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corruption and demanded its own regeneration . I have confidence , Electors of Great Britain , in your intelligence , in your principles , in your zeal ; else were it vain to appeal to you at all ; but I cannot be unapprehensive , nor can I be silent , when I consider how many causes and influences there are at work , by which honest minds may be misled and honest
exertions misdirected , our best hopes for a time be blighted , and those blessings of good government ( its tendency to produce which alone makes the Reform Bill worth any thjng ) be materially impaired or indefinitely postponed . Signal as the discomfiture has been of the Tories and boroughmongers , we must not deceive ourselves into the notion that they are unwilling or unable to sustain an arduous conflict in the ensuing elections , and
in many localities , a successful one . Their power as a faction has been broken ; but they may yet , and probably will , make a desperate effort for its recovery . They are strong ia wealth , too much of it drawn from the pockets of the people during long years of almost unchecked plunder ; they are strong in station , having so Jong possessed and availed themselves of that monopoly of power which enabled them to occupy with their myrmidons
every post of authority in church and state ,, from the lord . lieutenancy of a county to the parish constable ; and they are strong in those parliamentary and electioneering tactics , in which the unprincipled have ever an advantage over fair and honest oppo * nents ; in which long practice has given them consummate dex *> terity , and by which they have more than once gained advan * tages that threatened to be fatal over the present
administration , while its enjoying the full confidence of the crown was not yet suspected , and the voice of the nation was loud and strong in its support . True , they have twice been beaten ; but the last two elections were carried by popular enthusiasm in all the heat and exaltation of a life-and-death conflict . At the last election they were cowed , abashed , paralyzed , by the lofty and invincible determination which the reformers universally displayed . They
felt that their bribes and their threats would be alike utterly vain and impotent . They may now hope that , though the combatant was invincible , the victor may be vulnerable . The inconvenience and losses , in many cases even to distress , on the one hand , and the bribes and promises on the other , which many despised then , some may not despise now . Great efforts cannot be incessantly repeated ; the people have made theirs , and the
Tories may now think that theirs may be made with advantage . Having made our onset triumphantly , there yet remains the not less difficult task of sustaining and repelling their onset . They are already at work diligently and extensivel y * though with their characteristic cunning . Wherever the reformers are not on the alert ; wherever they haVe not well organized their committees and arranged their plans ; wherever divisions have sprung up , or
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434 On Parliamentary Pledges ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1832, page 434, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1816/page/2/
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