yet prove himself to be a man of mark.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore._ Edited by
the Right Hon. Lord John Russell, M.P.

[2] Canning's Speeches.

[3] _Recollections and Suggestions_, p. 43.

CHAPTER III

WINNING HIS SPURS

1826-1830

Defeated and out of harness--Journey to Italy--Back in
Parliament--Canning's accession to power--Bribery and
corruption--The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts--The
struggle between the Court and the Cabinet over Catholic
Emancipation--Defeat of Wellington at the polls--Lord John
appointed Paymaster-General.

WHIG optimists in the newspapers at the General Election of 1826
declared that the future welfare of the country would depend much on the
intelligence and independence of the new Parliament. Ordinary men
accustomed to look facts in the face were not, however, so sanguine, and
Albany Fonblanque expressed the more common view amongst Radicals when
he asserted that if the national welfare turned on the exhibition in an
unreformed House of Commons of such unparliamentary qualities as
intelligence and independence, there would be ground not for hope but
for despair. He added that he saw no shadow of a reason for supposing
that one Parliament under the existing system would differ in any
essential degree from another. He maintained that, while the sources of
corruption continued to flow, legislation would roll on in the same
course.

Self-improvement was, in truth, the last thing to be expected from a
House of Commons which represented vested rights, and the interests and
even the caprices of a few individuals, rather than the convictions or
needs of the nation. The Tory party was stubborn and defiant even when
the end of the Liverpool Administration was in sight. The Test Acts were
unrepealed, prejudice and suspicion shut out the Catholics from the
Legislature, and the sacred rights of property triumphed over the
terrible wrongs of the slave. The barbarous enactments of the Criminal
Code had not yet been entirely swept away, and the municipal
corporations, even to contemporary eyes, appeared as nothing less than
sinks of corruption.

Lord John was defeated in Huntingdonshire, and, to his disappointment,
found himself out of harness. He had hoped to bring in his Bribery Bill
early in the session, and under the altered circumstances he persuaded
Lord Althorp to press the measure forward. In a