curred in thinking the present obloquy, which had been so lavishly thrown upon it, was deserved. He perceived in that meeting a very general and prevailing spirit of moderation. There was, to be sure, a great deal of noise and some confusion, but not more nor so much as he had frequently seen in that House when intemperate advocates for the measures of administration were bent upon calling for the question, and silencing by clamour all

rational discussion.

Sir Gregory Page Turner craved the indulgence of the House for a few observations which he had to make. When he got up in the morning, and when he lay day down at night, he always felt for the constitution. On this question he never had but one opinion. When he came first into parliament, he remembered that the chancellor of the exchequer proposed a reform, but he saw it was wrong, and he opposed it. Would it not be madness to change what had been handed sound and entire down to the days of his father.

country itself, much less as to the nature of the measures which, in my mind, that situation and those circumstances imperiously demand. I cannot suppress my astonishment at the tone and manner of gentlemen this day. The arguments that have been used would lead the mind to believe that we are in a state of peace and tranquillity, and that we have no provocation to any steps for improving the benefits we enjoy, or retrieving any misfortune that we have incurred. To persons who feel this to be our situation, every proposition tending to meliorate the condition of the country must be subject of jealousy and alarm: and if we really differ so widely in sentiment as to the state of the country, I see no probability of an agreement in any measure that is proposed. All that part of the argument against reform which relates to the danger of innovation, is strangely misplaced by those who think with me, that, so far from procuring the mere chance of practical benefits by a reform, it is only by a reform that we can have a chance of rescuing ourselves from a state of extreme peril and distress. Such is my view of our situation. I think

Mr. Pollen said, that he was convinced of the necessity and of the wisdom of a temperate reform of the representation of the people. It was in vain to contendit so perilous, so imminent, that though I against the exigency. Every man who went into a populous place at the time of an election, must be sensible that things could not go on on their present footing. Every hand was open for a bribe. All idea of a representation was scouted. It was a mere profligate scene of corruption, and consequently presented to government the certain means of influencing the majority in that House. He should certainly vote for the motion, by which time and opportunity would be given to discuss the merits of the proposed plan, and to adopt or reject it upon mature delibera

tion.

do not feel conscious of despair, an emotion which the heart ought not to admit, yet it comes near to that state of hazard, when the sentiment of despair, rather than of hope, may be supposed to take possession of the mind. I feel myself to be the member of a community, in which the boldest man, without any imputation of cowardice, may dread that we are not merely approaching to a state of extreme peril, but of absolute dissolution; and with this conviction impressed upon my mind, gentlemen will not believe that I disregard all the general arguments that have been used against the motion on the score of the danger of innovation, from any disrespect to the honourable members who have urged them, or to the ingenuity with which they have been pressed; but because I am firmly persuaded that they are totally inapplicable to the circumstances under which we come to the discussion. With the ideas that I entertain, I cannot listen for a moment to sug

Mr. For said:-Much, and often, Sir, as this question has been discussed, and late as the hour is, I feel it' my duty to deliver my opinion on a measure of high importance at all times, but which, at the present period, is become infinitely more interesting than ever. I fear, however, that my conviction on this subject is not common to the House. I fear that we are not likely to be agreed as to the im-gestions that are applicable only to other portance of the measure, nor as to the necessity; since by the manner in which it has been discussed this night, I foresee that, so far from being unanimous on the proposition, we shall not be agreed as to the situation and circumstances of the

situations, and to other times; for unless we are resolved pusillanimously to wait the approach of our doom, to lie down and die, we must take bold and decisive measures for our deliverance. We must not be deterred by meaner apprehensions.

We must combine all our strength, fortify one another by the communion of our courage; and by a seasonable exertion of national wisdom, patriotism, and vigour, take measures for the chance of salvation, and encounter with unappalled hearts, all the enemies, foreign and internal, all the dangers and calamities of every kind which press so heavily upon us. Such is my view of our present emergency; and under this impression, I cannot for a moment listen to the argument of danger arising from innovation, since our ruin is inevitable, if we pursue the course which has brought us to the brink of the precipice.

condition of the empire ought to animate and invigorate the union of all those who feel it to be their duty to check and arrest a career that threatens us with such inevitable ruin. For, surely, those who think that party is a good thing for ordinary occasions, must admit that it is peculiarly so on emergencies like the present; it is peculiarly incumbent upon men who feel the value of united exertion to combine all their strengh to extricate the vessel when it is in danger of being stranded.

