234 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1833- there are eighteen English, one Scotch, and twenty-seven Irish members. In the next Parliament, elected in 1835, there are recorded nineteen English, two Scotch, and thirty Irish Radicals.* This list does not accord with the generally received opinions. Speaking of the state of things after 1832, Sir Erskine May says, " The Radical reformers or Radicals, long known as an active party in the country, had at length gained a footing in the House of Commons, where they had about fifty representatives." f The estimate made by Harriet Martineau is much higher. Speaking of the time of the dissolution in 1837, she says, " From the beginning of the reform struggle the number of Radical reformers in the House had never been less than seventy or eighty ; and in the last Parliament they had been one hundred and fifty. It was strange that they had not yet been a powerful party ; and it would be stranger still if they did not become so now." The difficulty of arriving at any definite calculation of numbers arises from the fact, that although at that time the Radicals were thought of as separated from the Whigs, it was rather as individuals than as a distinct Parliamentary party. They had no formal organization, no acknowledged leaders who could call with authority for a display of their full power, and they made no pretence to any official position in the Government. One special element of uncertainty was the action of the Irish members, who formed, numerically, an important contingent of the force. Their votes were only given in full number on some few of the broader questions of national politics ; and where they were allied to the most Liberal section, that is, on ecclesiastical subjects, the union in action was not based on agreement in principle. The English Radicals attacked the Irish Church from the side of religious liberty ; the Irish members had mainly in view the interests and rights of Roman Catholicism. On another
- Although evidently incomplete, the lists are interesting, and the names given
as Radicals in the Parliaments of 1832 and 1835, and the constituencies they repre- sented, are set out in an Appendix. t "Constitutional History," vol. ii. p. 60. + " History of the Thirty Years' Peace," vol. ii. p. 351.
