to the latest moment; and having done that, how
could I stand in this place as minister, in order to
recommend the adoption of that bill of which I
had been the chief opponent? I therefore replied,
-- I admit upon the impulse of the moment, but
upon an impulse which my maturer judgment only
served to confirm, -- that no authority or example of
any man, or any number of men, could shake my
resolution not to accept office under existing circum-
stances, upon such conditions.' After this peremptory
refusal of Sir Robert Peel, all the hopes of the Tories
vanished; the Whig Cabinet was reconstructed; the
majority of its adversaries, by absenting themselves,
at the King's request, from the House of Peers,
allowed the Reform Bill to pass. This question being
thus settled, Parliament was dissolved; the elections
gave the Whig and Radical Reformers an immense
majority; and on the 5th of February, 1833, Sir
Robert Peel entered the new House of Commons, at
the head of a little army of vanquished partizans, who
hastened to close their ranks around him, in sadness
at first, but ere long docile and disciplined under his
leadership, as much from necessity as from choice.

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