Chapter XXXIX: {george IV. 1829—1830} (2)

This attack of the attorney-general called up Mr. Peel, who closed the debate. After complaining of the violence of his colleague, he reverted to the grounds on which he had first proposed the bill; again urging the state of Ireland, and the absolute necessity of doing something; the inability of his opponents to do anything better, though they vehemently opposed the measure now offered; the impossibility of any government standing which should set itself on avowed principles against concession; and the folly of treating the question as one which had any connexion with religion. The Catholics were never excluded at any time because of their religious creed; they were excluded for a supposed deficiency of civil worth, and the religious test was applied to them, not to detect the worship of saints, or any other tenet of their religion, but as a test to discover whether they were Roman Catholics. It was a test to discover the bad, intriguing subject, not the religionist; and, therefore, when he parted with the declaration against transubstantiation, it was not from any doubt which he entertained as to the doctrines of the Roman Catholics, but from looking at it as a test of exclusion, and from thinking that, when the exclusion was deemed unnecessary, the test of exclusion, might be dispensed with. Mr. Peel complained grievously that an unfair application had been made of his unhappy phrase, that the proposed measure would be “a breaking in upon the constitution of 1688.” He meant no more, he said, than that there would be an alteration in the words of the Bill of Rights: and if an alteration of its words were a breaking in upon the constitution, then had the constitution been often broken in upon. He called upon the house to consider the altered position of affairs in Ireland since the annunciation of this measure had been made; and warned it that if the bill was rejected, it would be attended with consequences fatal to the repose of the empire. He added, “I am well aware that the fate of this measure cannot now be altered: if it succeed, the credit will redound to others; if it fail, the responsibility will devolve upon me, and upon those with whom I have acted. These chances, with the loss of private friendship, and the alienation of public confidence, I must have foreseen and calculated before I ventured to recommend these measures. I assure the house that, in conducting them, I have met with the severest blow which it has ever been my lot to experience in my life; but I am convinced that the time will come, though I may not live perhaps to see it, when full justice will be done by men of all parties to the motives on which I have acted; when this question will be fully settled, and when others will see that I had no other alternative than to act as I have acted. They will then admit that the course which I have followed, and which I am still prepared to follow, whatever imputation it may expose me to, is the only course which is necessary for the diminution of the undue, illegitimate, and dangerous power of the Roman Catholics, and for the maintenance and security of the Protestant religion.”

The result of the division on this great question was three hundred and fifty-three for the second reading of the bill, and one hundred and eighty against it. The success of the bill in the commons was therefore certain; and it passed the committee in three days. During its progress in the committee several amendments were moved by the opponents of the bill, but they were all rejected; and on the 31st of March it was carried up to the lords by Mr. Peel, with an unusually large escort of members. It was immediately read a first time; and the Duke of Wellington then moved that it should be read a second time on the 2nd of April. This motion was opposed by Lord Bexley and the Earl of Malmesbury, as too precipitate, urging that on all former occasions a longer time had been allowed for consideration, and that breathless haste was the conduct of men called upon to decide as another dictated, rather than of legislators called to deliberate on a grave matter of public policy. Lord Holland, however, justified the motion, by referring to the haste with which the statutes about to be repealed had been originally passed: and it was carried without a division.

On the appointed day the Duke of Wellington moved the second reading of the bill, by stating that he trusted the house would believe that the course which he had now adopted on this question had not been adopted without the fullest conviction that it was a sound and a just one. His grace then went on to show the state of Ireland as it had existed for many years, describing it as bordering upon civil war, and attended by all the evils of civil war, adducing this state of things in justification of the measure. He conceived it his duty, he said, to correct the evil by other means than force. “I am one of those,” said his grace, “who have been engaged in war beyond most men, and, unfortunately, principally in civil war; and I must say this, that, at any sacrifice whatever, I would avoid every approach to civil war. I would do all I could, even sacrifice my life, to prevent such a catastrophe.

