lic life, small, I am afraid, indeed, will be the number of those endowed with the heroic courage and self-devotion which the performance of it will then require. Human virtue is too feeble

for such a task.

“And this, sir, leads me to mention the change in the description of persons composing this house-a change which, in my judgment, we ought rather to deprecate as an evil than to wish for as a blessing. If the reform were carried to any great extent which, if it is once suffered to begin, it will undoubtedly be-the house would consist, almost exclusively, of men of great landed estate and their connections, who would sit for the counties; and of persons that had acquired influence in large towns by their wealth or their political activity—that is, of great proprietors, great merchants, and demagogues. No man could hope for a seat unless he was possessed of a large property of a particular kind, or unless he had been fortunate enough to ingratiate himself with some large body of people. So that a perpetual bounty would be held out to every species of turbulence and intrigue. Every candidate, except the few whose wealth ensured them influence independently of exertion, must go through a species of political probation. Where the court party was strongest, he must shew himself capable of becoming an useful agent in procuring ministerial favours; where the democratical influence prevailed, he must give proofs of civism. So that the whole country would exhibit a perpetual struggle who should go furthest in subserviency to the court, or in democratical violence: not that I am by any means an enemy to popular elections. I am perfectly aware that they are indispensably necessary in order to keep alive a spirit of discussion and of independence, and to preserve the public mind from languor and stagnation. But then

it appears to me that we have them quite in sufficient numbers to answer all these purposes most completely. And I must confess that there is no evil that I should more dread than that state of morbid agitation which would be produced in the political body by bringing all the active enterprizing talents of the country into constant and immediate contact with the most powerful, turbulent, and self-willed part of the population-by teaching every man that the first, and the last, and in fact the only material step towards political reputation and power, was popu larity, and, consequently, by raising the art of flattering and bribing the people, above all other arts. Sir, I hope I may be pardoned for saying, that I do not see why the practice of this art ought to be made a necessary step in the education of every English statesman. No theory that I can form would lead me to such a conclusion; all experience, I am sure, is against it. If I look round this much-reviled as sembly, which, in spite of all its defects, appears to me not inadequately to re present the wisdom and the property of the country, I see many persons, and those among its most conspicuous ornaments, who, after an early life spent in liberal studies, in learned professions, in the acquisition of all those branches of knowledge which most calculate a man for business and the conduct of great affairs, have, at last, acquired their seats in this house by those very means, hitherto so familiar to the practice of our constitution, but which we are now told it is our duty to prevent. I must own that I am at a loss to understand how this description of persons could have found admittance into a reformed House of Commons, still less can I persuade myself that they would have been more enlightened, more independent, or better fitted to guide the councils of their country wisely and magnanimously, if

their youth had been spent in the labours of a canvass, in the study of a poll-book, or in the care of cherishing some local interest, or in devising mountebank tricks and mischievous projects, like the orators of old in the petty republics of Greece, to delude and to ruin the people. From those gentle men, sir, whom I mention with all that respect which is due to great talents usefully and honourably employed, we may, I think, fairly expect some aid in defending that constitution to which they are indebted for the opportunity of displaying their talent upon that great theatre on which they must naturally be most anxious to display them, and on which, for the sake of the country, it is most desirable that they should be displayed-talents which might otherwise have been buried in obscurity, or debased and perverted by those habits to which, under another form of government, it would be necessary to have recourse, in order to obtain a seat in the free, uninfluenced, democratical House of Commons. Sir, when I call to mind the names of all our most distinguished statesmen, when I place before my eyes the long and venerable order of those to whom Eng land is most deeply indebted for her liberty and her fame, those whom we most reverence, those whom we most regret, and those whose like we most wish to see again, I cannot at the same time forget that they almost all owed the first opportunity of appearing in that assembly in which they were destined to rule by the force of their genius, to those very places, and to those very means, to which it seems no person in future is ever to owe a similar advantage, and that they made their first spring towards glory from that contaminated ground which we are to cut from under the feet of all succeed. ing generations.