But gentlemen seem to insinuate, that this union of action is directed more against persons than measures, and that allusions ought not to be made to the conduct of particular men. It is not easy to analyse this sort of imputation, for it is not easy to disjoin the measure from its author, nor to examine the origin and progress of any evil without also inquiring into and scrutinising the motives and the conduct of the persons who gave rise to it. How, for instance, is it possible for us to enter into the discussion of the particular question now before the House, without a certain mixture of personal allusion? We complain that the represen tation of the people in parliament is defective. How does this complaint origi nate? From the conduct of the majorities in parliament. Does not this natu rally lead us to inquire whether there is not something fundamentally erroneous in elections or something incidentally vicious in the treatment of those majorities? We surely must be permitted to inquire whether the fault and calamity of which we complain is inherent in the institution, in which nothing personal is to be ascribed to ministers, as it will operate in a more or less degree in all the circumstances in which we may find ourselves; or whether it is not an occasional abuse of the original institution, applicable only to these times and to these men, in which they are peculiarly guilty, but from which system representation itself ought to stand absolved.

But before I enter on the subject of the proposition that has been made to us, I must take notice of an insinuation that has again and again been flung out by gentlemen on the other side of the House, on party feelings, in which they affect to deplore the existence of a spirit injurious to the welfare of the public. I suspect, by the frequent repetition of this insinuation, that they are desirous of making it be believed, or that they understand themselves by the word party feelings, an unprincipled combination of men for the pursuit of office and its emoluments, the eagerness after which leads them to act upon feelings of personal enmity, ill-will, and opposition to his majesty's ministers. If such be their interpretation of party feelings, I must say, that I am utterly unconscious of any such feeling, and I am sure that I can speak with confidence for my friends, that they are actuated by no motives of so debasing a nature. But if they understand by party feelings, that men of honour, who entertain similar 1 principles, conceive that those principles may be more beneficially and successfully pursued by the force of mutual support, harmony, and confidential connexion, then I adopt the interpretation, and have no scruple in saying, that it is an advantage to the country; an advantage to the cause of truth and the constitution; an advantage to freedom and humanity; an advantage to whatever honourable object I put the question in this way, in order they may be engaged in, that men pursue to show that a certain degree of personait with the united force of party feeling; lity is inseparable from the discussion, and that is to say, pursue it with the confi- that gentlemen cannot with justice ascribe dence, zeal, and spirit, which the com- to the bitterness of party feelings what munion of just confidence is likely to in-flows out of the principle of free inquiry. spire. And if the hon. gentleman apply this description of party feeling to the pursuit in which we are engaged, I am equally ready to say, that the disastrous

Indeed, this is a pregnant example of there being nothing peculiarly hostile to persons in this subject; it is not a thing now taken up for the first time, meditated and con

ceived in particular hostility to the right | opinion merely founded upon theory, but hon. the chancellor of the exchequer. upon actual observation of what is passing Be it remembered, that he himself has in the world. I conceive, that if we are again and again introduced and patronized not resolved to shut our eyes to the inthe same subject, and that on all the oc- structive lessons of the times, we must be casions on which he has brought it forward convinced of the propriety of seasonable it has invariably received my approbation concession. I see nothing in what is and support. When he brought it for- called the lamentable example of France ward first in the year 1782, in a time of to prove to me that timely acquiescence war, and of severe public calamity, I gave with the desires of the people is more to the proposition my feeble support. dangerous than obstinate resistance to Again, when he brought it forward in their demands; but the situations of 1783, at a time when I was in an office Great Britain and France are so essentially high in his majesty's service, I gave it my different, there is so little in common besupport.* Again, in 1785, when the tween the character of England at this right hon. gentleman himself was in place, day, and the character of France at the and renewed his proposition, it had my commencement of the Revolution, that countenance and support. I have inva- it is impossible to reason upon them from riably declared myself a friend to parlia- parity of circumstances or of character. mentary reform by whomsoever proposed; It is not necessary for me, I am sure, to and though in all the discussions that have enter into any analysis of the essential taken place, I have had occasion to ex- difference between the character of a peopress my doubt as to the efficacy of the ple that had been kept for ages in the particular mode, I have never hesitated to barbarism of servitude, and a people who say, that the principle itself was beneficial; have enjoyed for so long a time the light and that though not called for with the of freedom. But we have no occasion to urgency which some persons, and, among go to France for example; another counothers, the right hon. gentleman, declared try nearer to our hearts, with which we to exist, I constantly was of opinion that are better acquainted, opens to us a book it ought not to be discouraged. Now, so legible and clear, that he must be blind however, that all doubt upon the subject indeed who is not able to draw from it is removed by the pressure of our cala- warning and instruction; it holds forth a mities, and the dreadful alternative seems lesson which is intelligible to dulness itto be, whether we shall sink into the most self. Let us look to Ireland, and see how abject thraldom, or continue in the same remarkably the arguments and reasoning course until we are driven into the horrors of this day tally with the arguments and of anarchy, I can have no hesitation in reasoning that unfortunately prevailed in saying, that the plan of recurring to the the sister kingdom, and by which the principle of melioration which the consti- king's ministers were fatally able to overtution points out, is become a desideratum power the voice of reason and patriotism, to the people of Great Britain. Between and stifle all attention to the prayers and the alternatives of base and degraded applications of the people. It is imposslavery on the one side, or of tumultuous, sible for any coincidence to be more perthough, probably, short-lived anarchy on fect. We are told, that there are in the other, though no man would hesitate England, as it is said there were in Ireto make his choice, yet, if there be a land, a small number of persons desirous course obvious and practicable, which, of throwing the country into confusion, without either violence or innovation, may and of alienating the affections of the lead us back to the vigour we have lost, people from the established government. to the energy that has been stifled, to the Permit me, Mr. Speaker, in passing, to independence that has been undermined, observe, that the right hon. gentleman did and yet preserve every thing in its place, not represent my learned friend (Mr. Ersa moment ought not to be lost in embrac-kine) quite correctly, when he stated that ing the chance which this fortunate provision of the British system has made for British safety.

