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.

And before the end of the next session the prospect of the early success of their aspirations was greatly increased by the death of the King.  George IV., who in his early manhood had attached himself to the Whigs with an ardor and ostentation altogether unbecoming his position as heir to the throne, had formally separated himself from them after the death of Fox in 1806, and had gradually come to regard their adversaries with a favor as exclusive as he had formerly shown to themselves.  But the Duke of Clarence, who now succeeded to the throne, had always shown a leaning toward the Whigs, who of late had been commonly regarded as the reforming party.  While the war lasted, and during the few remaining years of the reign of George III., no active steps toward Reform were taken in Parliament; but under George IV. more than one borough convicted of gross and habitual corruption, as has been mentioned, was disfranchised.  Grampound was so punished in the time of Lord Liverpool, and its members were transferred to Yorkshire, so as to give that largest of the counties four representatives; and it may be remarked that this arrangement caused the Prime-minister to suggest an improvement in the details of an election—­which was afterward universally adopted—­when, in reply to a remark on the great inconvenience that was found to exist in taking the poll at once in so large a county as Yorkshire, he hinted at the possibility of obviating that difficulty by allowing polls to be taken in different parts of the county.  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