Unless some new and foreign element should interpose, I look for decided progress in enlarging the popular features of the constitution, and diminishing the influence of the aristocracy....

It is impossible not to perceive traces of the influence of our institutions upon all these changes....

The progress of the liberal cause, not in England alone, but all over the world, is, in a measure, in our hands[1395]." The "Liberal progress" was more rapid, even, than Adams anticipated.
Palmerston, ill for some months past, died on October 18, 1865.

Russell succeeded him as head of the Ministry, and almost immediately declared himself in favour of Parliamentary reform even though a majority in both Houses was still opposed to such a measure.

Russell's desertion of his earlier attitude of "finality" on franchise expansion correctly represented the acceptance, though unwillingly, by both political parties of the necessity of reform.