The bill was promptly sent up to the Peers, and Lord Grey proposed the second reading on October 3 in a speech of sustained eloquence. Lord Grey spoke as if he felt the occasion to be the most critical event in a political career which had extended to nearly half a century. He struck at once the right key-note, the gravity of the situation, the magnitude of the issues involved, the welfare of the nation. He made a modest but dignified allusion to his own life-long association with the question. 'In 1786 I voted for Reform. I supported Mr. Pitt in his motion for shortening the duration of Parliaments. I gave my best assistance to the measure of Reform introduced by Mr. Flood before the French Revolution.[7] On one or two occasions I originated motions on the subject.' Then he turned abruptly from his own personal association with the subject to what he finely termed the 'mighty interests of the State,' and the course which Ministers felt they must take if they were to meet the demands of justice, and not to imperil the safety of the nation. He laid stress on the general discontent which prevailed, on the political agitation of the last twelve months, on the distress that reigned in the manufacturing districts, on the influence of the numerous political associations which had grown powerful because of that distress, on the suffering of the agricultural population, on the 'nightly alarms, burnings, and popular disturbances,' as well as on the 'general feeling of doubt and apprehension observable in every countenance.' He endeavoured to show that the measure was not revolutionary in spirit or subversive of the British Constitution, as many people proclaimed.