Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/58

vote, and everybody knew that his case was lost. On the 19th, what was left of the committee met. There were but twenty-five members present, and there were two dissenting voices to the resolution—"that it is the opinion of this committee that the continuance of the present ministers in their offices after the House of Commons has declared by repeated resolutions that they do not possess the confidence of that House, and has addressed his Majesty for their removal, is contrary to the essential principles of the Constitution, injurious to the most valuable interests of the nation, and has a manifest tendency to prolong the unhappy distractions and divisions which prevail in this country." Even when the committee got to the real work for which it met, there was one dissentient voice to the resolution, that in the case of a dissolution the committee recommend the electors of Westminster to support Fox. Five days afterwards the dissolution came, the Coalitionists were routed all over the country—160 of them lost their seats, and gained the name of Fox's Martyrs—and their great leader himself narrowly escaped. He was opposed in Westminster by his former friend, Sir Cecil Wray, whom he only defeated by 235 votes; and there was a long and acrimonious struggle over a petition and scrutiny before he could sit for the city, a provisional Scottish seat having to be found for him in the mean time. Thus was broken for a time the connection between the people, needing as they did and longing for constitutional and practical reforms, and the only man who, alike by his abilities and his earnest convictions, was qualified to create and lead a party which should not immediately obtain—for that was impossible—but steadily prepare the way for the accomplishment of the national desire.