480 The Dissolution of Parliament. [MAY, 



easily or so considerately settled as they now were. The tenth was not 

 now exacted, but the case might be very different if the tithes were 

 possessed by the state." 



From this topic the speaker proceeded to throw out a hint which may 

 yet be fearfully realized, and which may reproduce exhibitions that 

 have not been seen in England for these hundred years. 



" If the ministers advised their sovereign to a dissolution, under such 

 circumstances and upon such grounds as he had mentioned, he took 

 upon himself, without offering any apology, to call upon those ministers 

 to pause not wildly to proceed in a course which might not only throw 

 the country into confusion and anarchy, but might lead to the taking 

 of the crown from the King's head and for which, sooner or later, the 

 ministers themselves would have to answer" 



The guns announcing the King's arrival were now heard, and a scene 

 of extraordinary confusion was produced in the House, by the efforts 

 of a number of members to address the chair. Some called on Sir 

 Francis Burdett to speak, some on Peel, some shouted out, " Lock the 

 doors !" The whole was the most unexampled and violent agitation. 

 The Black Rod now made his entrance, to summon the House to attend 

 the King, and thus the first Parliament of William expired in convul- 

 sions. In what will the next be born ? 



We are Reformers to the fullest extent of the word. But we are not 

 revolutionists. Revolutionists are not Reformers, but exterminators. 

 We say, abolish every abuse, that is proved to be one ; extinguish every 

 base addition to the pension list ; give the gallant soldier or sailor, the 

 old servant of obscure office, whose salary is too small to suffer him to 

 make provision for his age, the allowance dictated by human feeling 

 and national gratitude. Cut away the extravagant pensions of ambas- 

 sadors, and all public men, who have only been too well paid by their 

 salaries, and who ought, like the men of other professions, to make pro- 

 vision out of their income for their families. Cut away the Bathurst 

 pensions, root and branch, and hundreds of others, which claim neither 

 by desert nor by necessity. Cut away the extravagant allowances to 

 Lord Chamberlains, and Masters of the Horse, and the Household ; lop 

 and prune every gross and wanton expenditure, even though the money 

 may go into the pocket of some coxcomb with 100,000. a year. To 

 this extent we will go with the loudest of the Reformers. 



Extinguish, we say, every borough which is found guilty of bartering 

 its votes for money ; punish every boroughmonger who makes a sale of 

 his borough ; destroy all the base and vile bargains of so many thou- 

 sand pounds for a seat, or so much rent per annum for the privilege of 

 voting away the money of England. Down with corruption to the 

 ground. Let a law be passed, sentencing the elector, the elected, and 

 the proprietor of the borough, when convicted of trafficking his 

 conscience in the parliamentary market, to fine and transportation for 

 life ! Let the law put forth its strength and severity, and let the criminal 

 be punished, if he were the first noble in the land ! But let us not, in a 

 spirit of frenzy, dfo an act which extinguishes the abuse and the consti- 

 tution together, cures the diseases of the state by destroying the state, 

 and pretends to support the cause of justice, freedom, and truth, by a 

 measure which wades to general mischief through individual vice, and 

 is marked in all its steps by falsehood, the abolition of long-earned 

 rights, and the debasement of the higher and middle orders under the 

 heels of the very rabble. 



