Friends of the People,' an
influential association which had its place of meeting at the
Freemasons' Tavern. Amongst its first members were Mr. Lambton (father
of the first Earl of Durham), Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Mackintosh, Mr.
Sheridan, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Erskine, Mr. Charles (afterwards Earl)
Grey, and more than twenty other members of Parliament. In the following
year Mr. Grey brought forward the celebrated petition of the Friends of
the People in the House of Commons. It exposed the abuses of the
existing electoral system and presented a powerful argument for
Parliamentary Reform. He moved that the petition should be referred to
the consideration 'of a committee'; but Pitt, in spite of his own
measure on the subject in 1785, was now lukewarm about Reform, and
accordingly opposed as 'inopportune' such an inquiry. 'This is not a
time,' were his words, 'to make hazardous experiments.' The spirit of
anarchy, in his view, was abroad, and Burke's 'Reflections,' had of
course increased the panic of the moment. Although Grey pressed the
motion, only 141 members supported it, and though four years later he
moved for leave to bring in a bill on the subject, justice and common
sense were again over-ridden, and, so far as Parliament was concerned,
the question slept until 1809, when Sir Francis Burdett revived the
agitation.

Meanwhile, men of the stamp of Horne Tooke, William Cobbett, Hone,
'Orator' Hunt, and Major Cartwright--brother of Lord John Russell's
tutor at Woburn, and the originator of the popular cry, 'One man, one
vote'--were in various ways keeping the question steadily before the
minds of the people. Hampden Clubs and other democratic associations
were also springing up in various parts of the country, sometimes to the
advantage of demagogues of damaged reputation rather than to the
advancement of the popular cause. Sir Francis Burdett may be said to
have represented the Reformers in Parliament during the remainder of the
reign of George III., though, just as the old order was changing, Earl
Grey, in 1819, publicly renewed his connection with the question, and
pledged himself to support any sound and judicious measure which
promised to deal effectively with known abuses. In spite of the apathy
of Parliament and the sullen opposition of the privileged classes to all
projects of the kind, whether great or small, sweeping or partial, the
question was slowly ripening in the public mind. Sydney Smith in 1819