matic corruption--he was beaten by a far larger majority,[61]
the distinctness of his plan only serving to increase the numbers of his
adversaries. A kinsman of Pitt's, Lord Mahon, made an equally futile
attempt to diminish the expenses of elections, partly by inflicting very
heavy penalties on parties guilty of either giving or receiving
bribes,[62] and partly by prohibiting candidates from providing
conveyances for electors; and more than one bill for disfranchising
revenue-officers, as being specially liable to pressure from the
government, and to prevent contractors from sitting in Parliament, was
brought forward, but was lost, the smallness of the divisions in their
favor being not the least remarkable circumstance in the early history
of Reform. It was made still more evident that as yet the zeal for
Reform was confined to a few, when, two years afterward, Pitt, though
now invested with all the power of a Prime-minister, was as unable as
when in opposition to carry a Reform Bill, which in more than one point
foreshadowed the measure of 1832; proposing, as it did, the
disfranchisement of thirty-six small boroughs, which were to be
purchased of their proprietors nearly on the principle adopted in the
Irish Union Act, and on the other hand the enfranchisement of
copyholders; but it differed from Lord Grey's act in that it distributed
all the seats thus to be obtained among the counties, with the exception
of a small addition to the representatives of London and Westminster.
However, his supporters very little exceeded the number who had divided
with him in 1783, and Lord North, who led the Opposition in a speech
denouncing any change, had a majority of seventy-four. After this second
defeat, Pitt abandoned the question, at all events for the time; being
convinced, to quote Earl Stanhope's description of his opinion on the
subject, "that nothing but the pressure of the strongest popular
feeling, such as did not then exist, could induce many members to vote
against their own tenure of Parliament, or in fact against
themselves."[63] What, perhaps, weighed with him more, on deciding to
acquiesce in this vote as final, was the perception that as yet the
question excited no strong interest out-of-doors; and when, a few years
later, some who sought to become leaders of the people endeavored to
raise an agitation on the subject, their teachings were too deeply
infected with the contagion of the French Revolution to allow a wis