ndness and affection. When I am calmer, I will let you
know my intentions. There will be neither use nor pleasure in remaining
here. My present purpose, as far as I can form one, is to set off in two
or three days for England; and in the meantime to see nobody, if I can
help it, but Dumont, who has been very kind to me. Love to all,--to all
who are left me to love. We must love each other better.

T. B. M.

London: March 30, 1831

Dear Ellis,--I have little news for you, except what you will learn from
the papers as well as from me. It is clear that the Reform Bill must
pass, either in this or in another Parliament. The majority of one
does not appear to me, as it does to you, by any means inauspicious. We
should perhaps have had a better plea for a dissolution if the
majority had been the other way. But surely a dissolution under such
circumstances would have been a most alarming thing. If there should be
a dissolution now, there will not be that ferocity in the public mind
which there would have been if the House of Commons had refused to
entertain the Bill at all. I confess that, till we had a majority, I was
half inclined to tremble at the storm which we had raised. At present I
think that we are absolutely certain of victory, and of victory without
commotion.

Such a scene as the division of last Tuesday I never saw, and never
expect to see again. If I should live fifty years, the impression of it
will be as fresh and sharp in my mind as if it had just taken place.
It was like seeing Caesar stabbed in the Senate House, or seeing Oliver
taking the mace from the table; a sight to be seen only once, and never
to be forgotten. The crowd overflowed the House in every part. When the
strangers were cleared out, and the doors locked, we had six hundred and
eight members present,--more by fifty-five than ever were in a division
before. The Ayes and Noes were like two volleys of cannon from opposite
sides of a field of battle. When the opposition went out into the lobby,
an operation which took up twenty minutes or more, we spread ourselves
over the benches on both sides of the House; for there were many of us
who had not been able to find a seat during the evening. ["The practice
in the Commons, until 1836, was to send one party forth into the lobby,
the other remaining in the House."--Sir T. Erskine May's "Parliamentary
Practice."] When the doors were shut we began to speculate on our
numbers. Everybody was desponding.