130 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1815- tation of the country, and to fill the minds of the people with vague and indefinite alarms. The hon. baronet had complained that the reformers were represented to be wild and visionary theorists, and had called upon the House to state where those wild and visionary reformers were to be found. If the hon. baronet did not know where to find them, he would refer him to those persons who had advised him during the last session to bring forward his celebrated motion for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage." That this was no feeling peculiar to Lord John and his immediate connections was shown in the following session, when, in moving an amendment to the address, Tierney,* the acknow- ledged leader of the opposition, spoke as follows : " With regard to plans of reform, it was unfortunately too true that some men in this country entertained the strangest and most extravagant notions of Parliamentary reform ; and here he begged to be understood to be as much an enemy as any man to what were called the Radical leaders, he was as willing as any man to mark, in the strongest terms, his contempt of their understanding, his disgust at their proceedings, and his jealousy of their objects. . . . The right hon. gentlemen who were in office were unpopular with the Radicals, but the unfortunate Whigs who had long left office came in for a sort of post obit of unpopularity." It was the policy of the Whig leaders, clearly enough expressed in these speeches, to stigmatize the Radicals as ignorant and violent people, altogether low and impracticable. This doctrine was acceptable enough to the landowners, the squires, the borough-owners, on both sides the then existing House of Commons. The attacks of the Whigs were, how- ever, to be compensated for by the formation, which was at the very time going on, of a school of political and moral philosophy, small in numbers, but of great authority derived from their learning, their ability, and their courage. The so-called Philosophical Radicals, following the methods and sharing the conclusions of Bentham, performed the duty of
- On the 23rd of November, 1819.
