numerous
political associations which had grown powerful because of that
distress, on the suffering of the agricultural population, on the
'nightly alarms, burnings, and popular disturbances,' as well as on the
'general feeling of doubt and apprehension observable in every
countenance.' He endeavoured to show that the measure was not
revolutionary in spirit or subversive of the British Constitution, as
many people proclaimed.

Lord Grey contended that there was nothing in the measure that was not
founded on the principles of English government, nothing that was not
perfectly consistent with the ancient practices of the Constitution, and
nothing that might not be adopted with absolute safety to the rights and
privileges of all orders of the State. He made a scathing allusion to
the 'gross and scandalous corruption practised without disguise' at
elections, and he declared that the sale of seats in the House of
Commons was a matter of equal notoriety with the return of nominees of
noble and wealthy persons to that House. He laid stress on the fact that
a few individuals under the existing system were able to turn into a
means of personal profit privileges which had been conferred in past
centuries for the benefit of the nation. 'It is with these views that
the Government has considered that the boroughs which are called
nomination boroughs ought to be abolished. In looking at these boroughs,
we found that some of them were incapable of correction, for it is
impossible to extend their constituency. Some of them consisted only of
the sites of ancient boroughs, which, however, might perhaps in former
times have been very fit places to return members to Parliament; in
others, the constituency was insignificantly small, and from their local
situation incapable of receiving any increase; so that, upon the whole,
this gangrene of our representative system bade defiance to all remedies
but that of excision.'

After several nights' debate, in which Brougham, according to Lord John,
delivered one of the greatest speeches ever heard in the House of Lords,
the bill was at length rejected, after an all-night sitting, at twenty
minutes past six o'clock on Saturday morning, October 8, by a majority
of forty-one (199 to 158), in which majority were twenty-one bishops.
Had these prelates voted the other way, the bill would have passed the
second reading. As the carriages of the nobility rattled through the
streets at daybreak, artisans