“Nothing could be so disastrous to the country; nothing so destructive to it prosperity as civil war; nothing could take place that tended so completely to demoralize and degrade as such a conflict, in which the hand of neighbour is raised against neighbour; that of the father against the son, and of the son against the father; of the brother against the brother; of the servant against his master: a conflict which must end in confusion and destruction. If civil war be so bad when occasioned by resistance to government; if such a collision is to be avoided by all means possible, how much more necessary is it to avoid a civil war, in which, in order to put down one portion, it would be necessary to arm and excite the other? I am quite sure that there is no man that now hears me who would not shudder were such a proposition made to him; yet such must have been the result had we attempted to terminate the state of things to which I have referred otherwise than by a measure of conciliation. In this view, then, merely, I think we are justified in the measure we have proposed to parliament.” On the other hand, his grace asked, what benefit could arise to any one class in the state from pertinaciously persisting in an opposition which had already produced bad consequences, and threatened worse? One of the chief obstacles to the measure, he continued, was the safety of the Protestant church. Now that part of the united church of England and Ireland which was placed in the latter kingdom, was in the peculiar situation of being the church of the minority of the people; and if violence against it were apprehended, he would ask whether that church was more likely to be defended against violence by an unanimous government, and a parliament united with government and with itself, or by a divided government, and a parliament of which the parts were opposed to each other? No man could look with patience and attention at the present state of this question without being convinced that the real interests of all classes in this country, and particularly the church itself, required the consideration and settlement now proposed. This settlement would give security to the church, strength to every department of the government, and general tranquillity to the country at large. In conclusion, his grace said, “On the whole I entertain no doubt that, after this measure shall have passed, the Roman Catholics will cease to exist as a separate interest in the state as they at present do. I have no doubt that they will cease to excite disunion in this or the other house of parliament. Parliament will then, I hope, be disposed to look at their conduct, and everything as respects that country, as they would look upon the people and the affairs of England and Scotland. I will say, however, that, if I am disappointed in my hopes of tranquillity after a trial has been given to the measure, I shall have no scruple in coming down to parliament and laying before it the state of the case, and calling for the necessary powers to enable the government to take the steps suited to the occasion. I shall do this in the same confidence that parliament will support me, that I feel in the present case.”

In reply, the Archbishop of Canterbury moved an amendment, that the bill should be read a second time that day six months. He was surprised, he said, that any man remembering the conduct of the Catholics at all times, and who knew, as every one must know, that even what was now proposed fell short of their ultimate objects, should attempt to justify a measure, on the ground that it would bring peace to Ireland. When he considered the use which had been made of the concession of the elective franchise, to produce consequences which, it was said, had rendered the present measure necessary; he could see no return of gratitude in the conduct of the Roman Catholics. When, too, he considered the liberality of the public, which had established a college for educating the Roman Catholic youth; when he looked at the liberality of parliament granting supplies for its support; when he saw those very men who had been bred up at the public expense becoming members of an Association which had existed in contempt of the government, and in defiance of the laws, lending themselves to the exaction of a tax levied on the people, and converting their places of worship into meetings for factious purposes; when he looked at all these circumstances, he saw little hope that the measure proposed would produce either tranquillity in Ireland, or safety to the church. To him it appeared irreconcilable with the Protestant essence of the constitution. It mattered not what circumstances produced the laws about to be repealed; they had been adopted, and re-established at the Revolution, as a necessary security for the constitution. By the coronation-oath, as then arranged, the king swore to maintain the true profession of the gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion established by law. How, he asked, was the king to do this? By attending churches in person? No! The king could only act by responsible advisers; and, therefore, when such a clause was inserted in the oath, it was presumed that the king would always have proper servants about him, who would enable him to discharge the obligations imposed upon him by the oath. Suppose the king to be surrounded by ministers who were all Roman Catholics; if so, it was clear he could do nothing towards fulfilling those obligations, for whatever measures he might contemplate for that purpose, there would be no one to carry them into effect. No adviser or minister of the crown, who could not enter into the views of the king for the maintenance of the true profession of the gospel and of the Protestant reformed religion, could assist the king to fulfil those obligations which were imposed upon him by the coronation-oath. His grace then went on to show the vital importance of having ministers in every department of the state well affected towards the Protestant religion. For instance, the secretary of the colonies, he said, had absolute power in respect to the church; church patronage was at his disposal, and the clergy were under his control. In dissensions, also, among the clergy, and for the protection of their interests, he was the person appealed to; and if there was not a strong Protestant spirit in the secretary, it would be in his power to discourage to the most alarming degree, and even almost to extinguish, the church of England in many of the colonies. Under all these circumstances, therefore, his grace concluded by moving, as an amendment, that the bill should be read a second time that day six months.

