This scandal in high places quickened the zeal of parliament for general purity of administration, and led to a disclosure of some grave abuses. One of these, connected with the disposal of captured Dutch property, dated as far back as 1795. Others were found to exist in the navy department and the distribution of Indian patronage; others related to parliamentary elections. Perceval brought in a bill to check the sale and brokerage of offices, nor did Castlereagh himself escape the charge of having procured the election of Lord Clancarty to parliament by the offer of an Indian writership to a borough-monger. A frank explanation saved him from censure, especially as it appeared that the offer had never taken effect. The charge was renewed, in a different form, against both him and Perceval, and their accusers moved for a trial at bar. But as it turned out that undue influence rather than corruption was their alleged offence, and as the avowed object of the resolution was to force on parliamentary reform, it was negatived by an immense majority. Nevertheless, the object was not wholly defeated. The removal of the Duke of York from the command of the army was singularly inopportune, for Sir David Dundas had scarcely been appointed as his successor when a juncture arose specially demanding a combination of energy and experience. The British government, already engaged in the Peninsular war, had at last resolved to take a vigorous part in the new and desperate struggle between France and Austria in Southern Germany. The latent spirit of German nationality, aroused by Napoleon's ruthless treatment of Prussia, and quickened into a flame by sympathy with the uprising in Spain, was embodied in the secret association of the _Tugendbund_; and Austria, smarting under a sense of her own humiliation, mustered up courage to assume the leadership of a national movement. South Germany, governed by old dynasties, which profited by the French alliance, displayed as yet no symptoms of disaffection to France; but in North Germany the old dynasties had been either humbled or deposed, and the general ferment among the people, needed, as the Austrians believed, only the presence of a regular army to break out into a national revolt against the foreigner. Prussia, it is true, was still unwilling to move, because Russia was hostile; but the Austrian court knew well the lukewarmness of Russia's attachment to France, and hoped that a national upheaval would carry the Prussian government along with it. No one, in fact, had played a more active part in rousing Northern Germany than the Prussian minister, Stein, whom Frederick William, by Napoleon's advice, had called to his councils after Tilsit, and who was now compelled to resign his office and take refuge in Austria. [Pageheading: _NAPOLEON IN AUSTRIA._]