sons, or their fitness for the offices to which they recommended them. If local influence were to be altogether abolished it would be necessary in every office, as well as in the excise, to transplant men from one part of the kingdom to another, in order that they might have no local attachments, nor the power of obliging any one by a vote." These arguments were decisive against the original terms of the clause; but they formed no defence for retaining the obnoxious word. It was, however, put to the vote, and retained by a majority of 23 out of 170 members. Mr Whitbread then declared his most decided disapprobation of the bill as it now stood, considering it at once scandalous and disgraceful; and Mr Ponsonby said, it would do more to destroy the constitution than any act past since the revolution. On the other hand, many members, who reprobated the material change which Mr Perceval had made in it, agreed with Mr Curwen that still it ought to be supported, because the recognition of the principle was itself a thing of no little importance. The secretary at war and Mr Giddy supported it as a matter of decency, while they objected to the principle, and regretted that the bill had been brought in. There was no practical inconvenience, they maintained, arising from persons coming into Parliament by means of their own money. "Unless the crown had influence," Mr Giddy said, "the government could not be carried on, and at a time when so many gentlemen resorted to such various means of misleading the public, and exciting unfavourable impressions respecting the public establishments, depreciating the state of the army, which uniformly drove the enemy before it whenever they came in contact with them, and averring the possibility of saving millions of the public expendi ture, he thought that any measure which would be the result of popu lar clamour so raised, or public delusion so kept up, would be dangerous in the extreme." Upon this Sir per Francis Burdett rose, called up, as ations against the advocates of rehe said, particularly by these insinuform. He knew that when the words demagogues, public agitators, haranguers of the people, and enthusiastic reformers, were so often men tioned in that House, he was the not, therefore, continue any longer son principally alluded to. He would the butt of such insinuations, nor rest contented in that calumniated and denounced situation. To-morrow he would move a short resolution, pledging the House to take into consider grievances of the people, and partiation, early in the next session, the cularly that grievance of grievances the state of the representation. He should take that opportunity to state explicitly what he did mean, and what he did not mean, in order to put the possession of his sentiments upon the House so completely and entirely in subject, that there could be no farther room for those uncandid insinuations and calumnious imputations which were daily thrown out against said, "it appeared to him originally, him. "As for the present bill," he vous, because its operation would be to be not only futile, but mischieTreasury. Such measures would esto give a monopoly of boroughs to the ations of the foul corruption which tablish a film and skin over the ulcerwas known to exist, and to pervade the whole political system of the country. It ought to be called a bill. for granting indemnity for past cor ruption, and for producing security for future corruption. The honourable member who brought it forward ought to be the first to vote against it; if he did not he would prove himself to possess a greater degree of mobility of opinion, a greater inconsistency of principle, than he could suppose him capable of. It had gone into the chancellor of the exchequer's crucible; it had been melted down completely, and nothing remained but the dross. How could Mr Curwen support a bill as his, in which he could only find three lines and three quarters which he had originally introduced!" Mr Curwen being thus called upon, defended his own consistency in still supporting the bill. "The baronet's opposition to it," said he, "has been consistent; the alterations made in it can be of no consequence in his view of the measure, for had it past as it was brought in, it would equally have had his hostility. I rejoice that he has given notice of his plan of reform; the House will now. be able to judge how far his ideas are practicable. I know there are many loud in their calls for reform, who dread nothing so much as that this House should make a temperate commencement towards it; for they fear that such a step would put an end to all the visionary plans which are afloat. It is contended that nothing is gained by the bill.-What! is the declaration of the law nothing? Is the putting a stop to the sale of seats nothing? Greatly do I lament that the chancellor of the exchequer has so constructed the clause respecting offices, as to make it liable to the imputation raised against it.I will do him justice-I do not believe it proceeds from any such intention, nor that it will afford the facili ties which are attributed to it; but I regret it, because it will deprive him of the merit due to him, and this House of the credit, that passing even such a bill ought to acquire. For myself, my situation is not enviable. able. Reluctantly I undertook the business, and I am ready to own I did not fully comprehend the difficulties I had to encounter: I find myself opposed by those with whom I generally think and act ; for though I never have been what is called a good party man, yet I have my prejudices, and, from respect to the talents and abilities of those gentlemen, should in many cases be disposed to adopt their opinions. But upon this subject I felt I had an imperious duty to perform, and acting up to what I conceive to be most for the dignity of this House, and more for the advantage of the empire, I am ready to encounter any calumny and odium that may attach to me, having what is the best consolation under all circumstances in life, the entire approbation of my own conscience in the vote I shall give. Pass this law, and we shall have laid the foundation for salutary regulations which must effect a reformation, both within and without these walls. If it passes I shall feel pledged, should my health permit me, to proceed and endeavour to accomplish the object I had in view; if it fails I leave it to others more able." Openly and fairly as Mr Curwen explained and defended his approbation of the altered bill, the charge of inconsistency was still urged against him, for supporting a measure so opposite in its nature and tendency to that which he had originally introduced. "He seemed," Mr Windham said, "to think that it was better to get half his measure than none of it. 