The new ministers were pledged to do something towards purifying Parliament, and accordingly they carried a measure disqualifying contractors from sitting in the House of Commons, unless their contract should have been made at a public bidding. It was thought that government contractors might be too easily moved to support the party that happened to be in power. Alderman Harley, who sat with Sir George Cornewall for the county of Hereford, was one of those whom the Bill affected, inasmuch as he held a contract for supplying the army in Canada, Nova Scotia, Carolina, New York and the West Indies with money. He rose from his seat in the House and boldly defended himself. He had never (he said) asked for the contract; he was not in the habit of asking favours of ministers; "he got his contract in consequence of an address which the late Lord Suffolk intended to have moved to the king, that his majesty would be pleased to confer upon him some mark of his favour ... he was afterwards offered a pension which he would not accept, saying at the same time that he had rather have something in the way of his profession; on this he got the gold contract, which he fulfilled for twelve years with the fairest character, and he now felt himself hurt indeed that he should be treated as if he were a criminal, in being forced to give up a valuable branch of his business, or renounce the honour, which he held so high, of sitting in Parliament."[501] The measure was carried on the 1st May. As Harley retained his seat, and continued to hold it until 1802, it is presumed he gave up his contract. On the 7th, William Pitt, the second son of the late Earl Chatham--who had already displayed such oratorical powers in defence of Burke's economical reform Bill that Burke himself, no less delighted than surprised, had declared him to be not a chip of the old block, but "the old block itself"[502]--moved for a committee to examine into the state of the representation of the country. The motion was rejected by only a majority of twenty, the closest division that the reformers ever achieved until 1831, the eve of their ultimate success. [Sidenote: Military reform, May, 1782.]