year 1780 a dissolution took place, and then it was naturally imagined by superficial observers who did not examine the real state of representation, that the people would have returned a Parliament that would have unequivocally spoken their sentiments on the occasion. What was the case? The change was very small indeed, not more than three or four persons were added to the number of those who had from the beginning opposed the disastrous career of the Ministers in that war. Lord North himself said: 'What! can you contend that the war is unpopular, after the declaration in its favour that the people have made by their choice of representatives? The general election is the proof that the war continues to be the war of the people of England.' Yet," said Fox, "it was notoriously otherwise; so much so, that Mr. Pitt made a just and striking use of it to demonstrate the necessity of Parliamentary reform. He referred to this event as a demonstration of this doctrine. 'You see,' said he, 'that so defective, so inadequate, is the present practice, at least of the elective franchise, that no impression of national calamity, no conviction of ministerial error, no abhorrence of disastrous war, is sufficient to stand against that corrupt influence which has mixed itself with election, and which drowns and stifles the popular voice.' Upon this statement, and upon this unanswerable argument, the Right Honourable Gentleman acted in the year 1782.”

Pitt's own recorded words are: "At last the voice of the people has happily prevailed, and we are now blessed with a ministry whose wishes went along with those of the people, for a moderate reform of the errors which had intruded themselves into the Constitution. . . . The representatives had ceased, in a great degree, to be connected with the people. It was of the essence of the Constitution that the people should have a share in the Government by the means of representation. The representation as it now stood was incomplete."1

He did not produce any definite plan, but moved for an inquiry on the subject, and he was only defeated by 20 votes; 141 having voted for his motion, and 161 against it.

Immediately afterwards a "numerous and respectable meeting" of Members of Parliament friendly to a constitutional representation of Parliament, and of the members of several 1 Parliamentary History, vol. xxii. p. 1416.

committees of counties and cities was held at the Thatched House Tavern (on 18th May), the Lord Mayor of London in the chair, and Pitt himself being present, when it was resolved 1— "That the motion of the Honourable William Pitt, for the reform of Parliament having been defeated, it is become indispensably necessary that application should be made to Parliament by Petition from the collective body of the people in their respective districts, requesting a substantial reformation of the Commons House of Parliament.

"That this meeting is of opinion that the sense of the people should be taken at such times as may be convenient during this summer, in order to lay their petitions before Parliament early next Session."

The resolutions were in Pitt's own handwriting, and are intensely interesting as showing that he was in favour of the system of the people meeting and petitioning. In accordance with the resolution thus come to, the Platform was set to work; numerous meetings were held during the Parliamentary recess, and on the 24th of February in the following year (1783) a Petition was presented from 10,000 freeholders of the county of York, including the Lord Lieutenant of the county, praying for a more equal representation of the people in Parliament; and on 7th May several Petitions were presented from the freeholders in the county of Kent, from the electors of Westminster, and from various other places and persons, praying for a reform in the representation of the people in Parliament.1

Pitt, who, since last he brought forward the subject, had filled the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Shelburne for some months, again urged the question. "He reminded the House how, and upon what reasons the public had begun to look at the state of Parliamentary representation. He stated that the disastrous consequences of the American war, the immense expenditure of the public money, the consequent heavy burden of taxes, and the pressure of all the collateral difficulties produced by the foregoing circumstances, gradually disgusted the people, and at last provoked

1 Wyvill's Political Papers, vol. i. p. 425.
2 See State Trials, vol. xxii. p. 493.

8 Parliamentary History, vol. xxiii. p. 571.

4 Ibid. p. 826.

them 'to turn their eyes inward on themselves' in order to see if there was not something radically wrong at home, that was the chief cause of all the evils they felt from their misfortunes abroad.1

"Searching for the internal sources of their foreign fatalities, they naturally turned their attention to the Constitution under which they lived, and to the practice of it. Upon looking to that House they found that by length of time, by the origin and progress of undue influence, and from other causes, the spirit of liberty, and the powers of check and control upon the Crown and the executive Government, were greatly lessened and debilitated. Hence, clamour sprung up without doors, and hence, in the moment of anxiety to procure an adequate and fit remedy to a practical grievance, a spirit of speculation went forth, and a variety of schemes, founded in visionary and impracticable ideas of reform, were suddenly produced. . .

...

