On 16 October, 1834, the Houses of Parliament were consumed by fire, and Barry was entrusted with designs for the erection of a new palace, which was begun in 1840. Now was the opportunity for which Haydon had yearned. The new Houses of Parliament must receive decoration in fresco. In 1842 a Fine Arts Commission issued a notice of conditions for a cartoon competition. Haydon welcomed this with delight. Who but he was competent to execute such great works? And he laboured hard at the study of fresco and in the preparation of cartoons. But he was disappointed at not being given the chief place, without question, in the decoration of the Houses. “After thirty-eight years of bitter suffering,” he wrote, “perpetual struggle, incessant industry, undaunted perseverance, four imprisonments, three ruins, and five petitions to the House--never letting the subject of State support rest night or day, in prison or out; turning everything before the public--the wants of his family, the agonies of his wife, the oppression of the Academy, directing all to the great cause [of High Art], it is curious to see that the man who has got hold of the public heart, who is listened to and hailed by the masses--it is curious, as a bit of human justice, to find chairman, committee, witnesses, pupils, avoid throughout the whole inquiry any thought, word, or deed which could convey to a foreign nation or a native artist, a noble lord or an honourable member, that there was such a creature as Haydon on the earth!” The opening of the Cartoon Exhibition was fixed for 3 July, 1843. Already, on 27 June, Haydon had received intelligence that his cartoons had been rejected. It was a bitter blow. But he struggled on till April, 1846, when he received another, that was final, and crushed his spirits. His cartoons should be seen and appreciated by the public. He hired a room in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, in which to exhibit them, together with some of his historical paintings--“Aristides Banished from Naples,” “Nero Playing upon his Harp whilst Rome was Burning,” and some others. In the large front room of the Egyptian Hall, General Tom Thumb was holding his levees, and a swarm of people crowded to these, and very few looked in on Haydon’s exhibition. In his diary he enters: “21 April. Tom Thumb had 12,000 people last week. B. R. Haydon 133-1/2 (the 1/2 a little girl). Exquisite taste of the English people!” He closed his exhibition on 18 May, and had lost by it £111 8s. 10d. He wrote: “I have not decayed, but the people have been corrupted. I am the same, they are not.”