as should voluntarily apply for
disfranchisement. The seats obtained were to be mainly added to county
representation; but the franchise was to be extended so as to add about
99,000 voters in boroughs, and additional seats were to be given to
London and Westminster and to Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and
Sheffield. The Yorkshire reformers, who led the movement, were satisfied
with this modest scheme. The borough proprietors were obviously too
strong to be directly attacked, though they might be induced to sell
some of their power.

Here was a mass of anomalies, sufficient to supply topics of
denunciation for two generations of reformers, and, in time, to excite
fears of violent revolution. Without undertaking the easy task of
denouncing exploded systems, we may ask what state of mind they implied.
Our ancestors were perfectly convinced that their political system was
of almost unrivalled excellence: they held that they were freemen
entitled to look down upon foreigners as the slaves of despots. Nor can
we say that their satisfaction was without solid grounds. The boasting
about English freedom implied some misunderstanding. But it was at least
the boast of a vigorous race. Not only were there individuals capable of
patriotism and public spirit, but the body politic was capable of
continuous energy. During the eighteenth century the British empire
spread round the world. Under Chatham it had been finally decided that
the English race should be the dominant element in the new world; if the
political connection had been severed by the bungling of his successors,
the unbroken spirit of the nation had still been shown in the struggle
against France, Spain, and the revolted colonies; and whatever may be
thought of the motives which produced the great revolutionary wars, no
one can deny the qualities of indomitable self-reliance and high courage
to the men who led the country through the twenty years of struggle
against France, and for a time against France with the continent at its
feet. If moralists or political theorists find much to condemn in the
ends to which British policy was directed, they must admit that the
qualities displayed were not such as can belong to a simply corrupt and
mean-spirited government.

One obvious remark is that, on the whole, the system was a very good
one--as systems go. It allowed free play to the effective political
forces. Down to the revolutionary period, the nation as a whole was
conten