The debate in the lords continued four successive nights by adjournment. The spiritual lords who spoke, in addition to the mover of the amendment, were the Archbishops of York and Armagh, the Bishops of London, Salisbury, Durham, and Oxford. All of these opposed the bill, except the last, who contended that concession was called for, not merely by the situation of Ireland, but by the turn which talent and education had taken in this kingdom with reference to the question. Those peers, said his lordship, who opposed concession, were men advanced in years; but the individuals who were rising in the natural progress of things to fill the high offices of the state, were, with scarcely an exception, in favour of this measure. But independently of the fact that the talent, intelligence, and education of the country were marshalled in favour of concession, there were abundant reasons why he should vote for the measure. He would vote for it because it came recommended by his majesty’s speech from the throne; seconded by the declaration of the heir presumptive to the crown; supported by all the members of the royal family, except the Duke of Cumberland; carried through the other house by an overwhelming majority; supported by many members of the house of lords; supported, too, for many years by that great and eloquent statesman whom Providence had recently snatched away from the service of his country; and specially brought forward by those ministers who had hitherto been champions of the Protestant interest. These were extraordinary circumstances which had never been combined before; and he thought that a bill introduced in these circumstances would in a few years produce a different state of things in Ireland. As to the safety of the church of England he had no doubt, since the people of England possessed the most hostile feelings towards all the doctrines of Popery. The Irish church was certainly, he said, placed in an anomalous situation, and he had no wish to depreciate the dangers to which she was exposed; but instead of being increased by the measure before the house, they would be diminished by it. On the other hand, the Archbishop of Armagh argued, that the Irish church had everything to fear from Catholic emancipation. If the house, indeed, could subdue the intolerant spirit of the church of Rome, disarm the priests of their influence over the people, and withdraw the people from their allegiance to the see of Rome, making them citizens of their own country, and letting them take their stand among other dissenters, all might be well. But would any man, he asked, say that they could make the church of Rome tolerant, or persuade the priesthood of that church to hold an inferior rank to a clergy, the validity of whose orders they denied, and whose church they reviled as adulterous? Could any one suppose that the Roman Catholic priests would quit their hold upon the consciences, wills, and the passions of men, when their spiritual despotism was the most powerful engine for their own aggrandisement? The Roman Catholic priesthood must ever stand alone. It had set the indelible mark of separation on its own forehead, by its unnatural, though politic, restrictions, by its claim to exclusive pre-eminence, and by its dangerous and unconstitutional connexion with a foreign state. Ascendancy, he contended, would be placed within the reach of the Roman Catholics by this bill; and could any one believe that they would not attempt to seize upon that ascendancy when it was well known that the promotion of the interests of their church was with them a point of principle and of honour, which they considered as far superior to the claims of country or kindred. The confederacy of the priesthood, actuated by a hatred of whatever was Protestant, would leave no means untried to exalt their church at the expense of the Protestant establishment, and especially when they found that those who ought to support that establishment were divided into parties. Such must be their objects and their wishes; and the bill would furnish them with both. The bishops of London and Durham expressed the same sentiments regarding the inevitable danger to the Protestant establishments, which must necessarily spring from what was neither less nor more than a deliberate arming of the Catholics with the power required to effect objects which the Catholics themselves bad the caution carefully to conceal or disguise. They also denounced the folly of legislating upon the principle that men would lay down their mischievous designs whenever they obtained the means of putting them in execution. The enemies of Protestantism knew better; and it was remarkable, the Bishop of Durham observed, how strange a combination of persons hailed the dawn of the new policy. It had united in its favour the acclamations of Catholics and of all classes of liberals, down to the lowest grade of Socinians. When men, he added, whose opinions led them to keep down the ascendancy of any church, and others whose conscience bound them to labour against the ascendancy of the Protestant church, so acted, he could not help thinking that the consequences of the measure would be anything but friendly to that ascendancy.

