" Thus the power of the landed aristocracy, which was the
House of Lords, lacked but little of being the House of Commons
as well. The mass of the nation, which was now rapidly gaining in
education and wealth, had no way of making its influence felt in
Parliament except by the power of public opinion, to which the
periodical and pamphlet press was beginning to give expression.
The condition of the representation, the rotten boroughs, as
those in decay were called, and the pocket boroughs, a name
applied to those which were the property of individuals, opened
the way for shameless corruption. Where the electorate was small
and the secret ballot unknown bribery had free rein. Seats were
openly bought and sold. As early as 1770 the elder Pitt (Lord
Chatham) had placed his finger upon this ailing spot in the
English body politic, and had said, "Before the end of this
century, either the Parliament will reform itself from within, or
be reformed with a vengeance from without." His prediction was
falsified by the reactionary effect of the French Revolution,
which not only made the English aristocracy cautious about
readjusting political arrangements, but kept the minds and hands
of Englishmen so fully occupied with foreign affairs as to divert
attention from their own domestic troubles.
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