uestion of
reform. Such an appeal could only be made to constituencies under threat
of thorough reconstruction or total extinction, but from this moment the
ultimate issue ceased to be doubtful.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 160-62.

[102] Arbuthnot to Peel, Nov. 1, 1830, Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii.,
163-66.

[103] Goldwin Smith, _United Kingdom_, ii., 320.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE REFORM.

The general election which took place in the summer of 1831 was perhaps
the most momentous on record. The news of the sudden dissolution,
carrying with it the assurance of the king's hearty assent to reform,
stirred popular enthusiasm to an intensity never equalled before or
since. From John o' Groat's to the Land's End a cry was raised of _The
bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill_. This cry signified more
than appears on the surface, and was not wholly one-sided in its
application. No doubt it was a passionate and defiant warning against
any manipulation or dilution of the bill in a reactionary sense, but it
was also a distinct protest against attempts by the extreme radicals to
amend it in an opposite direction. Now, as ever, the impulse was given
by the middle classes, and they were in no mood to imperil their own
cause by revolutionary claims. They could not always succeed, however,
in checking the fury of the populace, which had been taught to clamour
for reform as the precursor of a good time coming for the suffering and
toiling masses of mankind. The streets of London were illuminated, and
the windows of those who omitted to illuminate or were otherwise
obnoxious were tumultuously demolished by the mob, which did not even
spare Apsley House, the town residence of the Duke of Wellington. But,
except in Scotland, no formidable riots occurred for the present, and
some good resulted from the new experience of popular opinion gained by
candidates even from unreformed constituencies hitherto obedient to
oligarchical influence, but animated for the moment by a certain spirit
of independence.

Having sanctioned the dissolution, the king addressed an elaborate
letter to Grey, in which he did not disguise his own misgivings about
the perilous experiment of reform. Chiefly dreading a collision between
the two houses, he never ceased to press on his ministers the expediency
of making all possible sacrifices consistent with the spirit