rmed by solemn resolutions that he had been sent
into the House of Commons to help the Government in passing the Reform
Bill, and it was more or less plainly intimated to him that he had no
more right to the exercise of his independent opinion on any of the
details of the measure than a private soldier on a battle-field would
have to exercise his individual judgment as to the propriety of obeying
or disobeying the order of his commanding officer. The poor man had to
make the most fervid assurances that he had meant no harm in voting for
the Opposition amendment, that he was thoroughly devoted to the cause
of reform, and to the particular measure then before the House of
Commons, and that never again was he to be induced by any arguments to
give a vote against the Government on any {166} section or sentence or
line of Lord John Russell's Bill. Then, and not until then, he was
taken back into favor.

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform Bill passes the Commons]

The Bill, however, did get through committee at last. The Government
contrived by determined resistance and untiring patience to get their
scheme of reform out of committee in substantially the condition they
wished it to have. Then came the third reading. It was confidently
assumed on both sides of the House that there would be a long debate on
the motion that the Bill be now read a third time. In the House of
Commons, however, it often happens that the assumption of a forthcoming
debate as a certainty is itself the one cause which prevents the
debates from being long. So it happened on this important occasion.
Every Tory took it for granted that his brother Tories would keep the
debate going for an indefinite time, and in this fond faith a good many
Tories felt themselves in no hurry to get to the House, and were
willing to leave the first hour or two at the disposal of their
colleagues. When the sitting began, and, indeed, when the motion for
the third reading came on, there were comparatively few Tories in the
House, and the great leaders of Opposition were not present. There was
confusion in the ranks of the Tories, and the crowded benches of the
Reformers thundered with clamorous shouts of "Divide! Divide!" Now,
it takes a very heroic orator indeed to continue declaiming for a long
time when a great majority of the members present are bellowing at him
and are drowning, by their united voices, the sounds of the words which
he is trying to articulate. The