Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/608

 594 stigmatised. On the 30th of April, Mr. Grey, as representative of this society, rose to announce that in the next session he meant to introduce a regular measure for the reform of parliament; that it was necessary, he said, had long been asserted by the two leading men of the house—Pitt and Fox.



Pitt rose on this, and declared himself still the friend of reform: but he contended that this was not the time to attempt it. He had only, he said, to point to the state of things in France, and to the effervescence which those principles of anarchy had produced here, to show the necessity of remaining quiet for the present; neither did he believe that the great body of the English people would support any immediate change in our constitution. Fox upbraided Pitt with the abandonment of his former sentiments, and contended that we had only to look at the money spent lately in the armament against Russia, money