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    of the power that enthralled it . Your apathy lias ministered to the energy of . your foes . Your scruples alone have given valour and vitality to the prudent rancour of a faction , who are

    " Tyrants to the weak , but cowards to the strong . " You have released their hatred from the bondage of fear , and do you wpnder that you are reaping the emancipated vengeance of the Odia in longumjacens , qua reconderet , auctaque promeret ?

    I do not believe that the people love Reform less now than they loved it in 1831 ; but the evil genius of corruption and the vigilance of faction have overpowered the nakedness of principle . You achieved the Reform Bill ; you placed in the hands of the poor man a rich and precious boon : but you gave him not the power of defending it against the thieves who , you must have imown would break in and steal .

    My Lord , the error of your policy was the omission of the Ballot : —the canker now preyingon the vitals of your Government is the " dogged obstinacy" with which you resist it . This it is that dissevers your friends and strengthens your foes ; those with " whom you unnaturally coalesce in hostility to the loud demand of the nation . I congratulate you on the indisposition which

    rescued you from the doom of defending your determination on the 7 th of March . I confess that I can conceive few human penances more afflicting to a man of your intellect than that of fathering second-hand sophisms so pitiably puerile as those wherewith " Reformers " can alone resist the Ballot . I congratulate you

    that you escaped the pleasing irony of Mr Charles Buller , the commiseration of your friends , and the gratification of owing the success of your arguments to the charitable aid of your enemies . It was an enterprise creditable to the heroism of the Secretary at War .

    A very singular objection was advanced by Lord Howicfc : it was that , under the Ballot , the suborners of votes , landlords , &c , would be able to keep voters away from the poll ' . Did it not strike the noble Lord that the most dependent voters

    could alone be subjected to this excessive stretch of tyranny ? If so , it is precisely those votes which have hitherto ministered to corruption , which it is charged upon the Ballot that it neutralizes . This objection , therefore , in fact amounts to thi ^ that the suborners will be reduced to the disuse of the main

    instruments of their power , and be under the necessity of leaving a fair field to independent electors of both opinions . VLii Lordship is like Mrs Malaprop , a most polite arguer , for ev / erjf other word he utters is in favour of his antagonists . Lord Howick objected to the Ballot , that it would destroy th $ salutary encouragement afforded by the publicity of the votes of men of influential integrity * His Lordship forgets that tkt

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    Hinti to the Home Secretary . 259

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• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 1, 1837, page 259, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1831/page/4/