Roman bulls that King
John was harassed into giving the Great Charter. In the times of Charles
I., how much injustice, how much crime, how much bloodshed and misery,
did it cost to assert the liberties of England! But in this event, great
and important as it is in substance, I confess I think it still more
important from the manner in which it has been achieved. Other countries
have obtained deliverances equally signal and complete, but in no
country has that deliverance been obtained with such perfect peace; so
entirely within the bounds of the Constitution; with all the forms of
law observed; the government of the country proceeding in its regular
course; every man going forth unto his labour until the evening. France
boasts of her three days of July, when her people rose, when barricades
fenced the streets, and the entire population of the capital in grins
successfully vindicated their liberties. They boast, and justly, of
those three days of July; but I will boast of our ten days of May. We,
too, fought a battle, but it was with moral arms. We, too, placed an
impassable barrier between ourselves and military tyranny; but we fenced
ourselves only with moral barricades. Not one crime committed, not one
acre confiscated, not one life lost, not one instance of outrage or
attack on the authorities or the laws. Our victory has not left a single
family in mourning. Not a tear, not a drop of blood, has sullied the
pacific and blameless triumph of a great people."

The Tories of Leeds, as a last resource, fell to denouncing Macaulay as
a placeman; a stroke of superlative audacity in a party which, during
eight-and-forty years, had been out of office for only fourteen months.
It may well be imagined that he found plenty to say in his own defence.
"The only charge which malice can prefer against me is that I am a
placeman. Gentlemen, is it your wish that those persons who are thought
worthy of the public confidence should never possess the confidence of
the King? Is it your wish that no men should be Ministers but those whom
no populous places will take as their representatives? By whom, I ask,
has the Reform Bill been carried? By Ministers. Who have raised Leeds
into the situation to return members to Parliament? It is by the
strenuous efforts of a patriotic Ministry that that great result has
been produced. I should think that the Reform Bill had done little for
the people, if under it the service of the people was not consi