"حياة ومراسلات اللواء السير جون مالكوم، قائد فرسان وسام الطُهر، المبعوث السابق إلى بلاد فارس وحاكم بومباي؛ من رسائل ومذكرات غير منشورة. في مجلّدين. المجلد II." [‎٥‎٥‎٩] (٦٥٤/٥٧٦)

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MALCOLM IN PARLIAMENT.
559
Those were tlie last days of the imreformed House of
Commons. There was no need to canvass a large con
stituency, and to enter into the turmoil of a popular
election, if you happened to have an influential friend
with a close borough in his gift. Sir John Malcolm had
such a friend in the Duke of Northumberland, and ar
rangements were speedily made to return him for the
borough of Launceston, in Cornwall.
Malcolm had all his life been a Tory. I do not mean
by this that he had very closely watched the struggle of
parties in England, or taken any very great interest in
its vicissitudes, but that he had in very early youth im
bibed a horror of what were then called the " principles
of the French Eevolution," but which would more cor
rectly have been described as its practice; and that he
had ever associated the idea of constitutional changes
with the anarchy and confusion of that tumultuous
era. Many accidental circumstances tended to foster the
growth of these Conservative opinions—not the least of
which was his lifelong admiration of the Duke of Wel
lington, in whom he recognised a leader to be followed as
safely in politics as in war. Loyal to the heart's core in
defence of the Crown and the Constitution, he believed
that both were threatened by the attempts then being
made to render the House of Commons a mere popular
assembly. He believed that the excitement in the
public mind, engendered by vague ideas of impossible
advantages to be conferred upon the many by the limi
tation of the power of the few, was fast hurrying the
people into revolution—and that the reform of the House
of Commons would be only the prelude to great 01 ganic
changes which would end in the ruin of the constitution.
Many great and wise men conscientiously believed this.
The excitement was, doubtless, very great; and theic
were mob-leaders ea^er to increase it by inflammatory
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