opes lay in the future, that as ministers had determined to go no
further, all would be lost unless government were strenuously supported
by those who conceived a change desirable. From these causes they
agreed to forget the defects of the bill, and to be silent regarding
the ballot, universal suffrage, and annual parliaments. The ministerial
measure became their standard; "the bill, the whole bill, and nothing
but the bill," became their watchword; and ministers were invested for
a time with a species of infallibility. No part of their measure was
wrong, and their conduct was not to be questioned. The manufacturers of
petitions again set to work; and the same places which had petitioned
a month before for much more, now prayed that the bill might pass
untouched and unimpaired. Men, in fact, who had craved reduction
of taxation and retrenchment of expenditure--who had desired a more
democratic house of commons as the only means of securing those good
objects, now conjured the house to enact a measure of which even its
patrons declared that it would neither reduce taxation or expenses. The
number of petitions was large, but the majority of the names attached
to them were from the lowest classes of society, to whom ministers
had declared no power could be given. But all this petitioning, though
regular, constitutional, and powerful, did not promise to be effective.
Ministers had threatened convulsions as the consequences of refusing
the bill, and the reformers resolved to support them by opinions which
indicated its approach, and exhibitions of mob force which might be used
as its means. Language of an intimidating nature was constantly used
at their assemblies, and in petitions, against all who should dare to
oppose the bill, which intimidation served the purposes of the reformers
in two ways: on the one hand, many who were averse to the violent
changes proposed were driven into acquiescence from the apprehension
that resistance would produce confusion; and on the other hand, those
who would actively have resisted the change were overawed from any
public expression of their sentiments. The menaces of the reformers
were even accompanied with a display of the means of executing them.
Everywhere the political unions boasted of the numbers they could bring
into the field. Ten thousand men, said Colonel Evans at a reform meeting
held in London, are ready to march hither from Beigate to support his
majesty's ministers if they sh