"But then, sir, comes the selling of seats, which is always stated as the un

answerable part of the case; that grie vance for which a remedy must be provided, that scandal for which no apology can be found. This is a subject upon which a great deal might be said but having already troubled the house at such length upon other points, I shall content myself with a very few words upon this. In the first place, if, as I have endeavoured to shew, the existence of what are called close, boroughs is almost essential to the very existence of our constitution, it is no argument against the whole system to say that it is liable to abuse, and that some evil is interwoven with the good. In the next place, there is no manner of reason to suppose, that the evil has extended very far; on the contrary, it is perfectly well known that the bought seats bear a very inconsiderable proportion, indeed, to the whole number; in the next, unless some actual evil can be shewn to have arisen from the practice, it is no more wrong that a certain number of seats should be sold than that commissions in the army, or situations in the old magistracy of France, should be disposed of in the same way; and, lastly, granting that the sale of a seat in parliament is a thing in its own nature utterly infamous and inconsistent with all the principles of free government, it remains to prove how you can prevent it, or, at least, how you can prevent something to the full as bad. You may, indeed, by disfranchising the small boroughs, prevent any person, or small number of persons, from acquiring a certain fixed interest which they may dispose of for money to any body they please, but still I insist that it is utterly out of your power to prevent practices quite as objectionable in point of principle, and far more extensively mischievous. The plain truth is, that nothing is more corrupt than popular election. It has any merit you please besides purity. One well-fought county gives occa

sion to more bribery than half the boroughs in Cornwall put together. So that if purity is the object, more is lost than gained, since, for one act of corruption you substitute many, and extend the mischief further by involving more persons in the guilt. For in what, I beg to ask, does bribery consist Does it consist merely in giving a man money, or in what is called treating him, in order to obtain his vote? No, it consists in a thousand things which cannot be prevented, nor so much as defined by law. It is impossible to draw an accurate line between friend ship, benevolence, and good neigh bourhood on the one hand, and corruption on the other. It is not bribery, for instance, to let a great estate in a county you wish to influence, very much below its value; it is not bribery to procure some mark of honour from the crown for some neighbouring gentleman who can command a good many votes; it is not bribery to ob tain from the treasury all the patro nage, as it is termed, of any particular place, that is, to distribute among your own supporters all the offices in the revenue and other departments that may happen to become vacant there. This is not bribery in the technical sense of the word, but do not these things exist? And is not their motive just as unquestionable as their existence? Does any man think that in point of morality there is any difference between them and the passing of money from hand to hand.? The distinction between them is altogether of a special kind-it might get off a culprit at the Old Bailey, but, in the discussion of a political question, it is utterly inadmissible. There is no doubt that a certain number of persons do owe their seats to the disinterested attachment, or the political enthusiasm of their constituents, but I am afraid that in matters of this sort, affection and enthusiasm are far less powerful

principles than self-interest, and that so long as a seat in parliament continues to be a desirable object, the dis posal of it, let it be vested in what hands it may, will be influenced by motives that are neither pure nor legal-unless, indeed, gentlemen think that they can eradicate men's feelings by act of parliament, and alter human nature itself by method of bill.

"But, sir, it may be said, that the objections I have urged apply to a more extensive change than that which has been proposed by my honourable friend; and that he speaks of mode rate, and I of radical, reform. Sir, of all the visionary expectations to which this project has given birth, the most visionary is to suppose that re form is a thing of such a manageable nature, that it will stop at the precise boundary to which its authors may wish to confine it, that the waters will cease to flow at the bidding of those that have torn down the dykes. My honourable friend's plan indeed, to do him justice, is sufficiently moderate, and if it is not calculated to do much good, I must confess that, per se, it is not calculated to do much harm. In my view of the subject the main argu ment against this and all similar plans, is, that by adopting them we should admit the principle of altering what has been found practically good, upon mere theoretical grounds, which, when ever we do, a breach will be made in our constitution through which all that banditti will instantly rush, whom we are now, though with difficulty, able to repel. We are told, indeed, that it is necessary, not only on its own account, and for the sake of the benefits that are to flow from it, but in order to satisfy the people. This, however, is not so much a matter of argument, as a question of fact, and every person will be a good deal guided by the result of his own observation. As far, however, as my own knowledge and

experience have gone, I am inclined to am inclined to think, that, with a view to this subject, the people of England may be divided into two classes; those that are content with the existing order of things, and those that are desirous of a far greater change than any that my honourable friend is prepared to call for. I know it has been supposed that a large class of persons exists, desirous of what is termed moderate reform,' persons in the main well affected to our constitution, and whom it depends on ourselves, either wholly to conciliate and make our own, by yielding to their just and temperate demands, or to drive into an unnatural but formidable alliance with the Jacobins, by clinging blindly and pertinaciously to the most objectionable parts of our old system. Now, sir, I must own that of this moderate party so limited in their wishes, and consequently so easily to be contented, I am not able to see any very evident traces. That it exists. I do not deny, but that it exists in any considerable number I utterly disbelieve. On the contrary, in all the most numerous meetings that have been held for the purpose of agitating this question, in all the speeches and publications that may be supposed in the most authentic manner to promulgate the will and pleasure of the reforming body, the idea of moderate reform has either not been mentioned at all, or mentioned only to be reprobated and disclaimed. Their complaints and their demands are alike in compatible with any thing like what my honourable friend could call moderation. The grievances they state are such as never in the days of our forefathers were held to be grievances at all, and the remedies they propose are altogether subversive of the constitution as it existed in what are universally confessed to have been the best of times. The substance of their objection (as I have already had occasion

