dation was defied: expenses were rejected: old ties were broken:
the people struggled manfully: they triumphed gloriously: they placed
the bill in perfect security, as far as this house was concerned; and
they returned to their repose. They are now, as they were on the eve of
General Gascoyne's motion, awaiting the issue of the deliberations of
Parliament, without any indecent show of violence, but with anxious
interest and immovable resolution. And because they are not exhibiting
that noisy and rapturous enthusiasm which is in its own nature
transient, because they are not as much excited as on the day when the
plan of the Government was first made known to them, or on the day when
the late Parliament was dissolved, because they do not go on week after
week, hallooing, and holding meetings, and marching about with flags,
and making bonfires, and illuminating their houses, we are again told
that there is a reaction. To such a degree can men be deceived by
their wishes, in spite of their own recent experience. Sir, there is no
reaction; and there will be no reaction. All that has been said on this
subject convinces me only that those who are now, for the second time,
raising this cry, know nothing of the crisis in which they are called on
to act, or of the nation which they aspire to govern. All their opinions
respecting this bill are founded on one great error. They imagine that
the public feeling concerning Reform is a mere whim which sprang up
suddenly out of nothing, and which will as suddenly vanish into nothing.
They, therefore, confidently expect a reaction. They are always looking
out for a reaction. Everything that they see, or that they hear, they
construe into a sign of the approach of this reaction. They resemble the
man in Horace, who lies on the bank of the river, expecting that it
will every moment pass by and leave him a clear passage, not knowing the
depth and abundance of the fountain which feeds it, not knowing that
it flows, and will flow on for ever. They have found out a hundred
ingenious devices by which they deceive themselves. Sometimes they tell
us that the public feeling about Reform was caused by the events which
took place at Paris about fourteen months ago; though every observant
and impartial man knows, that the excitement which the late French
revolution produced in England was not the cause but the effect of that
progress which liberal opinions had made amongst us. Sometimes they
tell us th