Catholics. But it was easier to do justice to the Catholics than to reform Parliament. There were so many members who found it easy to get into Parliament by getting the favour of a Duke or Lord, who would not find it easy to get in if they had to get the votes of the inhabitants of a large town. Besides this there were others who objected to the change for better reasons. Even Canning, who was in favour of the Catholics, was against Parliamentary Reform. He thought that if noblemen and gentlemen were no longer able to name members of Parliament, there would be fewer men of real intelligence and ability elected. Whilst this feeling prevailed, there was no chance that the House of Commons would listen to any scheme of Parliamentary Reform, unless some one was found to propose it, who would be content to ask for only a slight change at first. Nobody who asked for universal suffrage, or for anything like it, would get any one to follow him. Fortunately a young man, Lord John Russell, took the matter up. Even before the death of George III. he had persuaded the House of Commons to disfranchise four boroughs where the votes were openly sold; that is to say, to take away from them the right of electing members of Parliament. As usual, the Lords refused to assent to the change. After that Lord John Russell got one little Cornish village disfranchised. He proposed to give the right to Leeds. The Lords gave it to Yorkshire. After this some time passed before anything more was done.

8. The Canning and Goderich Ministries.-In

1827 Lord Liverpool died. As soon as it was knowa that he was too ill to remain at his post he resigned. Canning became Prime Minister. Great things were expected from him. He had not been three months in office when he was taken ill and died. Canning was succeeded by Lord Goderich, whose ministry only lasted for a very short time. During that time important news arrived from the East. The Greeks had for some years been fighting for their independence against the Turks. Some Englishmen went to their help; amongst others the great English poet Lord Byron, who died of a fever caught in an unhealthy swamp. The Turks, not being themselves able to conquer them, sent to the Egyptians for help. An Egyptian army landed in Greece, and committed great atrocities, killing the people, and destroying everything that it was possible to destroy. A fleet composed of English, French, Austrian, and Russian ships was sent to Greece, and destroyed the Turkish fleet at Navarino. In consequence of this, the Egyptian army left Greece, and the war came to an end. Not long afterwards Greece became an independent state.

9. The Wellington Ministry and the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.-The Duke of Wellington followed Goderich as Prime Minister. Peel was again Home Secretary, an office which he had given up when Liverpool resigned. The new Ministers agreed to a Bill proposed by Lord John Russell for the relief of the Dissenters. By the laws made in the time of Charles II. they were forbidden to hold offices in towns or under the Government. Lord John Russell

had taken up their cause. He proposed that the law should be repealed, and he accomplished his object without difficulty.

10. The Clare Election.-The Ministers had given way about the Dissenters, but they had made up their mind not to give way to the Catholics. But they had not been long in office before they discovered that it would be very difficult to resist much longer. There was an election in Ireland in the county of Clare. Though Catholics could not sit in Parliament, they were allowed to vote for members. O'Connell was elected. As he was a Catholic he was by law unable to sit in the House of Commons. Yet it was certain that whenever Parliament was dissolved, almost every county in the three provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught would elect a Catholic. In the fourth province, that of Ulster, Protestants were as numerous, perhaps more numerous, than the Catholics. Protestants and Catholics spoke angrily of one another, and it seemed very likely that they would take arms against one another. The cruel massacres and outrages which had desolated Ireland in 1798 might come again in 1829.

11. Catholic Emancipation. Both Wellington and Peel had been all their lives against the Catholics. The majority of the English people probably agreed with them. They were afraid that if the Catholics got power they would use it to hurt the Protestants. Wellington, however, had seen what war was, and he had no wish to see a civil war break out in Ireland. Anything, he thought, would be

better than that. He resolved to give way. A Bill was brought into Parliament and passed into a law, that from that time Catholics should have equal rights with their Protestant fellow-subjects. It was one of the few reforms which have been made against the popular feeling in England. Perhaps if Parliament had been reformed and the great towns had got their right of voting, it might not so easily have been carried.

12. The New Police.-Another improvement of a different kind was owing to Peel. The police in London, whose business it was to take up thieves and other criminals, did not do their duty. Peel introduced much better policemen, who were well disciplined. The example was afterwards imitated in the rest of England. The nickname of Peeler,' which is sometimes used for a policeman, is derived from Peel's surname, and the other nickname of 'Bobby,' from his Christian name Robert. In June 1830 King George IV. died.

13. Roads and Coaches.-Together with the political improvements which were being introduced, there were others which produced great advantages of another kind. Trade and manufactures had grown so much that the canals which had been made in the beginning of the reign of George III. were no longer sufficient to convey the goods which had to be carried from one part of the country to another. It was true that the ordinary roads were much better than they had formerly been. Telford had taught roadmakers that it was better to go round a hill than to go over it. Macadam had suggested

that, by breaking up stones, a hard surface could be made in which carriages could pass without sinking in the mud up to the axle-trees, as used to be the case, and had made travelling much easier than it had once been. Coaches flew about the country at what was then thought the wonderful rate of ten miles an 'hour instead of crawling along at the slowest possible pace. But the new coaches would not carry heavy goods, and more than one person had hit upon the idea that a steam-engine might be employed to do the work. Of many attempts not one succeeded till George Stephenson took the matter in hand.

14. Railways and Locomotives.-George Stephenson was born in Northumberland, a poor collier's son. He learnt something about machinery in the colliery in which he was employed, and after he was grown up he saved money to pay for instruction in reading and writing. He began as an engineer by mending a pumping-engine, and after making some other engines he tried to make a locomotive. The new engine was not successful at first, but he improved it till it did all that it was required to do. It dragged trucks of coal from the colliery more easily and cheaply than horses could do. Some years later the first real railway was made between Stockton and Darlington. As yet however Stephenson's engines did not go very fast. The next railway to be made was one between Liverpool and Manchester. Stephenson made it go over Chat Moss, a bog over which a man could not walk. When the railway was made, the proprietors began to be frightened at the idea of using steam engines. Stephenson persuaded

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