to remark) consists in this, that what are called the representatives of the people are in fact returned by a very small minority of the people. Now, sir, I should beg to ask how this defect can be cured by any thing in the shape of moderate reform. To meet the wishes of these persons we must at once sweep away all our boroughs, we must burn all our charters, we must abolish all our franchises; and in place of this antiquated rubbish we must adopt a page or two of the American constitution. Short of this we shall do nothing to content them, the representation will still remain unadapted to the population, and their ground of complaint just as strong as ever. Such a reform as that proposed by my honourable friend will be received not only with dissatisfaction, but with scorn, and I, or any person who is resolved to concede nothing, but to oppose every plan for a change in the representation, will stand better with the real reformers than the authors of what they will consider as a contemptible and illusory project. What then are we to do by acceding to this motion, and whom are we to oblige? We are to change the constitution of the country, under which it has enjoyed the greatest share of prosperity and glory ever enjoyed by men, in hopes of conciliating a class of persons who are either too feeble to make their voices heard amidst the more powerful cry for a radical reform, too little united among themselves to agree upon any common plan, or too lukewarm about their object to take the trouble of stating it in a separate form.

"There cannot, I am persuaded, be a more fatal error than to concede points of this sort in the hope of pleasing the multitude. The discontented, though numerous and powerful, more than in proportion to their numbers, from their zeal, their activity, and that proselytizing spirit which adds daily

to their force, are still a minority of the people of this country. But nothing is so likely to convert that minority into a majority, as feeble, grace less concessions on our part, concessions by which we shall forsake the vantage ground on which we stand, by which we shall surrender our best weapons of defence, by which we shall increase the strength of our enemies, without at all abating their rancour. Sir, in every age, and in every coun try, those who have been entrusted with the power of the state, have had to contend with something which for the moment has been the favourite project of vain, ambitious, or mistaken men. In our days they have thought fit to aim at a vital part, and the constitution of parliament is what we have to defend, and what it will require our utmost efforts to secure. Indeed, the very nature and condition of man almost forbid one to expect, that bless ings so great as those we enjoy under the existing order of things, should, for long together, be held without interruption, and without struggle. For that struggle, I trust, we are prepared; since, if I am not much deceived, it will be long, perilous, and doubtful. But, at least, let us have no paltry ineffectual compromise. Let us make our stand upon our immemorial usages, upon the wisdom of our ancestors, and far more, for there are persons to whom these things seem light,-upon the practical benefits we have derived from the present system in times of singular difficulty and danger. This is our only chance either for dignity or safety; but if we come at last with our miserable canting confession, implied or expressed, that we, heretofore falsely and fraudulently denominating ourselves the Commons of England, are not the Commons of England, and that we are too weak and too corrupt to manage the affairs that have been entrusted to us, and that therefore we

will allow ourselves to be reformed a little, and suffer the government to be brought something nearer the pure and perfect model of democracy that ought to exist in this house; they will rejoice at the principle we shall admit, but they will require, and justly require, that we should follow it up with much larger concessions; they will laugh at our moderate reform, and treat us with scorn for believing, that, after having been so long kept out of their clear, and, by ourselves, acknowledged rights, they will at last be satisfied by the restoration of a small and insigni. ficant part of them. They will proceed, as indeed, to do them justice, they have openly and manfully decla red, in their own way, and upon their own principles principles utterly incompatible with that order of things under which we have hitherto lived, and under which, I am not ashamed to say, I am still desirous to live. We may purchase a truce with these persons, but there can be no real peace, no substantial agreement between us. No concordat could be framed by which they can enter into our church, or we into theirs. Sooner or later the difference must break out, and the resistance must be made; and those which my honourable friend considers as timely concessions, and healing mea sures, are, in fact, only so many de monstrations of weakness and irresolution, which, though they may stagger the faith, and chill the zeal of the great body of the people who are still true to the constitution, will neither gain to us a single useful proselyte, nor retard our fate by a single hour.

"Sir, I beg pardon for having detained the house so long, but I was anxious not to lose this opportunity of expressing my settled aversion to this and all similar measures. If, for any thing that I have said, I am thought less true to the principles of free government, or less attached to