'Half a loaf,' it was said, is better than no bread,' but not so half a reform. It was a gross error to suppose, as was perpetually done, that the half of an act by which a benefit might be obtained was any thing like half the benefit. For instance, if the grievance complained of was a beard of a month's growth, or a pair of those absurd whiskers with which the faces of some of our soldiers were now disgraced, and the barber should say he had not soap enough to hold out for the whole face, but he would shave half of it, would the person so shaved be considered as getting rid of half the grievance? and more especially if the barber should say, as in the present instance, that although he shaved the hair from one side of the face, it would grow so much thicker on the other, so that there would be precisely the same quantity, although only on one side. That That was really the case in the present instance; the removal of the competition of private wealth would increase the power of the Treasury. By the amended bill, Mr Curwen might get half of his measure, but no part of his object. "I deprecated the bill originally," continued Mr Windham, because I saw the difficulty of stopping at the point which might be wished. It is easy to remove any abuse, if the removal of the abuse were the only thing to be considered. To take off a wen the butcher would do as well as the surgeon, were no considerations necessary of what might be the consequence of cutting if off unskilfully. The real question would be, whether the patient would not be left in a more dangerous state than that of the original disease, especially when it was recollected that there were numbers who, instead of healing, would perpetually apply caustics to the wound. I am no enemy to the influence which the crown at present possesses. The antagonist influence with which it has to contend ought to be considered: all manner of per sons are usually conspiring against the government, and it is necessary that the government should be strong enough to counteract them. It is degrading and impolitic for a govern ment to comply with every tempora. ry popular opinion; but it is more degrading to endeavour to delude the people by giving them what is worse than nothing. The preamble and the first clause of the bill appear to be merely calculated to deceive the people, and make them suppose that something was done, which was, in fact, not done. The people to be sure, collectively considered, seemed to be made only to be duped. They were resolved always to be duped by somebody. They were duped by those haranguers, who told them that eleven millions and a half of the publicexpenditure might be saved. They were now about to be duped by ministers, who were ready to pass a bill holding out a promise which could never be realized."-The bill was now carried in a thin House, it being late in the session. 97 members voted for it, 85 against it. Lord Folkestone then proposed as an amended title, that it should be called, "A bill for more effectually preventing the sale of seats in Parliament for money, and for promoting a monopoly thereof to the Treasury by means of patronage." This he put to the vote, and eightand-twenty members were indecorous enough to vote with him. When the bill was brought into the Upper House, the Earl of Liverpool expressed his approbation of it in its present state, and called upon the Lords to give it their sanction, that so they might prevent a known and avowed abuse. The measure,' he said, "did not in the least partake of the nature of what had been called parliamentary reform; a measure of the dangerous tendency of which no man could be more thoroughly convinced than he was, believing as he did, that the disfranchisement of the smallest borough would lead to the most pernicious consequences, and eventually overthrow the constitution. The bill before you," he continued, "has no such tendency to interfere with the representation; and should I be that that system should be altered, and that the whole of our elections should be similar to those of Middlesex and Westminster. There the evils of such a representabe seen. Every person who hears me has had an opportunity of observing there how perjury, subornation of perjury, and the vices which are consequent thereon, abound, and tend sorry tion may to degrade and disgrace the community." Earls Grosvenor and Selkirk opposed the bill, as a mere trick and deception on the country. It was defended with all its transmutations by the ministry, and supported, in spite of them, by Viscount Sidmouth, for the sake of a preamble which, he said, furnished ground for a better superstructure. Earl Grosvenor then moved, that the word express should be omitted; but the amendment was negatived by 23 to 9. The bill, which was thus past, continued to bear Mr Curwen's name, though the relationship in which he now stood to it resembled that of Hyreus to Orion,-he furnished the skin, and the superior powers the contents. The whole bill, as originally brought in, was impracticable; the part which was practicable was mischievous, and the discussion, by raising scandal against the House of Commons, forwarded the designs of the radical reformers. CHAP. IX. Motion of Sir Francis Burdett for Parliamentary Reform. Remarks on that Subject. Colonel Wardle's Budget of Retrenchments; his Dispute with Mrs Clarke; her Attack upon the Duke of Kent. His Royal Highness contradicts her Calumnies. Two days after the disJune 15. cussion upon Mr Curwen's bill was finally closed, Sir Francis Burdett, according to his notice, brought forward his plan of parliamentary reform. "I rise," said he, "to propose a resolution, the object of which is to hold out an assurance to the country, that the House will, at an early period in the next session, take into its consideration the necessity of a reform in the state of the representation. "This course I adopt, in order to get rid of the misrepresentations which have been so long and 30 actively propagated, with regard to my views and opinions on this momentous point: the mischievous tendency of which misrepresentations, as affecting myself personally, would alone have very little influence upon my mind; but it has much, combined with the public interest. I therefore feel it a duty to myself and the public to relieve this subject from all misrepresentation, ambiguity, and misconception: and to state to this House, and to the public, definitely and precisely, what my views are upon the subject of parliamentary reform, that hence forward it may be fully and clearly understood how far I do really mean to go, and at what point I mean to stop. The remedy which I propose is simple, and perfectly practicable; it is consistent with the habits and interests of the people, and in unison with the laws and constitution of the country; it is the Constitution itself. Let others deal in whimsical speculations, in undefined mysterious notions of a constitution, which eludes the grasp, and soars above the conception of ordinary minds, let them amuse themselves with intricate theories and fine-spun metaphysics, I shall hold fast by that plain and substantial constitution, adapted to the contemplation of common understandings, to be found in the Statute Book, aud recognized by the Common Law of the Land. "But I am not disposed to be satisfied with the forms, when the spirit and essence of the constitution have fled.-I have no dread of the prerogative of the crown; which forms part of the law of the land, and is material and necessary to maintain the constitution. My only appre |