or
Revolution. One or the other I am certain that we must and shall have.
I assure you that the violence of the people, the bigotry of the Lords,
and the stupidity and weakness of the Ministers, alarm me so much that
even my rest is disturbed by vexation and uneasy forebodings; not for
myself; for I may gain, and cannot lose; but for this noble country,
which seems likely to be ruined without the miserable consolation of
being ruined by great men. All seems fair as yet, and will seem fair for
a fortnight longer. But I know the danger from information more accurate
and certain than, I believe, anybody not in power possesses; and I
perceive, what our men in power do not perceive, how terrible the danger
is.

I called on Lord Lansdowne on Sunday. He told me distinctly that he
expected the Bill to be lost in the Lords, and that, if it were
lost, the Ministers must go out. I told him, with as much strength of
expression as was suited to the nature of our connection, and to his age
and rank, that, if the Ministers receded before the Lords, and hesitated
to make Peers, they and the Whig party were lost; that nothing remained
but an insolent oligarchy on the one side, and an infuriated people on
the other; and that Lord Grey and his colleagues would become as odious
and more contemptible than Peel and the Duke of Wellington. Why did they
not think of all this earlier? Why put their hand to the plough, and
look back? Why begin to build without counting the cost of finishing?
Why raise the public appetite, and then baulk it? I told him that the
House of Commons would address the King against a Tory Ministry. I
feel assured that it would do so. I feel assured that, if those who are
bidden will not come, the highways and hedges will be ransacked to get
together a reforming Cabinet. To one thing my mind is made up. If nobody
else will move an address to the Crown against a Tory Ministry, I will.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

London: October 17, 1831.

My dear Ellis,--I should have written to you before, but that I mislaid
your letter and forgot your direction. When shall you be in London? Of
course you do not mean to sacrifice your professional business to the
work of numbering the gates, and telling the towers, of boroughs in
Wales. [Mr. Ellis was one of the Commissioners appointed to arrange
the boundaries of Parliamentary boroughs in connection with the Reform
Bill.] You will come back, I suppose, with your head full of ten pound