Of the temporal peers the defence of the bill was principally undertaken by the lord-chancellor, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Viscount God erich, the Earl of Westmoreland, Earl Grey, and Lord Plunkett. The lord-chancellor had a difficult task to perform. He was among those who up to this period had earnestly refuted all the pleas of concession which were now brought forward, and he had now to confute all these refutations. As late as last year he had declared his conviction, that emancipation, though accompanied by weighty securities, was pregnant with danger to the constitution and establishment; and he now declared his equally conscientious conviction, that emancipation, without any securities at all, would be conducive to the safety and prosperity of that constitution and establishment. This change of opinion might be fair and honest; but, unfortunately, Lord Lyndhurst denied the change which had taken place in his mind on this subject. He said that he had always held that if concession could be granted consistently with the security of the Protestant established church, and the great interests of the empire, it was the duty of parliament to give it. This was a bold assertion, and one which the public generally was not disposed to believe, since they knew that he had opposed concession with all the force of his learning and eloquence. The world might be wrong in saying that Lord Lyndhurst adopted his new creed by compulsion; but it was undoubtedly right in saying that it was a new creed. Having, however, defended his consistency in the best manner he could, or as he thought most proper, Lord Lyndhurst passed on to the merits of the measure. Ireland, he contended, had for years been growing worse and worse; and it was necessary, to effect a better state of things, that recourse should be had to conciliation. As to the dangers to be apprehended from concession, Lord Lyndhurst said he was now convinced that they were merely imaginary. And even if there were some danger, it seemed to him that the danger to be dreaded from the discontent of five millions of subjects, if their prayer were rejected, was infinitely the greatest and the worst. But he, for one, entertained no apprehensions that if the professors of the Roman Catholic religion should be introduced into parliament, they would exercise their influence to overthrow or injure the Protestant established church; and he entertained no apprehensions whatever, that in the discussion of those questions which concerned the church, her interests would be sacrificed. Looking at this measure both on a political and a religious principle, he was sure that it would put an end to the contentions and animosities which had prevailed, particularly in Ireland, and that it would operate to the advantage of the Protestant church and the Protestant religion. The Marquis of Anglesea, who had recently been recalled from his government of Ireland because he held out hopes of Catholic emancipation, also entered the ministerial phalanx which combated for that measure. He insisted principally on the military points of view in which the question ought to be considered. Every man, he said, acquainted with the state of Ireland would agree with him, that in a time of profound peace, under the exclusive laws, 25,000 men was but a scanty garrison for Ireland. In the event of war, or even of the rumour of war, that would be an improvident government which did not immediately add a force of 15,000 men to the previous military force. It could not be a question that both France and America wished to do us injury; and in the case of any collision with either of these powers, the first object of both would be to throw arms to a great extent into the hands of the discontented Irish. “I am arguing,” he continued, “be it observed, upon the supposition that the exclusive laws are in existence: for if they were not, the arms would not be received, or, if received, would be turned against the donors. But suppose that we are absolutely at war, and that there is a combination of the powers of Europe (no very unlikely contingency) against us: I then say that it would be madness in any administration, not to throw 70,000 men into Ireland. I should be sorry, with all the power of steam to convey troops from the continent, and all the advantages which modern science has recently introduced into the art of war, to see Ireland with so scanty a garrison in time of war, under the exclusive laws. But, on the other hand, suppose this bill to be passed into law by this day month; declare war if you like the next day; and I assert that you will have no difficulty, within six weeks, to raise in that country 50,000 able-bodied, and what is better, willing-hearted, men, who will traverse the continent, or find their way to any quarter of the globe to which you may choose to direct their arms. The passing of this bill is worth to the British empire more, far more, and I do not wish to exaggerate, than 100,000 bayonets.”

