a moment and
place well-calculated to secure their arrest. At all events twenty-four
conspirators armed themselves in Cato Street, near the Edgware Road,
London, for the purpose of assassinating the ministers at a cabinet
dinner in Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Square, and some of their
associates were posted near the door of that house to summon them when
the guests should have assembled. Harrowby's dinner was of course put
off, but the watchers were deceived by the arrival of carriages for a
dinner party next door, and failed to apprise the gang in Cato Street.
The police rushed in upon the gang, but a body of soldiers ordered to
support them reached the spot too late, a policeman was stabbed, and
Thistlewood, with twelve or fourteen others, contrived to escape. He was
captured the next morning, and executed with four of his accomplices,
five more were transported for life, and the atrocity of the enterprise
was naturally treated in the king's speech as a justification for the
repressive measures in operation. In the following April a petty
outbreak in Scotland was easily put down by a few troops at a place
called Bonnymuir. It was, however, preceded by a treasonable
proclamation, which spread terror among the citizens of Glasgow for
several hours, and was sufficiently like an attempt at armed rebellion
to confirm the alarm excited by the Cato Street conspiracy. In the face
of such warnings, the energy of the government in stamping out disorder
could hardly be censured.

The last parliament of George III. was prorogued on February 28, 1820,
and dissolved on the following day. One of its last debates was on Lord
John Russell's proposal to suspend the issue of writs to the boroughs of
Grampound, Penryn, Barnstaple, and Camelford. This was carried in the
house of commons, but lost in the house of lords. The new parliament was
opened by George IV. in person on April 21. Widespread excitement
occasioned by the question of the divorce prevented the business of the
first session from attracting much attention. A deficit in the revenue,
coinciding with growing expenditure, compelled Vansittart to fall back
on a fresh manipulation of the sinking fund. One measure, however, of
the highest importance was introduced by Brougham. The committee of 1814
on national education had amassed a great body of valuable evidence,
and he now founded upon its report a comprehensive bill extending to the
whole country. It placed the management