life and liberty which even in the worst days of our recent history has been the reward of eminence, were powerless in the Commons and isolated in the Lords.  No motive but disinterested conviction kept a handful of veterans steadfast round a banner which was never raised except to be swept contemptuously down by the disciplined and overwhelming strength of the ministerial phalanx.  Argument and oratory were alike unavailing under a constitution which was indeed a despotism of privilege.  The county representation of England was an anomaly, and the borough representation little better than a scandal.  The constituencies of Scotland, with so much else that of right belonged to the public, had got into Dundas’s pocket.  In the year 1820 all the towns north of Tweed together contained fewer voters than are now on the rolls of the single burgh of Hawick, and all the counties together contained fewer voters than are now on the register of Roxburghshire.  So small a band of electors was easily manipulated by a party leader who had the patronage of India at his command.  The three Presidencies were flooded with the sons and nephews of men who were lucky enough to have a seat in a Town Council, or a superiority in a rural district; and fortunate it was for our empire that the responsibilities of that noblest of all careers soon educated young Indian Civil Servants into something higher than mere adherents of a political party.

While the will of the nation was paralysed within the senate, effectual care was taken that its voice should not be heard without.  The press was gagged in England, and throttled in Scotland.  Every speech, or sermon, or pamphlet, the substance of which a Crown lawyer could torture into a semblance of sedition, sent its author to the jail, the hulks, or the pillory.  In any place of resort where an informer could penetrate, men spoke their minds at imminent hazard of ruinous fines, and protracted imprisonment.  It was vain to appeal to Parliament for redress against the tyranny of packed juries, and panic-driven magistrates.  Sheridan endeavoured to retain for his countrymen the protection of Habeas Corpus; but he could only muster forty-one supporters.  Exactly as many members followed Fox into the lobby when he opposed a bill, which, interpreted in the spirit that then actuated our tribunals, made attendance at an open meeting summoned for the consideration of Parliamentary Reform a service as dangerous as night-poaching, and far more dangerous than smuggling.  Only ten more than that number ventured to protest against the introduction of a measure, still more inquisitorial in its provisions and ruthless in its penalties, which rendered every citizen who gave his attention to the removal of public grievances liable at any moment to find himself in the position of a criminal;—­that very measure in behalf of which Bishop Horsley had stated in the House of Peers that he did not know what the mass of the people of any country had to do with the laws, except to obey them.