The measure was strongly opposed by Lord Tenterden, the chief-justice of England, the Duke of Richmond, and the Earls of Winchilsea, Harewood, Mansfield, Falmouth, and Ermiskillen. Lord Tenterden declared against it, because he knew it to be a violation of the constitution, and because he believed that it threatened ruin to the Protestant church, which he valued, not only for the purity of its doctrines, but because, of all churches that ever existed, it was most favourable to civil liberty. The other noble lords said that the Protestants had derived consolation from the declaration of the Duke of Wellington, at the opening of the session, that the measure would be found to be one which would satisfy the Protestants, give security to their institutions, and check the growth of Popery. The measure, however, was the reverse of what had been promised, and justified the worst apprehensions of those who loved the constitution. Instead of being calculated to satisfy the Protestants, the Protestant opinion of the country had already been unequivocally expressed against it. The expression of that opinion, had become louder and more general since the details of the measure had become known; and the rallying sound throughout the country now was, “Protestant ascendancy.” The Protestants of Great Britain were called on to bend before Irish rebels and seditious demagogues, and that too on mere conjectural grounds of imagined expediency. It was said, “You are to examine two dangers, and that the danger of disturbance was greater than any that could flow from concession.” When the latter clanger, however, was the sacrifice of the Protestant constitution, the parliament which incurred it was inexcusable, whether their conduct proceeded from dread of foreign attack, or of domestic dissension. It was easy to understand how men who did not believe that Protestantism formed an integral part of the constitution should pay for tranquillity what must appear to them so low a price. His majesty’s ministers, however, had always been of a different opinion. They had maintained and avowed that a measure like this was pregnant with danger to the constitution; and though their views of the expediency or inexpediency of incurring that danger might have changed, the danger itself must be the same. Nothing that had happened or was likely to happen could be put in the balance against this violation of the constitution. Was the British Protestant constitution a thing for which it was not worth while to encounter danger? would we defend it with our lives against invaders abroad, and yet sacrifice it to demagogues at home? The horrors of civil war were threatened: be it so; was the constitution to be sacrificed, whenever a number of unprincipled men threatened rebellion, if it was maintained? But that apprehension was groundless. The noble mover of this very measure had himself admitted that resistance was nowhere offered; that the Catholics were too wary and cautious to offer it; and that his troops found no occupation because they met with no enemy. Wise and good men would endeavour to tranquillize Ireland; but they would not give up, even for this object, the Protestant constitution of Ireland. The Marquis of Salisbury who had moved the address at the opening of the session, said that he had done so because he was prepared to change the condition of the Catholics; but he had never imagined that securities would not be provided, which securities he thought were to be found only in connecting the Catholic priesthood with the state. By abandoning securities their lordships would be signing the death-warrant of the Protestant establishment of Ireland and if the Protestant establishment of Ireland fell, that of England would shortly follow; and with the downfall of the church a revolution would ensue. Lord Eldon, in obedience to a general call made on him by the house, spoke at great length, and with evident sincerity on this important question. He commenced by stating that ministers who had introduced the bill, were actuated by a sense of their duty, though he lamented their conduct. At the same time he could not acquit the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel of wilfully deceiving the people, and bringing them into a state of apathy, by leading them into a persuasion that no measure of the kind would be brought forward at least this session. On Lord Lyndhurst, however, the ex-chancellor was more severe; that noble lord having endeavoured to excuse his own frailty by fixing a similar charge of inconsistency on Lord Eldon. As regards the measure itself, Lord Eldon said that he must say, once for all, that he did not mean to rest any part of his opposition to it on the terms of the coronation-oath; neither would he contend that to alter any of the laws enacted at the Revolution was beyond the competence of parliament. This, however, (looking at the 13th, 25th, and 30th of Charles II., that the exclusion from parliament produced by the last of those statutes,) was in conformity with the true construction of the acts of 1688, and with the act of union between England and Scotland in the reign of Queen Anne. These he contended were meant to be the ruling and governing principles of the constitution, until a strong necessity for altering it should be made apparent. His