--Introduction of the
Reform Bill.--Its Details.--Riots at Bristol and Nottingham.--Proposed
Creation of Peers.--The King's Message to the Peers.--Character and
Consequences of the Reform Bill.--Appointment of a Regency.--
Re-arrangement of the Civil List.
One of Pitt's great measures of domestic, apart from financial or
commercial, policy having become law, it seemed in some degree natural
to look for the accomplishment of the other, a reform of the House of
Commons, which, indeed, after the conclusion of the war, had been made
at times the subject of earnest petition, being one in which a far
greater number of people had a lively interest than that excited by
Catholic Emancipation. The Englishmen who had advocated that measure had
been striving for the adoption of a principle rather than for a
concession from which they could expect any personal benefit, since very
few in any English or Scotch constituency were Roman Catholics, or
desired to return a Roman Catholic representative. But thousands in
every county, including the whole body of citizens of some of the
largest and most flourishing towns, felt a personal concern in the
attainment of Parliamentary Reform, as the measure which would give
them, and which could alone give them, that voice in the affairs of the
kingdom to which they felt themselves entitled, but which they had never
yet enjoyed.
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