Whigs were not absent, although they did not vote; for in the debate Ponsonby and Brougham and Romilly all spoke against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. To have a full idea of what this abstention meant, we must see what the bill really was. Its objects were

1. To prevent public meetings, except those called by county or borough authorities or on requisition of seven householders-in the latter case subject to stringent regu

lations.

2. To prevent the existence of debating societies, lecturerooms, reading-rooms, etc., for admission to which money was received.

3. To declare unlawful all societies that had delegates or missionaries for the purpose of confirming others in the principles they professed.

4. To suppress

suppress a particular society calling themselves the Spenceans or Spencean Philanthropists.

Every one of those instruments for political education which we now value so highly and use so constantly, every means by which sound opinion could be formed, as well as every method by which it could express itself to the legislature and the Government, were thus ruthlessly put down by a bill against the introduction of which only sixteen members could be induced to vote. Ministers were not content with the powers-enormous as they were-which Parliament conferred; they assumed and delegated to the most irresponsible instruments of the executive still more arbitrary authority. On the 27th of March the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, addressed a circular letter to the lords-lieutenant of counties, in which he urged the importance of preventing the circulation of blasphemous and seditious publications; and informed them that he had ascertained that the law officers of the Crown were of opinion that a justice of the peace might issue a warrant to apprehend any person charged on oath with the publication of a blasphemous or seditious libel, and compel him to give bail to answer the charge. The circular further declared that the vendors of pamphlets or

tracts were within the Hawkers and Pedlars Acts, and should be dealt with accordingly if found selling such things without a licence. That the conduct of the Government in issuing this circular was unconstitutional was clearly proved. The case was plainly put by Romilly when he brought the subject before the House of Commons on the 25th of June. "By the constitution of this country," he said, "there are only two modes in which the law in matters of doubt can be declared-one is by the whole legislature by a declaratory statute; the other by the decisions of the judges upon points which have come judicially before them. It has at all times been thought of the utmost importance to prevent the law from being in any other way declared, and particularly to guard against the Crown presuming to declare it. Yet, he went on to say, "the circular resting on the opinion of the law officers had declared the law on a point which was before doubtful, and the Secretary of State, assisted by such advice as he could command, had thus assumed the functions of legislation."

Under these exceptional laws, and in the spirit which dictated Sidmouth's circular, the summer and autumn of 1817 were marked by a systematic course of oppression and coercion, rarely, if ever, equalled in this country. Political writers were harried by constant prosecutions; the distressed artisans were goaded, and in many cases absolutely tempted by Government spies, into acts of violence, which, although they were never really dangerous, formed the excuse for further repression. The march of the Blanketeers and the so-called risings at Derby and Nottingham tended to increase the terror from which the Government agents profited, and were used as arguments against any concessions to popular demands. The people were indeed in a painful position. All regular and constitutional agitation was proscribed, and every effort to resist the oppression was magnified in its proportions and punished with a terrible severity. Yet it was under this reign of terror that the feeling in favour of Parliamentary reform was strengthened and extended, promoted by the sense that there were no other means by which the wants of

the people could ensure attention, much less obtain redress. That the fear was exaggerated and much of the repressive action unnecessary, was admitted even by the partisans of ministers themselves. Parliament met on the 27th of January, 1818, and immediately both Houses were invited again to elect secret committees to consider the proceedings which had taken place in the country. These inquiries were intended to justify the application by the Government for an Act of Indemnity to cover the acts of themselves and their agents during the past year. The report of the Committee of the Lords, presented on the 23rd of February, contained one passage which was alone sufficient to vindicate the patience and law-abiding character of the people and the unnecessary nature of the methods which had been pursued. "The committee," it said, "have the satisfaction of delivering it as their decided opinion, that not only in the country in general, but in those districts where the designs of the disaffected were most actively and unremittingly pursued, the great body of the people have remained untainted, even during the periods of the greatest internal difficulty and distress."

