headed by the Whig
aristocrats, and included the middle-class manufacturers and the great bulk
of the working class in the industrial districts of Lancashire, Yorkshire
and the Midlands, that "no better system (of Parliamentary representation)
could be devised by the wit of man" than the unreformed House of Commons,
and that he would never bring forward a reform measure himself, and should
always feel it his duty to resist such measure when proposed by others,
yet, in less than two years after this speech Wellington's resistance had
ended, and the Reform Bill was carried into law.

What happened in those two years was this: At the general election in the
summer of 1831, the popular cry was "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing
but the Bill."

"The whole countless multitude of reformers had laid hold of the principle
that the most secure and the shortest way of obtaining what they wanted was
to obtain representation. The non-electors felt themselves called upon to
put forth such power as they had as a means to obtaining the power which
they claimed." And the non-electors were enormously successful. For they
"combined their will, their knowledge, and their manifest force in
political unions, whence they sent forth will, knowledge, and influence
over wide districts of the land. And the electors, seeing the importance of
the crisis--the unspeakable importance that it should be well
conducted--joined these unions."

The Reformers carried the day at the elections, and the new House of
Commons passed the second reading of the Bill on July 8th, by 136: 367-231.
On September 21st the third reading passed by 345 to 236. Then on the 8th
of October the House of Lords threw out the Bill by 199 to 158, and at once
fierce riots broke out all over the country, in especial at Derby,
Nottingham, and Bristol.

At Derby the jail was stormed. At Nottingham the castle was burned, and of
nine men subsequently convicted of riot, three were hanged. At Bristol, the
jail, the Mansion House, the Customs House, the Excise Office, and the
Bishop's Palace were burned, and twelve lives were lost in three days.

The new session opened in December, and again the Bill was introduced, and
this time the second reading had a majority of 162: 324-162. The House of
Lords hesitated when the Bill came up to them at the end of March, 1832;
allowed the second reading to pass by 184 to 175, and then in Committee
struck out those clauses which disfranchised th