It is by comprehending domestic parliamentary politics in Britain itself that the origins of the commissions of enquiry into empire in 1819 can be best explained. This chapter tracks these beginnings through the power struggles that lay at the heart of Prime Minister Lord Liverpool’s fraught period in office (1812 – 1827). As we explore the parliamentary machinations that led to the calling of each commission, we come to a new understanding of the tension between politics and reform that has so long absorbed historians. These inquiries were always more than diversions to control Parliament, even if this was a key goal in their establishment. They also exemplified the very peculiar cast of the Liverpool regime, which had its own part-genuine and part-defensive commitments to imperial reform.