1810, in which he questioned the power of the
House to imprison delinquents. He at first resisted the execution of the
warrant, and being a favourite with the mob, a street contest ensued
between the military and the people, in which some lives were lost. In
1818, we find him moving for annual parliaments and universal suffrage,
when the House divided with the result of 100 to 2, the minority being
composed of the mover and seconder--that is to say, himself and Lord
Cochrane. In 1820, he was found guilty at Leicester of a libel on
Government in a letter to his constituents reflecting on the Manchester
outrage of the preceding year; a new trial was moved for by himself, but
this was refused, and he was sentenced the following February to three
months' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of L2,000. In March, 1825, his
resolutions for the relief of the Irish Catholics were carried by a
majority of 247 to 234; but in later life his restless spirit gradually
calmed down, and after the appointment of the Melbourne Ministry in
1835, he surprised and disgusted his party by going into opposition,
principally (as he alleged) on account of the court which they paid to
O'Connell and his followers in their agitation against the Irish
Established Church. For some time previous to the sketch we are about to
describe he had absented himself from the House, and otherwise shown his
distaste for the persons and principles of the leading men of the party
to which he had formerly belonged. The busy-bodies who professed to be
the exponents of public opinion in Westminster, pressed him for an
explicit statement of his views, and eventually called upon him to
resign, and he took them directly at their word. The person brought
forward to oppose him was John Temple Leader, then member for
Bridgwater, a name which suggested to the artist the pictorial pun of
_Following the Leader_, the "followers" being Lord Melbourne, Lord John
Russell, Lord Palmerston, Mr. O'Connell, Sir J. Hobhouse, Mr. Hume, and
Sir William Molesworth. Notwithstanding the exertions of the ministers
and their friends to secure the election of Mr. Leader, that gentleman
was not only beaten by a very considerable majority, but lost as a
natural consequence his seat for Bridgwater, a fact which suggested to
the artist another able sketch, _The Dog and the Shadow_. The election
itself forms the subject of _A Race for the Westminster Stakes_, in
which the aged thoroughbred (Sir Francis),