t, which attempt was a mere blind, they carI on with more expense and extravagance than r; they found England at peace with the King Prussia with whom they went to war solely on ground that he had committed an act of ression on Hanover; and, upon that occasion, prime minister, who spoke for the rest, of rse, said that Hanover ought to be conered as dear to us as Hampshire. They granted re pensions without public services, during fifteen months that they were in power, than I ever been granted at any former period in a e space of time. Keeping in mind their forr professions, they were approached with mplaints of abuses which the people hoped t they should now have redressed. These plications, however respectful and humble, y received with more contumely than their decessors had ever exhibited on similar former casions; and, finally, not to dwell longer the enumeration of their offences, they bore emselves towards the people with a loftiness, haughtiness, with disdain and with insoce such as had never been beheld in any nistry that had gone before them. As to parlia ntary reform, not a word escaped them on e subject; and, if spoken of by any indepennt member of parliament, or any-body else, ey treated it with that derision with which men at the words of an idiot.

114. So that, when they were turned out of office, hypocritical as the pretence for turning them out was, foul as were the motives of their rivals, and well as all these were understood by every man of sense in the kingdom, their expulsion from office was a day of jubilee to all England: those who were deluded by the cry of "no popery," rejoiced at an imaginary escape from a return of the fires in Smithfield; and those who had too much sense to be thus deluded, rejoiced at the mortification inflicted on hypocrisy, perfidy, and insolence, such as few men in the world had ever before witnessed.

115. For these reasons, the return of PERCEVAL and his colleagues to power, may be said to have been hailed as a blessing by the nation in general, and by the parliamentary reformers in particular, who saw clearly, that, as long as the Whigs retained their power in the then state of things, there was not the smallest hope of any reform at all, much less of such a reform as would hold out to the people any fair expectation of a redress of their manifold grievances. They knew, indeed, that PERCEVAL and his party were full as much opposed to reform as the Whigs; but they also knew that the Whigs, as soon as they were turned out of power, would return into the ranks of reform, and, with this assurance in their minds, that, without a reform of the parliament, by which they would place the people at their back, they never would enter the paradise of power

n. So that the joy was general when they e chased from that paradise, the wide d before them, and reform for their only

2.

16. Having thus brought the history of the y intrigues, the history of these two celebrated ions, down to the month of February, 1812, must now step back a little, and take a look nose money affairs, the management of which, ng the career of PERCEVAL, laid the foundaof all those changes, all those troubles, all e important events which have taken place e the year 1810. The restriction, as it was ed, on the Bank of England, but which was, reality, a stoppage of the bank, which took e in the month of February, 1796, had made er money, that is to say, bank notes, the legal ler of the country; its sole medium of exnge; its sole measure of value. The history he reign of GEORGE the THIRD, up to the time the commencement of the regency, will be d to contain a detail of all the contrivances which the circulation of gold was supplanted hat of paper-money; the detail of all the acts of iament; of all those numerous financial tricks vhich the country was drained of its gold, and which its money-affairs were kept going hout any real measure of value. But, in the r 1810, PERCEVAL being minister, first of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the

Exchequer, and Vansittart being his secretary of the Treasury, the Whigs, joined by CANNING, HUSKISSON, and some others of the PITT party whom PERCEVAL had kept out of power on account of their evident desire to supplant him; the Whigs, thus joined by these disaffected Tories, made and carried a motion for the appointment of a committee to make inquiry into the causes of the depreciation of the paper-money, compared with bullion. That is to say, to inquire into the causes why a one-pound note would sell in the market for no more than about fourteen shillings in silver of due weight and fineness; or, to state it the other way, why a guinea in gold would sell for seven-and-twenty shillings, which was actually the case when this committee of the House of Commons was moved for and appointed. We must bear in mind, that this committee was called the BULLION COMMITTEE; because, as we shall see further on, it was this committee that laid the foundation of a series of measures, producing, at several stages of the twenty years which have since elapsed, greater confusion in the affairs of the civilized world, greater fluctuation in the nominal value of property of every description, more transfers of property from hand to hand, a greater and more sudden change in men's fortunes, a greater degree of injustice and of suffer ing, than ever was before produced by any power whether of kings, of emperors, of legis

e bodies, of general councils; and whether lucing war, pestilence, or famine, as its ulte effects.

17. The paper-money having depreciated in the -ee before described, and the coin of the realm ng, of course, disappeared, it came into the ds of this bullion committee, who chose one MAS HORNER, a Scotch lawyer, and an Edingh reviewer, as their chairman; it came into heads of this committee, of which CANNING HUSKISSON were two, to make, in the spring ne year, 1810, a report to the house, recomading that the Bank of England should be pelled by law to resume its payments in cie, according to the terms of its charter; is to say, that it should be compelled, at the of two years from the date of the act which proposed to be passed, to pay its notes on and in the current coin of the realm. This Ort was made to the house, as I have observed ore, in 1810; but it did not come on to be cussed until the winter of 1811, when there k place that which will be remembered ing the lives of those who were alive at that e and acting on the scene; but which, if tted to posterity, will hardly be deemed to be sible. PERCEVAL and his party contended inst the passing of the proposed act. Well y might; for to execute the act would have en absolutely impossible without putting a