On the 15th November, the day that the Wellington ministry received its _coup de grace_, a Common Council was summoned to sit at the Mansion House, in order to consider Brougham's motion, which was to be made in parliament the following day. It then passed the following resolutions:--[800] "RESOLVED that this court, as the representative body of the citizens of London, having at various times expressed its opinion of the propriety and necessity of a revision of the present state of the representation of the commons in parliament, is called upon in an especial manner at the present moment (after the declaration of the first minister of the crown, that the representation is satisfactory to the country), to make a renewed avowal of its conviction that the House of Commons as at present constituted is as far from being satisfactory to the country as it is from being a real representation of the people. "RESOLVED that the power now exercised by various peers and other interested persons of returning a large portion of the members, is wholly incompatible with the true end and design of a House of Commons, which in principle and in practice, ought to be a representation not of a private, but of general interests, an effectual control upon taxation and the public expenditure, and the organ by which the commons of the realm may fully exercise that share in the legislature to which, by the constitution they are entitled. "RESOLVED that petitions founded upon these resolutions, be forthwith presented to both Houses of Parliament, praying them to institute a full and faithful inquiry into the state of the representation with the view to the remedying of such defects therein as time and various encroachments have produced, so as to give real effect to the essential principles of the constitution, namely, that members of parliament shall be freely chosen, that peers shall not interfere in elections, and that in the House of Commons, the king may with truth, be said to meet his people in parliament." Before the petitions could be laid before parliament,[801] the ministry had resigned. [Sidenote: The Reform Bill introduced, 1 March, 1831.] The new prime minister was Lord Grey, who, as a young man, had urged the necessity of parliamentary reform as early as 1792. Among those who were content to accept office under the new ministry, although in an inferior capacity, was Lord John Russell, who had also done good service for the cause, and who was now to be entrusted with the task of introducing the long looked for Bill. On the 1st March (1831) the first Reform Bill, which for the last sixty years the City had been anxiously awaiting, and for which it had agitated with all the forces at its command, was at length brought in. [Sidenote: The Bill approved by Common Council and Livery.]