There was no reason, therefore, even on the showing of ministers, why the law suspending the operation of the Habeas Corpus Act should not be repealed, and this was done. In the House of Commons repeated petitions were presented from persons who had suffered imprisonment during the suspension, and on the 17th of February Lord Folkestone moved that a Committee be appointed to inquire into the truth of the allegations, but was defeated by 167 votes to 58. There were also resolutions submitted for inquiry into the conduct of spies and informers, but these were also rejected by large majorities.

On the 9th of March the Attorney-General introduced an Indemnity Bill, intended to meet all such attacks. In his speech he made it clear that, by their repressive policy, ministers aimed not only at the suppression of violence, but at the prevention or limitation of the quietest agitation for

political purposes outside a line which they themselves thought proper to draw. Speaking of the movement in favour of Parliamentary reform, he said, "In his view those who sought such objects (universal suffrage and annual Parliaments) must be understood to seek revolution, for he maintained that such objects were incompatible with the existence of the British Constitution of which neither annually elected Parliaments nor universal suffrage ever formed any part; nay, he was prepared to maintain that the establishment of such a system was inconsistent with the stability of any constitution whatever that, in fact, it could not last for one year in any country that desired the possession of a regular government." On the day following Sir Francis Burdett gave a practical reply to this dictum by presenting a petition from Warrington, praying for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage.

It was at this time, when the policy of coercion was in full operation, and when ministers not only put down all attempts at reform, and all means of political discussion, but when they even declared that to agitate for constitutional change was treasonable, that the Whigs chose to desert the cause of Parliamentary reform, and thereby accentuated the differences between themselves and the Radicals in Parliament. The commotions which took place in 1817, which the committee of the Lords declared did not affect the great body of the people, alarmed the members of the privileged and propertied class in both political parties, and the Whigs had not sufficient faith in their countrymen to remain true to their cause under circumstances of trial and excitement. Wingrove Cooke says, "Since the rise of the democratic faction, the Whigs have owed all their reverses, as a party, to their timidity of the people."* They never showed this timidity more than at the time under consideration. The secession began in 1817, writing under which date Harriet Martineau says, "From this year we may date the retrogression of the course of Parliamentary reform, which continued to go back, or stand still, as long as the

*"History of Parties," vol. iii. p. 297.

There was not

middle classes were afraid of its agitation."* much sign of the division during the remainder of that Parliament, but after the dissolution on the 18th of June, 1818, it soon became manifest.

From the election of the new Parliament, which met on the 14th of January, 1819, the word Whig ceased to be considered by any one as synonymous with Liberal. There were two sections of the party working together whenever the Whigs would make a forward movement, but avowedly recognizing different standards of policy, and advocating different rates of progress. So far as the respectabilities and gentilities of the time could effect it, Radicalism was put under a ban. Its leaders were demagogues, its followers wild democrats; every term which could be applied to it was in turn made one of reproach. We have not yet outgrown the practice which was then established, and which constitutional historians and royal biographers have caught from political opponents. During the early part of the session some divisions were taken which tested the relative strength of parties. There is no record which will show how many members were distinctly Radical. One work has been devoted to the purpose of ascertaining the political character of all candidates, but full materials for the purpose were not available, and the particulars for all years before 1832 are quite useless. Thus, for the election in 1818 the only Radicals recorded are Daniel Whittle Harvey, who sat for Colchester, and Sir R. T. Wilson, member for Southwark; even Sir Francis Burdett being entered as a Whig.

On the 3rd of February a bill was introduced called the Westminster Hustings Bill, to relieve the high bailiff of that city from the costs of elections. It was opposed by Burdett, but not on the broad grounds that candidates ought not to bear the charges, and the division list is therefore not very important. Ten members, besides his fellow-teller, supported him, and the second reading was carried, thirty-two voting

* "History of the Thirty Years' Peace," vol. i. p. 152.

"The Parliaments of England from the first of George I. to the Present Time," by Henry Stooks Smith, three vols., 1844-50.