good cause for complaint as to the way in which Parliament
neglected their interests, and good ground for asserting that the
system of parliamentary representation then afforded them was no real
representation at all. Members entered the House only in pursuit of
their own selfish ends, and the Government encouraged this state of
things by fostering a system of wholesale bribery and corruption,
degrading in itself and fraught with terrible mischief to the
community. What wonder, then, that the people should pray, as they did
in this petition, for a thorough reform, and should point to annual
Parliaments and universal suffrage as the only efficient remedies?

It is needless to recapitulate all the arguments offered again
and again by Lord Cochrane, with ever fresh-force and cogency, in
presenting massive petitions to the House, and in introducing into
the occasional debates on reform with which the House amused itself
a vigour and practicalness in which few other members cared to
sympathize. Nor need we enumerate all the meetings, in London and the
provinces, in which he took prominent part. It is enough to say that
in Parliament he always spoke with exceeding boldness, and that upon
the people, notwithstanding the contrary assertions of his detractors,
he always enjoined, if not conciliation and forbearance, at any rate
such action as was within the strict letter of the law, and most
likely, in the end, to obtain the realization of their wishes. On all
occasions he defended them from the charges of sedition and conspiracy
brought against them by their opponents, and proved, to all who were
open to proof, that their objects were patriotic, and were being
sought in patriotic ways.

Of this, however, the Government did not choose to be convinced.
Taking advantage of some intemperate speeches of demagogues, making
much of some violent handbills circulated by police-officers under
secret instructions, mightily exaggerating a few lawless acts,--as
when a drunken old sailor summoned the keepers of the Tower of London
to surrender,--they procured, on the 26th of February, the suspension
of the Habeas Corpus Act. Therefrom resulted, at any rate, some good.
The Whigs, who had hitherto mainly supported the Tory Government, were
now turned against it, and with them the wiser Radicals, like Lord
Cochrane, sought to effect a coalition. "You will perceive by the
papers," he said in a letter dated February the 28th, "that I have
reso