Lieutenant, made a powerful speech on the argument, that if the higher Catholics were admitted to Parliament, the great mass of the people would make a demand--an irresistible demand-for the abolition of the Protestant Church. Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning were permitted to vote for the motion, but Lord Liverpool maintained that his Ministry must continue divided upon a question vital to the empire; and for fourteen years after the peace, this perilous and discreditable see-saw continued.

Even upon questions of social progress remote from party politics Lord Castlereagh resisted innovation. Sir Samuel Romilly, a man of austere virtue and the most enlightened humanity, tried to amend our criminal law; Lord Castlereagh obstructed, and successfully opposed, his progress. The same great and liberal man proposed to make freehold property subject to the payment of simple contract debts; the law officers of the Crown would not hear of so dangerous an innovation.' So with regard to the Slave Trade and slavery; in speaking of the omission of Lord Castlereagh to insist on the condition that France should not revive the Slave Trade, and of our own acquisition of new colonies, Sir Samuel exclaimed, 'These colonies have been bought with the blood of Africa!'

His look of stern indignation added to the effect of these words. Never was purer integrity, more enlightened philosophy, or a more profound love of mankind, shown in the application of political science to practical legislation.

The conduct of the Government in refusing all measures of improvement or relief amid the distress which soon

1 One of the Crown lawyers said that it was a mistake to say the law dated from the reign of Henry VIII.; that its origin was as far back as the time of Edward I. What care I,' retorted Romilly, whether this law was made by one set of barbarians or another?'

after the peace befell both the manufacturing and the agricultural classes, produced its natural effects-anger, discontent, disaffection, and secret conspiracies. Lord Sidmouth had recourse to the usual weapon of arbitrary government; he employed spies to discover the plans of the conspirators, and the spy, as usual, fomented the disaffection which he was sent to investigate. A knot of disaffected persons in Derbyshire were told by the spy that 70,000 men in the neighbourhood of Manchester were ready to rise in insurrection, and some of these unhappy dupes having appeared in arms to support their allies, were condemned and executed.

In 1817 the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in England; in 1819 six bills for the suppression of disturbance and the repression of discussion at public meetings and by the press, were introduced and passed. Lord Castlereagh, with his usual boldness, in bringing forward his portion of the bills, said, 'I rise for the purpose of proposing to the House measures of severe coercion.'

It was evident that, if such was to be the peace policy of the Government, it behoved the Opposition to declare their own policy, and take issue on their proposals, as contrasted with those of the Government.

The Opposition of that day was neither a strong nor a compact body. Except Lord Grey, who had, much to his annoyance, been transferred from the House of Commons to the House of Lords, and who was not at this time very active in political life, the Opposition had no leader fit to inaugurate a policy or to lead a party. I remember being summoned to a meeting of the members of the party, both Lords and Commons, at Burlington House, carly in the year 1817. Lord Grey, in a few clear, bold, and dignified sentences, sketched the policy expected from the Ministry, and his own determination to oppose to the

uttermost such of those measures as should be brought forward in the House of Lords. He ended by saying, 'Mr. Ponsonby will explain to you what is expected on the part of the Government in the House of Commons.' Mr. Ponsonby then addressed the meeting, and declared that he knew nothing of the proposals to be made by the Government in the House of Commons, or of the course that it was fit to pursue.

While such was the inability of the leader who had been set over us, there was little concord as to the measures to be resisted, or the motions to be brought forward by members of the Opposition. On foreign policy, little was to be done at this time. On the question of retrenchment, I moved in 1816, by the advice of Mr. Tierney, that the Estimates should be returned to the Government with a prayer for their reduction. This motion failing, the question was taken up by Mr. Joseph Hume, who had great knowledge of details, unblemished honesty, and dogged perseverance.

With regard to parliamentary reform, as I took the lead upon that question from the end of 1819, it may be as well to explain the notions prevailing in the party. The abuses which had existed in the representation, and which had gone on increasing in virulence ever since the Revolution, had from time to time excited violent bursts of indignation but the flame of reform, after blazing fiercely for a while, had sunk again to the ground, and like a fire of straw had burnt itself away.

Impracticable theories or weak palliatives had been suggested instead of a wholesome remedy. The Duke of Richmond and Major Cartwright were in 1780 the advocates of personal suffrage. Pitt and Fox had both professed themselves favourable to a temperate reform. But the majority of Pitt's adherents did not follow him upon this subject, and while Fox, Sheridan, and Grey were

favourable to parliamentary reform, Lord Rockingham and Burke were opposed to it. With these traditions, the Whigs of 1819 were much divided in opinion, many dreading, with the old Whigs and the Grenvilles, the agitation of so serious a subject, and others, left to their own inspirations, promoting impracticable schemes. Lord Milton opposed reform. Lord Althorp and Mr. Brougham supported it.

It seemed to me that this question was the test by which the popular principles of the Whigs, and the Liberal party in general, were to be tried. As a question of men, I could not understand how any Ministry could be formed with a fair prospect of stability while a phalanx of members for close boroughs could be marshalled at any time, and drive Liberal statesmen from office, to expiate by a penance of ten or twenty years the crime of having brought forward measures favourable to religious liberty, or hostile to a corrupt expenditure. As to measures, similar reasoning might be applied so long as a cabal of interested persons could feel certain of defeating any plan of reform injurious to their personal interests. There was no hope, therefore, unless parliamentary reform were seriously taken up and resolutely pursued, of arresting the course of severe repression, religious intolerance, and wasteful expenditure, which was upheld by all the strength of a great party, victorious in foreign war, fortified by the possession of boroughs which gave a majority in the House of Commons, and apparently invincible from a long possession of Government patronage, spreading over the Church, the law, the army, the navy, and the colonies.

In assailing such a power, it behoved the Opposition to be very cautious; indeed, I had, like many others, somewhat of a superstitious reverence for a system which seemed entwined with our liberties, and almost linked

with the succession to the Crown.

There was besides the

danger of touching public credit, which was rightly compared by Lord Chatham to a sensitive plant, shrinking from the slightest contact with a rude hand. It was necessary to exorcise what Mr. Bentham called the 'hobgoblin argument,' and this could not be done by bell and candle, but must be met by clear argument, and dispelled by the light of day.

Such, then, was the problem which in 1819 I had to examine and consider.

On the question of financial economy, I am convinced, that when the sums proposed in the yearly Estimates are excessive, and show profusion or carelessness, the motion suggested by Mr. Tierney in 1816 is the proper course for the House of Commons to adopt. Mr. Hume, however, with indefatigable industry and perseverance, in 1822, and following years, attacked the various items of expense, and succeeded in persuading the country that the general character of the Government was not marked by economy.

The motion which I made in 1816 produced able speeches in debate, but no adequate result on the division.

In fact, the men of property, who had the representation in their hands, still feared a fresh explosion of the French Revolution, and were disposed to trust blindly to those who had ended the war with glory, and replaced the Bourbons on the throne of France.

I have said that in 1817 the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. At this time I had felt attendance in the House of Commons to be too fatiguing for my health, and I resolved to give up my seat in Parliament-at least for a year. Before doing so, I opposed the Suspension Bill in the speech contained in this volume.

I was returned to Parliament in 1818 for the borough of Tavistock, and in 1819 I spoke on the subject of parliamentary reform.