"The House itself had discovered that a secret influence of the Crown was sapping the very foundation of liberty by corruption; the influence of the Crown had been felt within those walls, and had often been found strong enough to stifle the sense of duty, and to overrule the propositions made to satisfy the wishes and desires of the people. The House of Commons had been base enough to feed the influence that enslaved its members, and thus was at one time the parent and offspring of corruption. This influence, however, had risen to such a height that men were ashamed any longer to deny its existence, and the House had at length been driven to the necessity of voting that it ought to be diminished. . . . The House of Commons, which, according to the true spirit of the Constitution, should be the guardian of the people's freedom, the constitutional check and control over the executive power, would, through this influence, degenerate into a mere engine of tyranny and oppression, to destroy the Constitution in effect, though it should in its outward form still remain."

After dismissing "universal suffrage" and the abolition of rotten boroughs as impracticable, he suggested an increase of county members, and urgently pressed the necessity of something being done in compliance with the petitions that had 1 Parliamentary History, 1783, vol. xxiii. p. 828, etc. VOL. I

I

been presented complaining of the present state of the representation.

So much was involved in this great question of Parliamentary reform, that it is not surprising that a resolute stand should have been made against it by the King and Court party.

Lord North, as ex-Prime Minister, spoke strongly against it. He protested against the assumption implied in any demand for reform, that members of the House should be representatives specially of the people who chose them. He said: "We are not the deputies but the representatives of the people. We are not to refer to them before we determine. We stand here as they would stand, to use our own discretion, without seeking any other guidance under heaven."1

A view which some time later he took occasion to reiterate in greater amplitude: "That House, constituted as it was, represented the whole kingdom. Those gentlemen who held that the instructions of constituents ought on all occasions to be complied with did not know the Constitution of their country. To surrender their own judgments, to abandon their own opinions, and to act as their constituents thought proper to instruct them, right or wrong, was to act unconstitutionally. Let them recollect who and what they were. They were not sent there, like the States General, to represent a particular province or district, and to take care of the particular interests of that particular province; they were sent there as trustees, to act for the benefit and advantage of the whole kingdom. The moment a gentleman took his seat he was to consider himself as a representative of all England, and as bound to take as much care of the interests of one part of the Empire as another. The idea, therefore, of complying in all cases with the instructions of constituents was an idea directly repugnant to the constitution of Parliament, and to the functions and duties of its members."

Pitt's proposal was rejected by a large majority-293 voting against it, and 149 for it. Evidently the Platform had not much real power yet as a political engine-indeed a whole generation was to pass before it would have strength enough to force reform from even that part of the Constitution which was considered the popular House.

1 Parliamentary History, 1783, vol. xxiii. p. 853. 2 Ibid. 1784, vol. xxiv. p. 988.

In extenuation of some of the opposition to reform we must bear in mind what many Englishmen thought of the English Constitution. Pitt's eloquent language in the speech already quoted from puts their views as well as they could be put: "No man saw that glorious fabric, the Constitution of this country, with more admiration, nor with more reverence, than himself; he beheld it with wonder, with veneration, and with gratitude; it gave an Englishman such dear and valuable privileges, or he might say, such advantageous and dignified prerogatives, that were not only beyond the reach of the subjects of every other nation, but afforded us a degree of happiness unknown to those who lived under governments of a nature less pregnant with principles of liberty. Indeed, there was no form of Government on the known surface of the globe that was so nearly allied to perfect freedom."

Contemporary literature and, indeed, events prove, unfortunately, however, that the great bulk of the opposition to reform rose from selfish or sordid ends. The power of government, the emolument of office and patronage, the luxury of sinecures, the love of rank and social position-all these had a far more powerful influence on the great majority of the upper classes of the time than these fine ideas so eloquently expressed by Pitt. The adverse division against Reform checked the question temporarily. On 29th May 1783 Horace Walpole wrote: 2 "We have subsided suddenly into a comfortable calm. Not only war has disappeared, but also the jostling of Ministries, the hostilities of factions, the turbulence of County Associations. The signal repulse given to the proposed reformation of Parliament seems to have dashed all that rashness of innovation."

But the question was not lost sight of. It was soon after this (on 15th August 1783) that a letter was written by the Duke of Richmond to Colonel Sharman, which, time after time, in later years was quoted by many an advocate of Reform, and the gist of which had best be given here.

The Duke wrote: "The lesser Reform has been attempted with every possible advantage in its favour; not only from the zealous support of the advocates of a more effectual one, 1 Parliamentary History, vol. xxiii. p. 828.

2 Walpole's Letters, vol. viii. p. 370.