Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/100

 86 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1800- and political conditions of his time it was impossible for him to carry out, when he was in office, the objects for which he had striven when in opposition. So that the time of what might be called his success as a politician was the time of his worst failure as a statesman. There were no instruments either in Parliament or in the constituencies with which he could perform the work on which his heart was set. It was this which made it inevitable that he should be associated with men who shared neither his hopes nor his aims. The differ- ence was more in appearance than in essence, as to whether his colleagues were Whigs like Grenville and Windham, who were set against any increase of the popular element in the State, or Tories and King's friends, who disliked all change. This misfortune was more striking, but not more real, when he sat in the Cabinet with North or with Sidmouth, the repre- sentatives of a party which hated him, and whose principles he hated. It was when he was free from the restraints of office ; when he could become the mouthpiece of the unen- franchised millions of his countrymen, setting forth their sufferings and demanding their rights ; when he was the champion of liberty and progress ; it was then, with few followers and little power, that he was really successful in serving the best interest of his country, and in building up the solid foundation of his own great fame. The administration, weak and divided as it was, could not long survive its greatest member. With the sitting Parlia- ment clearly nothing could be done. It had existed only four sessions, and during that short period it had swung round from Addington to Pitt, from Pitt to the coalition ; it had been constant only in its determination to support the King and to resist change. There was just a hope that a new Parliament, elected under their direct influence, might maintain in office ministers many of whom were Whigs. The chance was not great, but it seemed worth trying, and so dissolution was suddenly announced. The experiment was a failure, as it could scarcely help being. The controlling influences over the constituencies, the borough-mongers, landlords, and placemen,