introduction of the Reform Bill of 1832, was accepted as a final
settlement of the question. Peel declared that he regarded it as "a
settlement which no friend to the peace {241} of the country would
attempt to disturb, either by direct or by insidious means." Of course
it was not to be understood that Peel had any intention of describing
the Reform Act of 1832 as the last word of the Reformers' creed, and
the close of all possible controversy with regard to the construction
of the whole Parliamentary system. Peel no more meant to convey any
idea of this kind than did Lord John Russell, when he used the word
finality in connection with the Reform Act, mean to convey the idea
that, according to his conviction, Parliament was never again to be
invited to extend the electoral franchise or to modify the conditions
under which the votes of the electors were to be given. The
announcement which Peel made to the electors of Tamworth, and to the
world in general, was that he and his friends recognized the
establishment of the representative principle in English political
life, accepted the new order of things as a result of a lawful decree,
and separated themselves altogether from the antiquated Toryism which
enshrined the old ideas of government as a religious faith, and revered
the memory of the nomination boroughs, as the Jacobites revered the
memory of the Stuarts. With the issue of Peel's Tamworth address in
the December of 1834, the antique Tory, the Tory who made Toryism of
the ante-reform days a creed and a cult, may be said to disappear
altogether from the ranks of practical English politicians. The Tory
of the old school appears, no doubt, here and there through all
Parliamentary days down to our own time. We saw him in both Houses of
Parliament as a heroic, unteachable opponent of Peel himself, of Bright
and Cobden, of Gladstone, and sometimes even of Lord Derby and of Lord
Salisbury, but he was merely a living protest against the succession of
new ideas, and was no longer to be counted as a practical politician.

Sir Robert Peel soon saw that he had not gained much by his appeal to
the constituencies. The results of the general election showed that
the Conservatives had made a considerable addition to their numbers in
the House of Commons, but showed also that they were still in a
disheartening minority. The return of the first Reform {242}
Parliament had, indeed, exhibited them for the time as completely do