seat in a Town Council, or a superiority in
a rural district; and fortunate it was for our empire that the
responsibilities of that noblest of all careers soon educated young
Indian Civil Servants into something higher than mere adherents of a
political party.

While the will of the nation was paralysed within the senate, effectual
care was taken that its voice should not be heard without. The press was
gagged in England, and throttled in Scotland. Every speech, or sermon,
or pamphlet, the substance of which a Crown lawyer could torture into
a semblance of sedition, sent its author to the jail, the hulks, or the
pillory. In any place of resort where an informer could penetrate, men
spoke their minds at imminent hazard of ruinous fines, and protracted
imprisonment. It was vain to appeal to Parliament for redress against
the tyranny of packed juries, and panic-driven magistrates. Sheridan
endeavoured to retain for his countrymen the protection of Habeas
Corpus; but he could only muster forty-one supporters. Exactly as many
members followed Fox into the lobby when he opposed a bill, which,
interpreted in the spirit that then actuated our tribunals, made
attendance at an open meeting summoned for the consideration of
Parliamentary Reform a service as dangerous as night-poaching, and far
more dangerous than smuggling. Only ten more than that number
ventured to protest against the introduction of a measure, still more
inquisitorial in its provisions and ruthless in its penalties, which
rendered every citizen who gave his attention to the removal of public
grievances liable at any moment to find himself in the position of
a criminal;--that very measure in behalf of which Bishop Horsley had
stated in the House of Peers that he did not know what the mass of the
people of any country had to do with the laws, except to obey them.

Amidst a population which had once known freedom, and was still fit to
be entrusted with it, such a state of matters could not last for ever.
Justly proud of the immense success that they had bought by their
resolution, their energy, and their perseverance, the Ministers regarded
the fall of Napoleon as a party triumph which could only serve to
confirm their power. But the last cannon-shot that was fired on the 18th
of June, was in truth the death-knell of the golden age of Toryism.
When the passion and ardour of the war gave place to the discontent
engendered by a protracted period of commercial distre