This is my opinion, and it is not an

* See Vol. 22, p. 1416; Vol. 23, p. '5; and Vol. 25, p. 432.

my learned friend admitted the existence of such men. On the contrary, the argument of my learned friend was hypothetical; he said, if it be true, as it is so industriously asserted, that such and such men do exist in the country, then surely in wisdom you ought to prevent their

ters in the country, who had on former occasions distinguished themselves by exertions in the popular cause; and of these justly eminent men I desire to speak as I feel, with the utmost respect for their talents and virtues. But, unfortunately, they were so alarmed by the French revolution, and by the cry which had been so artfully set up by ministers of the dan

to the complaint. What was the conse quence? These bodies of men, who found it vain to expect it from the government at the castle, or from the parliament, and having no where else to recur for redress, joined the societies, whom the report accuses of cherishing the desire of separation from England; and became converts to all those notions of extravagant and frantic ambition, which the report lays to their charge, and which threatens consequences so dreadful and alarming, that no man can contemplate them without horror and dismay.

number from increasing by timely conciliation of the body of moderate men, who desire only reform. In this opinion I perfectly acquiesce with my learned friend. I believe that the number of persons who are discontented with the government of the country, and who desire to overthrow it, is very few, indeed. But the right hon. gentleman says, that the friends of moderate reform are few, and that no ad-ger of infection, that they could not listen Avantage is to be gained by conceding to this very small body what will not satisfy the violent, which he contends is more numerous; and he vehemently demands to know whom he is to divide, whom to separate, and what benefit he is to obtain from this surrender? To this I answer, that if there be two bodies, it is wisdom, it is policy, to prevent the one from falling into the other, by granting to the moderate what is just and reasonable. If the argument of the right hon. gentleman be correct, the necessity for concession is more imperious; it is only by these means that you can check the spirit of proselytism, and prevent a conversion that byand-by will be too formidable for you to resist. Mark this, and see how it applies Eto the precedent of Ireland. In the report that has been made by the parliament of that kingdom on the present disorders, it is said, that so long ago as the year 1791, their existed some societies in that country, who harboured the desire of separation from England, and who wished to set up a republican form of government. The report does not state what was the precise number of those societies in 1791; it declares, however, that the number was small and insignificant. From small beginnings, however, they have increased to the alarming number of 100,000 men in the province of Ulster only. By what means have they so increased, and who are the proselytes that swell their numbers to so gigantic a size? Obviously the men who had no such design originally; obviously the persons who had no other object in view in all the titions which they presented, than Catholic emancipation and reform in parliament. This is also admitted by the report. The spirit of reform spread over the country; they made humble, earnest, and repeated applications to the castle for redress; but there they found a fixed determination to resist every claim, and a rooted aversion to every thing that bore even the colour of reform. They made their applications to all the considerable charac[VOL. XXXIII.]

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What, then, is the lesson to be derived from this example, but that the comparatively small societies of 1791 became strong and formidable by the accession of the many who had nothing in common with them in the outset? I wish it were possible for us to draw the line more accurately between the small number that the report describes to have had mischievous objects originally in view, and the numerous bodies who were made converts by the neglect of their petition for constitutional rights. Is it improbable that the original few were not more than ten or twenty thousand in number? What, then, do I learn from this? That the impolitic and unjust refusal of government, to attend to the applications of the moderate, made 80 or 90,000 proselytes from moderation to violence. This is the lesson which the book of Ireland exhibits! Can you refuse your assent to the moral ? Will any man argue, that if reform had been conceded to the 80 or 90,000 moderate petitioners, you would have this day to deplore the union of 100,000 men, bent on objects so extensive, so alarming, so calamitous? I wish to warn you by this example. Every argument that you have heard used this day was used at Dublin. In the short sighted pride and obstinacy of the government, they turned a deaf ear to the supplicant; they have now, perhaps, in the open field to brave the asserter. Unwarned, untutored by example, are you still to go on with the

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