Such uncompromising language was, not unnaturally, regarded by the Opposition in both Houses as a direct defiance, and the challenge was promptly taken up both in and out of Parliament. It happened that at this moment the ministry was extremely unpopular in the City; not, indeed, on account of his hostility to Reform, but in consequence of the recent introduction by the Home-secretary of a police force in London, on the model of one which the Duke himself, when Irish Secretary, had established in Dublin. The old watchmen had been so notoriously inefficient that it might have been expected that the change would have been hailed with universal approval and gratitude, but it met with a very different reception. Many of the newspapers which had not yet forgiven the passing of Catholic Emancipation made it a ground for the strongest imputations on the Duke himself, some of them even going the length of affirming that he aimed at the throne, and that the organization of this new force was the means on which he reckoned for the attainment of his object. No story is too gross for the credulity of the populace. To hear of such a plot was to believe it; to believe it was to resolve to defeat it; and at the beginning of November the government received several warnings that a plan was in agitation to raise a formidable riot on Lord Mayor's Day, when the King and the Duke himself were expected to dine with the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor even wrote to the Duke to suggest the prudence of his coming "strongly and sufficiently guarded," and the result of this advice was certainly strange. The Duke cared little enough about personal danger to himself, but he regarded himself as specially bound by his office to watch over the public tranquillity, and to do nothing that might be expected to endanger it. He was at least equally solicitous that a new reign should not open with a tumult which could in any way be regarded as an insult to the King; and, under the influence of these feelings, he took the responsibility of giving the King the unprecedented advice of abandoning his intention of being present at the Guildhall banquet. Such a step had an inevitable tendency to weaken the ministry still farther by the comments which it provoked. Even his own brother, Lord Wellesley, did not spare his sarcasms, pronouncing it "the boldest act of cowardice he had ever heard of;" while the Reformers ascribed the unpopularity which it confessed to the Duke's declaration against any kind or degree of Reform; and, to test the correctness of this opinion, Mr. Brougham, who, in the House of Commons, was the most eloquent champion of Reform, gave notice of a motion on the subject for the 16th of November. Before that day came, however, the ministry had ceased to exist. On the preceding evening it had been defeated on a proposal to refer to a select committee the consideration of the Civil List, a new settlement of which was indispensable at the beginning of a new reign, and on the morning of the 16th the Duke resigned, not only advising the King to intrust the formation of the new cabinet to Lord Grey-who was universally recognized as the head of the Whig party-but recommending his Majesty also to be prepared to consent to a measure of moderate Reform, which, though he could not bring himself to co-operate in it, he was satisfied that the temper of the House of Commons, if not of the people out-of-doors also, rendered unavoidable.[216] The advice was taken. Lord Grey had no difficulty in forming a ministry in which the Whigs were aided by the junction of several of the more moderate Tories, who had regarded Canning as their leader; and from the very beginning Parliamentary Reform was proclaimed to be the one great object of his government. It would be more correct to call it a Reform of the House of Commons, since there was no idea of interfering with the House of Lords, even in those parts of it which were of a representative character, the Scotch and Irish peers. But, by whatever title the ministerial policy was designated, no one misunderstood what was intended; and as Parliament was, after a few days, adjourned over the Christmas holidays, the recess was spent by a sub-committee of the cabinet in framing a measure.
The great extension of our trade, which was the fruit partly of his wise commercial policy, and partly of the long war; the rapid and prodigious growth of our manufactures, developed by the inventive ingenuity of our mechanics and engineers, had given a consideration and influence to the commercial, manufacturing, and moneyed classes which could not be disregarded. The land-owners, who had previously almost monopolized the representation, no longer constituted the wealthiest class of the community. Pitt himself had raised a banker to the peerage. More recently, men closely connected with the commercial classes had become cabinet ministers, one of whom had even subsequently sacrificed office to his feeling of the propriety of enfranchising a single town, Birmingham. But there were other towns at least equal in importance to Birmingham which were unrepresented, and it was clearly impossible to maintain a system which gave representatives to boroughs like Gatton, Old Sarum, or Corfe Castle-where the electors scarcely outnumbered the members whom they elected-and withheld them from large and opulent manufacturing centres like Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. The enfranchisement, therefore, of these towns, and of others whose population and consequent importance, though inferior to theirs, was still vastly superior to those of many which had hitherto returned representatives, was so manifestly reasonable and consistent with the principles of our parliamentary constitution, that it was impossible to object to it. And their enfranchisement unavoidably led to the disfranchisement of the smaller boroughs, unless the House of Commons were to be enlarged to a number which was not likely to tend to the facilitation of business. Indeed, in the opinion of the framers of the bill, the House was already too large, and they proposed to reduce its number by upward of sixty-a step to which it is probable that many of those whose opposition contributed to defeat it subsequently repented of their resistance. Nevertheless, the line adopted by the Duke of Wellington's ministry showed that there was still a large party to whom reform on a large scale was altogether distasteful; and accordingly the bill which, under the influence of these considerations, Lord Grey's administration brought forward in the spring of 1831, gave rise to the fiercest struggles in both Houses of Parliament that had been witnessed for many generations. One Parliament was dissolved; two sessions of that which followed were opened in a single year; once the ministry itself was dissolved, though speedily reconstructed; and three bills were framed, each in some degree differing from its predecessor in some of its details, though all preserved the same leading principles of disfranchising wholly or partially the smaller boroughs; of enfranchising several large and growing towns; of increasing the number of county representatives; and of enfranchising also some classes which previously had had no right of voting. It would be a waste of time to specify the variations in the three bills. It is sufficient to confine our attention to that which eventually became law. Fifty-six boroughs were wholly disfranchised; those in which the population fell short of a certain number (2000), and where the amount of assessed taxes paid by the inhabitants was correspondingly small. Thirty more were deprived of one of their members, being those in which the population was between 2000 and 4000. And the seats thus vacated were divided between the towns which since the Revolution had gradually grown into importance, the suburbs of the metropolis, and the counties, the majority of which were now divided into two halves, each half returning two members, as many as had previously represented the whole. The boundaries of the boroughs, too, were in most cases extended.