life all the busy creations of commercial prosperity. Nor, when men were wanting to illustrate and defend their country, have such men been deficient. When the fate of the nation depended upon the line of policy she should adopt, there were orators of the highest degree placing in the strongest light the argument for peace and war. When we were engaged in war we had warriors ready to gain us laurels in the field, or to wield our thunders on the sea. When, again, we returned to peace, the questions of internal policy, of education of the poor, and of criminal law, found men ready to devote the most splendid abilities to the welfare of the most indigent class of the community! And, Sir, shall we change an instrument which has produced effects so wonderful for a burnished and tinsel article of modern manufacture? No! Small as the remaining treasure of the constitution is, I cannot consent to throw it into the wheel for the chance of obtaining a prize in the lottery of constitutions. There is yet another person who resembles Nestor in nothing but his age, who tells us that the people have a right to universal suffrage, which is derived directly from Heaven. No one is more inclined to allow the most extensive rights to the people than I am. I allow that they have a right, if they will, to overthrow their Government; that they have a right, if they will, to exercise the sovereignty collectively. But representation is the invention of society, and I cannot allow that the people have any natural right to meet in their parishes and choose Members of Parliament by putting white and black beans into a box.

It is to entreat the

Sir, I have but one word more. Government, whether they accept of these resolutions or not, to adopt some measure tending to conciliate the people. The history of all free States, and particularly of that one on which Machiavel has thrown the light of his genius, demonstrates that they have a progress to per

fection, and a progress to decay. In the former of these we may observe that the basis of the government is gradually more and more enlarged, and a larger portion of the people are admitted to a share of the power. In the latter, the people, or some class of the people, make requests which are refused, and two parties are created, both equally extravagant and equally incensed. In this state, when the party which supports the Government loses all love and respect for liberty, and the party which espouses liberty loses all attachment and reverence for the Government, the constitution is near its end. Without any common attraction to the established laws of their country, each is ready to call in force to subdue the other; and it is in the power of an ambitious king, an ambitious general, or an ambitious demagogue, to extinguish the liberties of his country as easily as these lights above our heads will be put out after the debate. I now beg leave to move the following resolutions:

1. "That it is expedient that all boroughs in which gross and notorious bribery and corruption shall be proved to prevail, should cease to return Members to serve in Parliament; provision being made to allow such of the electors as shall not have been proved guilty of the said offence to give votes at any election to be held for the county in which such boroughs shall be respectively

situated.'

2. That it is expedient that the right of returning Members to serve in Parliament, so taken from any borough which shall have been proved to have been guilty of bribery and corruption should be given to some great towns, the population of which shall not be less than 15,000 souls, or to some of the largest counties.'

3. That it is the duty of this House to consider of further means to detect and prevent corruption in the election of Members of Parliament.'

4. 'That it is expedient that the borough of Grampound, in which gross and notorious corruption has been proved to prevail, do cease to send Members to this House.'

Thursday, April 25, 1822.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL rose and addressed the House as follows:-Mr. Speaker; I rise for the purpose of moving a resolution, that the present state of the representation of the people in Parliament requires the most serious consideration of this House.' Should I be so fortunate as to succeed in this Motion, I shall then move for leave to bring in a Bill for the more effectual representation of the people in Parliament. In bringing this subject before the notice of Parliament I naturally feel considerable anxiety; not anxiety lest I should fail to impress upon the House the importance of a question affecting the formation of the governing body of this mighty Empire-a question which, if carried, involves, as some think, the ruin, but as others, and, according to me, a majority of the people believe, the salvation of the country; but anxiety and apprehension lest the weakness of the person who presumes to bring forward the Motion, should be thought unequal to a discussion of such magnitude. It will be an additional weight upon me, in urging arguments which I think are in their nature irresistible, to consider how often those arguments have been enforced by men of the highest talents-men entitled to the veneration of the House and of the country.

On the other hand, if I may venture to speak of myself, I feel some encouragement to proceed, in the recollection that I have served an apprenticeship, so to term it, in the cause of Reform; that I have thus had occasion to consider the subject in its various forms and bearings; and

that, in bringing forward a part of the question of Reform more than two years ago, although I never for one instant allowed it to be imagined that the small alteration I then proposed contained my utmost wishes, I yet professed myself inclined rather to support the reforms of others than to originate any general proposition myself. I therefore claim some credit for deliberation when I say that a careful investigation of the subject induces me to lay before the House the reasons and the principles upon which, in my mind, a more extensive Reform may be safely founded. I am likewise encouraged by the propitious fitness of the present time for entertaining such a Motion. The question has been so often met and turned aside by fears of Jacobinism in foreign nations, or of tumults at home, that I feel it a great advantage to be able to say that our present state of external peace and internal tranquillity affords opportunity for ample and undisturbed discussion.

There is another circumstance which ought to weigh in favour of the Motion I am about to make-I mean the number of petitions for Reform of Parliament which have been pouring into this House since the beginning of the session. This fact shows the value which the people at large attach to this question, and the eagerness with which they look forward to its success. Petitions have this year been presented to the House from the counties of Middlesex, Devon, Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedford, Cambridge, Surrey, and Cornwall, all praying for Reform in Parliament. In the county of Huntingdon a petition to the same effect has been voted. Petitions have also been presented in great numbers from separate towns for the same object; and the petitions which have been presented for the liberation of Mr. Hunt nearly all contain a petition for Reform: thus showing that the vast number of persons who embraced opinions in favour of this measure some

years ago, maintain their wishes unchanged, and their judgment unshaken.

Whilst this anxiety in the country for Reform in general encourages me in the task I have undertaken, I feel it to be a circumstance no less propitious, that the petitioners do not ask exclusively for any one plan of reformation. It may be remembered that a few years ago all the petitions prayed for universal suffrage; but at a meeting in the present year of the county of Middlesex, a meeting which might be supposed to bring together all classes of reformers, when a venerable advocate of the cause of Reform proposed a petition for universal suffrage he could find no one to second him. That single circumstance shows the disposition of the people to ask for Reform as a cure for abuses existing, and not as a fanciful untried measure, of which in their own minds they have some vague conception: it shows their inclination to accept from this House any reasonable system of amendment, subject to such an interval of deliberation as the importance of the subject may appear to demand.

Under these impressions, I come to consider what it is that the petitioners ask. I think I am borne out in saying that what they ask is nothing new; no innovation upon the constitution; no change in the existing laws; they simply pray that the functions of granting supplies of. money, of appealing for the redress of grievances, of giving advice to the Crown, in short, all the legal functions of a House of Commons, should be exercised by the true representatives of the people. This is the language of the petitions, and it is the undoubted language of the constitution. The question to be tried therefore is, not whether in law the House ought to be the representatives of the people, but whether in truth they now are so. is a simple question of fact, which the House is called upon to decide. Considering, therefore, that as to the

It