nd: the great majority of the members were
pledged to implicit obedience to the will of the people.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT--THE REFORM QUESTION RENEWED IN PARLIAMENT.

Parliament met on the 14th of June; being opened by commission till the
preliminary forms necessary to be gone through in the house of commons
should have been completed. On the 21st. after Mr. Manners Sutton had
been re-elected speaker without opposition, and all the members were
sworn in, his majesty opened the session in person. In his speech his
majesty remarked: "I have availed myself of the earliest opportunity of
resorting to your advice and assistance, after the dissolution of the
late parliament. Having had recourse to that measure for the purpose of
ascertaining the sense of my people on the expediency of a reform in the
representation, I have now to recommend that important question to
your earliest and most attentive consideration; confident that in any
measures which you may propose for its adjustment, you will carefully
adhere to the acknowledged principles of the constitution, by which the
prerogative of the crown, the authority of both houses of parliament,
and the rights and liberties of the people are equally secured." No
amendment was proposed to the address in the upper house. The discussion
chiefly turned on the dissolution of parliament, the inattention of
government to the security of property during the London illuminations,
and the arts used to inflame the public mind during the election. The
same topics were also discussed in the commons, and the address was
carried there without opposition.

The house of commons having been elected for the purpose of passing a
measure of reform, no time was lost in bringing it forward. Lord John
Russell moved for leave to bring in a bill to amend the representation
of England on the 24th of June. No debate took place on this occasion:
Sir R. Peel having stated that he did not wish to divide the house on
the first reading, or to have a long debate without a division. At his
suggestion the second reading was postponed from the 30th of June to the
4th of July. In the meantime the Irish and Scotch bills were brought in
and read the first time: the former on the 30th of June, and the latter
on the 1st of July. On the appointed day for the second reading of the
English reform bill an animated debate took place. Sir John Walsh moved
that the bill should be read that day six months. The debate wh