When George IV. mounted the throne, the hopes of the Whig party rose high. He was held to be the champion of liberty and reform, and it was a bitter disappointment to those who had regarded him as the friend and pupil of Fox, to find him cast himself into the arms of the Tory party and turn his back on former associates. The leaven of reformed representation had taken such hold of the nation, however, that already a strong party existed, not in the country alone, but in Parliament; yet the prospects of that party were at a very low ebb, till the sudden turn brought about in the first place by the death of the king, and secondly by the “Three days of July” in Paris, when an arbitrary ministry, striving to override the Chamber of Deputies and subvert the constitution, brought about the momentous rising in Paris which cost Charles X. his throne, and raised Louis Philippe to be “King of the Barricades.” With the accession of William IV., the hopes of the Reform party rose high. The Sailor Prince, as the people liked to call him, although he had been something of a Tory in early life, did not stand pledged to any side in politics, and might have the shrewdness to take warning by the fate of his brother of France, and deem it wise and politic to support all that was right and reasonable in the projected scheme of reform. The champions of the movement were Lord Grey, Lord Durham, his son-in-law, Lord John Russell, and Lord Brougham; but the Duke of Wellington and his cabinet were strenuously opposed to any alteration in the existing method of Parliamentary representation; and when Parliament met for the first time in the new king’s reign, in October, the premier plainly stated this opinion in his opening speech, and with his customary boldness asserted that not only would he introduce no measure of reform, but he would strenuously oppose any that should be brought before the House. It is well for a minister to have the courage of his opinions; but from the moment of the delivery of that speech the existing ministry became highly unpopular throughout the country. All far-seeing men, of whatever shade of opinion, recognised that, whether for good or ill, the time had come when something must be done to give the large cities and the opulent middle classes a voice in the representation of their country. The rotten boroughs, however desirable from a partisan point of view, were obviously an abuse, and were doomed; the country was in a state of ferment which threatened to become dangerous, and the spirit shown by the Wellington Ministry was one which was at that juncture impossible to carry out in practical legislation. They recognised this themselves, and resigned in November, upon a very small and insignificant defeat, knowing that if they did not do so then, they would only be forced later on upon a more crucial question.