And, since the Duke had been in office, two more boroughs,
Penrhyn and East Retford, had also been disfranchised; though the
Reformers failed in their endeavor to get the seats thus vacated
transferred to Manchester and Birmingham. With the accession of the new
sovereign, however, they became more active. They found encouragement in
other circumstances also. Many of those who were commonly called the
Ultra Tories had been so alienated from the Duke's government by the
Emancipation Act, that they were known to be ready to coalesce with
almost any party for the sake of overturning his administration.
Moreover, as forty years before, the French Revolution of 1789 had
caused great political excitement in England, so now the new French
revolution of July acted as a strong stimulus on the movement party in
this as well as in other countries; and altogether there was a very
general feeling that the time for important changes had come. The Duke
of Wellington was not blind to the prevalence of the idea; and, being by
no means willing to admit that his own policy of the preceding year had
in the least contributed to strengthen it, he conceived it to be his
duty to discountenance it by every means in his power; but the steps
which he took with that object only invigorated and inflamed it.
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