble and misgovernment consequent on the tedious war-time ending with the battle of Waterloo. But he never had cause to regret the honest zeal and the generous sympathy with which he strove, though in violent ways, to lessen the weight of the popular distresses.

Distresses were not wanting to himself during this period. The weight of his former troubles still hung heavily upon him. He could not forget the terrible disgrace—none the less terrible because it was unmerited—that had befallen him. And in pecuniary ways he was a grievous sufferer by them. In losing his naval employment he lost the income on which he had counted. His resources were thus seriously crippled; and the scientific pursuits, in which he still persevered, failed to bring to him the profit that he anticipated.

In one characteristic way—only one among many—the Government persecution still clung to him. In the distribution of prize-money for the achievement at Basque Roads all the officers and crews of Lord Grambier's fleet had been considered entitled to share. To this arrangement Lord Cochrane objected. He urged that as the whole triumph was due to the Impérieuse and the few ships actually engaged with her, the reward ought to be limited to them. "I am preparing to proceed in the Court of Admiralty on the question of head-money for Basque Roads," he wrote on the 5th of November, 1816; "my affidavit has reluctantly been admitted, though strenuously opposed, on the ground that I was not to be believed on my oath!"

Lord Cochrane's council in this case was Dr. Lushington, afterwards the eminent judge of the Admiralty Court. Dr. Lushington showed plainly that the greater part of the fleet, having taken no share in the action, had no right to head-money, and that therefore all ought to be divided among those who actually shared with Lord Cochrane the danger and the success of the enterprise. But Sir William Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell), the judge at that time, was not disposed to sanction this view. Therefore he thwarted it by delays. The case having been postponed from November, 1816, was brought up again in the first term of 1817. "The judge has again delayed his decision," wrote Lord Cochrane on the 28th of February, the day of the announcement, "and I believe has done so until next session. He gave a curious reason for this, namely, that I took part at the Westminster meeting against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act!"

At the next session it was again postponed, all the time available for its consideration being taken up with a frivolous discussion as to Lord Cochrane's right to give evidence. "They have gone the length," wrote his secretary, Mr. Jackson, on the 3rd of May, "of denying Lord Cochrane's credibility in a court of justice. They had no other way of answering his affidavit, which would have gained his cause in the Court of Admiralty, as it proved that the French ships in Basque Roads were destroyed by his own exertions in fighting without orders from the Admiral. The denial-of Lord Cochrane's competency to give evidence has excited a great deal of interest, and the Court of Admiralty was quite crowded on Tuesday, when the question came on to be discussed. I thought that our counsel had much the best of the argument, and I believe the judge, Sir William Scott, thought so too, as he put off his sentence to a future day." On the future day the judge admitted as much. "We have gained a bit of a victory in the Admiralty Court," said the same writer in a letter dated the 9th of June, "the judge having been compelled to pronounce in favour of his lordship's right to be believed on his oath." The time taken by him to arrive at this decision, however, was so long that the case had to be adjourned to November term, and thereby Lord Cochrane's enemies so far attained their object, that it was impossible for him, in November term, to renew the suit.

In the interval he had gone to France, preparatory to a much longer and more momentous journey to South America, in anticipation of which he was winding up his affairs and realizing his property during and after the summer of 1817.

In this settlement of accounts there was at any rate one amusing incident. It will be remembered that, on the occasion of his being elected Member of Parliament for Honiton in 1806, Lord Cochrane had refused to follow the almost universal fashion of bribery, but, after the election was over, had thoughtlessly yielded to the proposal of his agent that he should entertain his constituents at a public supper. This entertainment, either through spite or through wanton extravagance, was turned by those to whom the management of it was assigned into a great occasion of feasting for all the inhabitants of the town; and for defrayment of the expenses thus incurred a claim for more than 1200£ was afterwards made upon Lord Cochrane. Through eleven years he bluntly refused to pay the preposterous demand; but his creditors had the law upon their side, and in the spring of 1817 an order was granted for putting an execution into his house at Holly Hill.

