tion of it on the 20th of January. The committee on the former bill had lasted from the 13th of July to the 7th of September. The report was considered on the 14th, when Mr. Croker put upon the journals, without pressing them to a division, certain resolutions embodying the objections, not to the principles of the bill, but to the manner in which they had been applied. On the 19th, the motion for the third reading of the bill was met by an amendment, moved by Lord Mahon, that it should be read a third time that day six months. The amendment was seconded by sir John Malcolm, and followed by a debate which was continued on the 20th and 22nd. The arguments were the same which had already been so often repeated in the House during the different

discussions respecting the bill, and its predecessor. Some members declared that the measure had not come out of the committee with all the improvements which they had desired and expected; but that they would still vote for the third reading, because they believed that the rejection of the bill would now produce greater mischief than any which could arise from its provisions. The division gave a majority of 116 for the third reading, there being 355 for the motion, and 239 for the amendment. On the 23rd of March, the bill was passed; an amendment, which went to raise the qualification to 201. in Liverpool and all the new boroughs returning two members, having been negatived without a division.

HE new constitution having been carried through the Commons, the reformers began again to be apprehensive of its fate in the Peers, and to bring again into operation their various engines of clamour and intimidation. During the progress of the bill through the lower house, they had incessantly been urging ministers to create whatever number of new peers might be necessary to insure its success. What were considered more particularly the organs of the ministry announced with undoubting confidence, that the minister had been armed, for this purpose, with a carte blanche; and he was loudly blamed by the reformers for delaying to carry through the intended creations. It did not subsequently appear that the ministry had been invested with any such power; but they allowed the statements that they did possess it to be put forth day after day, without any attempt at contradiction, in the hope perhaps that the belief in the supposed fact might not be much less useful to them than its actual existence. Nor was it merely the public journals, supposed to be under their control, which were allowed to make

these declarations. The same permission was given to their partizans in the House of Commons. On the 10th of February, Mr. Duncombe, one of the members for Hertford, and a violent partizan of the ministry, declared "that his Majesty had not withstood the advice to create peers, but had armed the ministry with powers to carry into full efficiency the national measure of reform; and he would tell those ministers, that if they did not exercise this power with prompt energy, they would incur the indignation of the country and deserve impeachment." No minister contradicted the statement.

When, however, it was seen, that the bill was to be laid before the House of Lords, without a single new peer having been created, it was concluded, either that ministers had not been armed with this power, or that they did not find themselves compelled to have recourse to it. On the one hand, it was natural that ministers should wish to avoid a measure, which, although they might be supported in carrying it through by public excitement, was utterly

ruinous to the independence of the peers, and placed the legislative power of the country exclusively in the crown and the House of Commons, the former again, in such circumstances, being the mere organ of the latter. On the other hand, those of the peers, who, though they had joined in throwing out the former bill, were willing to adopt a more modified plan of alteration, as naturally became inclined to yield still more, rather than incur the danger of seeing the king and their own house stripped of all respectability and influence, the one in creating, and the other in receiving, a band of mere political agents, formed into peers to serve a temporary purpose. In this expectation, the premier had been negotiating with these peers, who acquired, from their subsequent conduct, the appellation of "The Waverers." They may have supposed, that to allow the second reading of the bill was the only means of preventing the king from being compelled to create peers, and they may have had means knowing that such was his Majesty's intention. They may have thought that when they had thus manifested their willingness to receive the measure, and acknowledge its principle, they would be able, with less danger, to amend in committee its most perilous provisions-forgetting that the bill, as it had hitherto been treated, contained no principle which could be allowed to be modified, its principles being, not disfranchisement, enfranchisement and, extended qualification, but that particular quantity of disfranchisement, enfranchisement, and extended qualification, which was be found already in its clauses. What hopes of this nature were

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held out to them by the minister, or whether any were so held out, and whether, if they had resolved to resist the present bill, as they had done the former, the king was prepared to overwhelm the house, remained unknown; but earl Grey found himself justified in trying the bill without creating a new peer.

The bill was read a first time, in the House of Lords, on the 26th of March. Lord Harrowby and Lord Wharncliffe, who had led the opposition in the former session, declared their intention now to vote for the second reading, while the duke of Wellington and the earl of Carnarvon stated that their opinions remained unchanged, and their hostility undiminished. The second reading was moved on the 9th of April. The debate was continued on the 10th, 11th, and 13th, having been suspended on the 12th, in consequence of its being a levee day at court. Before the discussion began, the duke of Buckingham gave notice, that if there should be, as he trusted there would be, a majority against the second reading of this bill, he would bring in, after the Easter recess, a bill for the purpose of giving representatives to such of the large towns therein to be, named as, from their increased wealth, population, and importance in the country, required to be represented in parliament; and also for the purpose of consolidating the representation of certain boroughs which now elected members, so as to make room for the new representatives without adding to the numbers of the House of Commons, and to extend the franchise in such a way as might prevent undue influence, without depriving any man of his existing rights.

