as passed in the House of Commons by a large majority (295
to 70), but was dropped in the House of Lords, chiefly on account of the
opposition of the Duke of Wellington. But it is, at all events, plain
that the reasons, arising from the difficulty and uncertainty of
communication, which made its abolition impossible at the beginning of
the century, have passed away with the introduction of steam-vessels and
telegraphs. Communication of London with Dublin is now as rapid as
communication with Edinburgh, and, that being the case, it is not easy
to see how an establishment which has never been thought of for Scotland
can be desirable for Ireland.]

CHAPTER VI.

A Census is Ordered.--Dissolution of Pitt's Administration.--Impeachment
of Lord Melville.--Introduction of Lord Ellenborough into the
Cabinet.--Abolition of the Slave-trade.--Mr. Windham's Compulsory
Training Bill.--Illness of the King, and Regency.--Recurrence to the
Precedent of 1788-'89.--Death of Mr. Perceval.--Lord Liverpool becomes
Prime-minister.--Question of Appointments in the Household.--Appointment
of a Prime-minister.

The Union with Ireland was the last great work of Pitt's first
administration, and a noble close to the legislation of the eighteenth
century. But the last months of the year were also signalized by another
enactment, which, though it cannot be said to have anything of a
character strictly entitled to the name of constitutional, nevertheless
established a practice so valuable as the foundation of a great part of
our domestic legislation, that it will, perhaps, hardly be considered
foreign to the scope and purpose of this volume to record its
commencement. In November, 1800, Mr. Abbott, the member for Helstone,
brought in a bill to take a census of the people of the United Kingdom,
pointing out not only the general importance of a knowledge of the
population of a country in its entire amount and its different classes
to every government, but also its special bearing on agriculture and on
the means requisite to provide subsistence for the people, on trade and
manufactures, and on our resources for war. Such a census as he proposed
had been more than once taken in Holland, Sweden, Spain, and even in the
United States, young as was their separate national existence; it had
been taken once--nearly fifty years previous--in Scotland; and something
like one had been furnished in England in the reign of Edward III. by a
subsidy roll,