ution of
parliament; to advise his Majesty to remove his ministers from his
confidence, in order that things might be placed in the same situation
in which they stood before, and that this house and the country might
have an opportunity, if possible, of having a fair discussion on the
measure of reform. What! my Lords, is it to be said that the country is
to be tied down to be governed by a system which no man can say is
practicable? and can any body deny that the House of Commons, which
consents to such a proposition, is a delegated House of Commons? All the
arguments regarding the decisions of the House of Commons must come to
the same end. There would, no doubt, be ten decisions of the same kind,
if it were left to the same house, because the house is pledged and
returned for the purpose. But the country is not to be abandoned on this
account.[16]

[Footnote 16: This and the other succeeding passages on the subject of
Reform, were delivered on the second reading of the final reform bill,
after the Earl of Harrowby and other Tory peers had resolved on giving
way to the House of Common and the Crown.]

April 10, 1832.

* * * * *

_Means by which the Reform Fever was excited and kept up._

There can be no doubt whatsoever that there was no opinion existing in
the country, in the year 1829, and the beginning of 1830, in favour of
parliamentary reform. I believe this is a fact which was fully admitted
in the discussions of the House of Commons at that time. Then my Lords,
came the French Revolution, which occurred at the period of the
commencement of the elections of 1830, followed by the insurrection in
Belgium; and there can be no doubt that these events occasioned a very
great excitement at the elections of members of parliament. There were
many declarations in favour of parliamentary reform; and all that passed
on the subject of parliamentary reform on that occasion, was calculated
to influence, and did very considerably influence, the opinions of that
parliament upon that question. The noble Lords opposite then came into
power, and I will say, my Lords, that they met a parliament ready to
pass a measure of moderate parliamentary reform. But the noble Lords
opposite thought proper, instead of carrying such a measure, to dissolve
that parliament, and a new parliament was called under a degree of
excitement in the public mind such as had never before been witnessed.
The excitement ha