Earl Grey, in moving the second reading of the bill, said, that he considered himself almost entirely relieved from entering into discussion of its principles, in order to show that they deserved to be received and considered by the House; because there were few of their lordships, if any, who did not recognize these principles, and now admit that some degree of change was necessary. The very notice now given by the duke of Buckingham, admitted all the three principles of disfranchisement, enfranchisement, and an an extension of the right of voting. Even, therefore, if the necessity for going at large into these principles had not been in a great degree removed by the repeated discussions to which they had already been subjected, he was justified in calling on the House to sanction the second reading of a measure founded upon a basis which was acknowledged to be just even by those who opposed the measure itself, inasmuch as they would have an opportunity of proposing, in the committee, such alterations in its details as might appear necessary and expedient. No longer, moreover, could this measure be stigmatized as revolutionary, since its principles were acceded to even by the most determined enemies of revolution. All change was not revolution, and least of all such a change as was proposed in the present bill. It was to be effected, according to the acknowledged principles of the constitution, by an act of parliament passed by the united will of King, Lords, and Commons. It infringed on none of the ordinary authorities of the land; it violated none of the ordinary forms of the constitution; it invaded not the privileges of their

lordships; it interfered not with the prerogatives of the crown. He knew of no way of effecting a reform in parliament a measure which presupposed the existence of defects-except by one of three modes: either by disfranchising decayed and inconsiderable boroughs, which was the ancient practice of the constitution; or by giving the right of representation to large and populous towns which had risen into importance, and that too, was the practice of the olden times; or by a great extension of the right of voting, which had also been done in the good old times. These were the principles of the present measure; in none of them was there any thing which strayed beyond the ancient limits of the constitution, or partook of a revolutionary character.

His lordship then entered into the details of the bill, and pointed out, first of all the alterations which had been made in the measure since it was last before the House. The new test of disfranchisement had been adopted to meet the objections of those who complained that the former bill proceeded on population alone. Government, anxious dispassionately to consider all suggested improvements in the measure not incompatible with its principles, had now adopted as a better test, a criterion derived from the number of houses, according to the census of 1831, and the amount of assessed taxes, according to the returns of the same year. Having done this, government had adhered to the number of boroughs to be disfranchised; and he did not think that the House, on any of the principles on which it was attempted to amend the represent

ation of decayed boroughs, would be inclined to limit that number, though they might be disposed to increase it. But, whether the quantity of disfranchisement produced by the bill was, or was not, too great, was not now the question. That was a question for the committee to decide. The number of boroughs to be partially disfranchised had been reduced on the same principles, from forty-one to thirty, those being selected which, in the comparative list, stood next to the boroughs which were wholly disfranchised. Among the eleven boroughs thus preserved, were some county towns to the disfranchisement of which great objections had been stated. He knew it would be said, that the lowest borough in this list was not more worthy of a representative than the highest in schedule A, and that some of these, which had now been removed from even this list, were inferior in wealth and importance to many towns which were still to remain unrepresented: but these anomalies were inseparable from the principle, on which the government had acted, of retaining as much as possible of what existed at present. If the existence of such anomalies was to be made a charge against the bill, it was one which could be removed only by changes much more extensive than the government had ever contemplated.

Having next stated the alterations which had been made in the newly enfranchised boroughs, his lordship met the objection, that this was a dangerous addition to the power of the democracy, and a sacrifice of the agricultural interest. He argued, that not only would this addition be, in a great measure, counterbalanced by the alteration

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which had been made in selfedule B, but that these towns, so far from being opposed to, were intimately connected with, the landed and agricultural interests. It, no doubt, was probable that trading and commercial interests would predominate in some of them; but it was certain that many of these places were intimately connected with large landed proprietors, who frequently were the chief owners of the property in them, and whose influence could not fail to make itself be felt in the return of the members, although the members so returned would naturally be looked up to as the guardians of the interests of the electors. At this moment, were not places of the same description represented by the nearest relations of their lordships? and why anticipate that, in future, elections would not be decided, as they had hitherto been, by connexions which seldom failed, and which, he trusted, would never fail. It was an error to presume that all elections would be like the last, which took place during the ferment produced by this question of reform. Let the question be once satisfactorily set at rest, and he was convinced that the legitimate influence of rank, property, and good conduct would be restored; for these qualities combined had, in all times past, and must, in all times to come, exercise an influence, which was not only perfectly legitimate, but which it would be at once impossible and mischievous to remove.

The third principle of the bill was, the extension of the franchise, to which it had been objected, that it introduced rights unknown to the constitution. But so far was this from being true, that a case, reported by serjeant Glanville,