Lord Cochrane, however, having resisted the demand thus far, determined to resist to the end. For more than six weeks he prevented the agents of the law from entering the house. "I still hold out," he said in a letter to his secretary, "though the castle has several times been threatened in great force. The trumpeter is now blowing for a parley, but no one appears on the ramparts. Explosion-bags are set in the lower embrasures, and all the garrison is under arms." In the explosion-bags there was nothing more dangerous than powdered charcoal; but, supposing they contained gunpowder or some other combustible, the sheriff of Hampshire and twenty-five officers were held at bay by them, until at length one official, more daring than the rest, jumped in at an open window, to find Lord Cochrane sitting at breakfast and to be complimented by him upon the wonderful bravery which he had shown in coming up to a building defended by charcoal dust.

That battle with the sheriff and bailiffs of Hampshire occupied nearly the whole of April and May, 1817. In the latter month, if not before, Lord Cochrane began to think seriously of proceeding to join in battles of a more serious sort in South America, under inducements and with issues that will presently be detailed. "His lordship has made up his mind to go to South America," wrote his secretary on the 31st of May. "Numbers of gentlemen of great respectability are desirous of accompanying him, and even Sir Francis Burdett has declared that he feels a great temptation to do so; but Lord Cochrane discourages all. They think he is going to immolate the Spaniards by his secret plans; but he is not going to do anything of the kind, having promised the Prince Regent not to divulge or use them otherwise than in the service of his country."

With this expedition in view, and purposing to start upon it nearly a year sooner than he found himself able to do, Lord Cochrane sold Holly Hill and his other property in Hampshire, in July. In August he went for a few months to France, partly for the benefit of Lady Cochrane's health, partly, as it would seem, in the hope of introducing into that country the lamps which he had lately invented, and from which he hoped to derive considerable profit.

To this matter, and to his efforts to obtain some share, at any rate, of his rights from the English Government, the letters written by him from France chiefly refer. But there are in them some notes and illustrations of more general interest. "I am quite astonished at the state of Boulogne," he wrote thence on the 14th of August. "Neither the town nor the heights are fortified; so great was Napoleon's confidence in the terror of his name and the knowledge he possessed of the stupidity and ignorance of our Government." In a letter from Paris, dated the 23rd of August, we read: "Everything is looking much more settled than when I was formerly here, and I do really think that the Government, from the conciliatory measures wisely adopted, will stand their ground against the adherents of Buonaparte. We are to have a great rejoicing to-morrow. All Paris will be dancing, fiddling, and singing. They are a light-hearted people. I wish I could join in their fun. I was hopeful that I should; but the cursed recollection of the injustice that has been done to me is never out of my mind; so that all my pleasures are blasted, from whatever source they might be expected to arise."

That last sentence fairly indicates the state of Lord Cochrane's mind during these painful years. Weighed down by troubles heavy enough to break the heart of an ordinary man, he fought nobly for the thorough justification of his character and for the protection of others from such persecution as had befallen him. In both objects, altogether praise-worthy in themselves, he may have sometimes been intemperate; but ample excuse for far greater intemperance would be found in the troubles that oppressed him. "The cursed recollection of the injustice that has been done to me is never out of my mind; all my pleasures are blasted!"

In the same temper, after a lapse of nine months, about which it is only necessary to say that, like their forerunners, they were employed in private cares, and, especially after the reassembling of Parliament, in zealous action for the public good, he made his last speech in the House of Commons on the 2nd of June, 1818. The occasion was a debate upon a second motion by Sir Francis Burdett in favour of parliamentary reform, more cogent and effective than that of the 20th of May, 1817, to Lord Cochrane's share in which we have already referred. The former speech was wholly of public interest. This has a personal significance, very painful and very memorable. It brings to a pathetic close the saddest epoch in Lord Cochrane's life—so very full of sadness.

