ne hundred and fifty-five, and those
against it, one hundred and sixteen.

On this defeat of ministers, Earl Grey immediately moved that the
house should resume; and stated that he would then move that the further
consideration of the bill be postponed till Thursday, the 10th. Lord
Ellen-borough expressed his regret that ministers should interpose
delay; and took the opportunity of detailing the amendments which his
party, after serious consideration, intended to propose. These consisted
in a disfranchisement of one hundred and thirteen boroughs, their
privileges to be distributed among other places; a prohibition of
persons to vote for counties in respect of property situated
in boroughs; the adoption of a clearer and more certain mode of
ascertaining the genuineness and value of holdings; and the retention,
not only of the ten-pound qualification, but of scot and lot where it
existed.

Having postponed the further consideration of the bill, Earl Grey and
the lord-chancellor proceeded to Windsor, and tendered his majesty the
alternative of either arming the ministers with the powers they deemed
necessary to enable them to carry through their bill--namely, a creation
of peers--or of accepting their resignation. The ministers seem to have
expected that he would have adopted the former alternative; but the king
hesitated on account of the great number requisite, and the danger of
such a precedent. He did not give his answer till the next day, when
he informed Earl Grey that he had determined to accept his resignation
rather than have recourse to the only alternative which had been
proposed. Ministers then resigned _en masse_; and on the 9th Earl
Grey in the lords, and Lord Althorp in the commons, announced that the
ministry was at an end, and that they held their offices only till their
successors should be appointed. Earl Grey in doing so moved that the
order for going on with the committee next day should be discharged; and
he did not think it necessary to name another day for that purpose. The
Earl of Carnarvon strenuously resisted this proposition: the house would
not do its duty, he said, to the country or the sovereign, if it left
them in this extraordinary state, by suspending so important a subject
as reform. The motion for taking the committee on the following Monday
was agreed to.

In the commons, on the announcement of the resignation of ministers,
Viscount Ebrington gave notice that he would next day move a