ut power and without dignity,
either in itself or its members, is no House of Commons for this
constitution."

The applicability of some of his arguments--those founded on the
disorders at times of election--has been greatly diminished, if not
destroyed, at the present day, by the limitation of the polling to a
single day. The disfranchisement of the smaller boroughs has neutralized
others; but the expense of a general election is not believed to have
diminished, and that alone seems a strong objection to a system which
would render them more frequent than they are at present. Mr. Sawbridge
could not obtain the support of a third of his hearers.[60] But his
notions had partisans in the other House who were not discouraged by
such a division; and three weeks later the Duke of Richmond brought
forward a Reform Bill on so large a scale that, as the "Parliamentary
History" records, "it took him an hour and a half to read it," and which
contained provisions for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. But
he met with even less favor than the Alderman, and his bill was rejected
without a division.

Still the subject was not allowed to rest. Even after Lord North had
been replaced by Lord Rockingham, the demand for Parliamentary Reform
was continued; the young Mr. Pitt making himself the mouth-piece of the
Reformers, and founding a motion which he made in May, 1782, on "the
corrupt influence of the crown; an influence which has been pointed at
in every period as the fertile source of all our miseries; an influence
which has been substituted in the room of wisdom, of activity, of
exertion, and of success; an influence which has grown up with our
growth and strengthened with our strength, but which, unhappily, has not
diminished with our diminution, nor decayed with our decay." He brought
forward no specific plan, but denounced the close boroughs, and asked
emphatically whether it were "representation" for "some decayed
villages, almost destitute of population, to send members to Parliament
under the control of the Treasury, or at the bidding of some great lord
or commoner." He, however, was defeated, though by the small majority of
twenty. And it is remarkable that when, the next year, he revived the
subject, developing a more precise scheme--akin to that which his father
had suggested, of increasing the number of county members, and including
provisions for the disfranchisement of boroughs which had been convicted
of syste