"I rise, sir," he said, "to second the motion of my honourable friend. In what I have to say, I do not presume to think that I can add to the able arguments that have just been uttered; but it is my duty distinctly to declare my opinions on the subject. When I recollect all the proceedings of this House, I confess that I do not entertain much hope of a favourable result to the present motion. To me it seems chiefly serviceable as an exhibition of sound principles, and as showing the people for what they ought to petition. I shall perhaps be told that it is unparliamentary to say there are any representatives of the people in this House who have sold themselves to the purposes and views of any set of men in power; but the history of the degenerate senate of that once free people, the Romans, will serve to show how far corruption may make inroads upon public virtue or patriotism. The tyranny inflicted on the Roman people, and on mankind in general, under the form of acts passed by the Roman senate, will ever prove a useful memento to nations which have any freedom to lose. It is not for me to prophesy when our case will be like theirs; but this I will say, that those who are the slaves of a despotic monarch are far less reprehensible for their actions than those who voluntarily sell themselves when they have the means of remaining free.

"And here," he continued, in sentences broken by his emotions, "as it is probably the last time I shall ever have the honour of addressing the House on any subject, I am anxious to tell its members what I think of their conduct. It is now nearly eleven years since I have had the honour of a seat in this House, and since then there have been very few measures in which I could agree with the opinions of the majority. To say that these measures were contrary to justice would not be parliamentary. I will not even go into the inquiry whether they tend to the national good or not; but I will merely appeal to the feelings of the landholders present, I will appeal to the knowledge of those members who are engaged in commerce, and ask them whether the acts of the legislative body have not been of a description, during the late war, that would, if not for the timely intervention of the use of machinery, have sent this nation to total ruin? The country is burthened to a degree which, but for this intervention, it would have been impossible for the people to bear. The cause of these measures having such an effect upon the country has been examined and gone into by my honourable colleague (Sir Francis Burdett); they are to be traced to that patronage and influence which, a number of powerful individuals possess over the nomination of a great proportion of the members of this House; a power which, devolving on a few, becomes thereby the more liable to be affected by the influence of the Crown; and which has in fact been rendered almost entirely subservient to that influence. To reform the abuses which arise out of this system is the object of my honourable friend's motion. I will not, cannot, anticipate the success of the motion; but I will say, as has been said before by the great Chatham, the father of Mr. Pitt, that, if the House does not reform itself from within, it will be reformed with a vengeance from without. The people will take up the subject, and a reform will take place which will make many members regret their apathy in now refusing that reform which might be rendered efficient and permanent. But, unfortunately, in the present formation of the House, it appears to me that from within no reform can be expected, and for the truth of this I appeal to the experience of the few members, less than a hundred, who are now present, nearly six hundred being absent; I appeal to their experience to say whether they have ever known of any one instance in which a petition of the people for reform has been taken into consideration, or any redress afforded in consequence of such a petition? This I regret, because I foresee the consequence which must necessarily result from it. I do trust and hope that before it is too late some measures shall be adopted for redressing the grievances of the people; for certain I am that unless some measures are taken to stop the feelings which the people entertain towards this House and to restore their confidence in it, you will one day have ample cause to repent the line of conduct you have pursued. The gentlemen who now sit on the benches opposite with such triumphant feelings will one day repent their conduct. The commotions to which that conduct will inevitably give rise will shake, not only this House, but the whole framework of Government and society to its foundations. I have been actuated by the wish to prevent this, and I have had no other intention.

"I shall not trespass longer on your time," he continued, in a few broken sentences, uttered painfully and with agitation that aroused much sympathy in the House. "The situation I have held for eleven years in this House I owe to the favour of the electors of Westminster. The feelings of my heart are gratified by the manner in which they have acted towards me. They have rescued me from a desperate and wicked conspiracy which has nearly involved me in total ruin. I forgive those who have so done; and I hope when they depart to their graves they will be equally able to forgive themselves. All this is foreign to the subject before the House, but I trust you will forgive me. I shall not trespass on your time longer now—perhaps never again on any subject. I hope his Majesty's ministers will take into their serious consideration what I now say. I do not utter it with any feelings of hostility—such feelings have now left me—but I trust they will take my warning, and save the country by abandoning the present system before it is too late."