lordship then went on to show the futility of the securities demanded, and of the measure itself, as it regarded the tranquillization of Ireland. The securities tendered, he said, were of two kinds: first, those which belonged to the change as it might operate upon the minds of the Roman Catholics; secondly, those which were connected with the bill itself, and the other measure by which it was attended. First, they had passed a law to put down the Catholic Association; but although that was due to the dignity of Parliament, as a security against the dangers which he apprehended, neither that measure nor the precautionary clauses of the one then before the house were, in his mind, anything else than a mere nullity. But it was said, that only six or seven Roman Catholics could be admitted into that house, and only some thirty or forty into the commons. I ask, said his lordship, whether there is no other mode of obtaining seats in that house but by the suffrage of freeholders? The bill itself is one to which I feel the strongest objection. It provides in no shape for that advice which may be given by the ministers of the crown, who may all but one, be Roman Catholics. If there should be but one or two Protestant ministers I cannot see how they can maintain their opinions; and perhaps on the maintenance of their opinion might depend the maintenance of the Protestant constitution. In conclusion, Lord Eldon said, that he should have preferred that a proposition had been made by the noble duke for going into a committee to examine the reasons for originating such a bill, because it would have been but right that, in a matter of so much importance, your lordships should have known something more of the grounds of that expediency upon which you are called to legislate. Lord Plunkett said that he had reserved himself for the purpose of hearing the unanswerable arguments against the bill which Lord Eldon had threatened to produce when the measure came fairly before the house. As that noble and learned lord, however, had brought forth nothing but the _ipse dixit_ of his own authority, unsustained either by ingenious argument, by historical deduction, or by appeal to public and authenticated documents, he felt himself so far absolved from the necessity of refuting anticipated arguments, that he would apply his observations more particularly to the position, that the bill was calculated to subvert the Protestant constitution. In the course of his remarks on this vital point of the question, his lordship observed, that he had been asked whether this was a Protestant kingdom? and whether this was not a Protestant government, and a Protestant parliament? In one sense he admitted it was a Protestant kingdom, but it did not exclude papists. He admitted, also, that the parliament was essentially and predominantly Protestant; and in that sense, but in no other, the parliament was Protestant. He concluded by saying that the present bill did not give the Roman Catholics any benefit without an oath; an oath too which combined in its language every possible security that such a form could afford. Earl Grey spoke at great length, repeating the argument that an exclusion of Catholics had not originally formed any part of the Protestant government, since they had been found in parliament from the reign of Elizabeth down to that of Charles II.; that the exclusion was adopted to guard against political dangers of a temporary nature, which had long disappeared; that it formed no essential part of the Revolution settlement, or of the bill of rights; and that the coronation oath was never intended to restrain the king from consenting to such alterations as parliament in its wisdom might enact. Earl Grey also entered at great length into that important part of the question, which related to its bearing on the act of union with Scotland. On every ground, he continued, the right to make the change was clear; and, in his opinion, the justice and prudence of making it were equally obvious. The great object of alarm seemed to be the political power which the bill would confer, and which, it was said, was the object at which the Catholics had all along been aiming. The bill would certainly bestow political power; but, he argued, it was power of the most legitimate kind, and that to which they were justly entitled. As to the effect of the bill on the state of Ireland, he would not say that it would at once give tranquillity, and remove all dangers; but he felt sure that without it it was impossible to have tranquillity and freedom from danger in that country. By the system of exclusion, lie said, they had produced more than one rebellion in Ireland, which had been extinguished in blood; but had they, he asked, induced tranquillity? By no means. On the contrary, Ireland had been growing worse and worse every year, requiring a larger military force to keep the people obedient to the laws, and that in a time of peace. Was this the mode of making that country a useful portion of the empire? Was it the way in which we should be preparing for war? But, it was urged, if you pass this bill, the church of Ireland is destroyed, and Catholic ascendancy virtually proclaimed. That church, unfortunately, was placed in a situation which could not be freed from dangers of one sort or another. The great obstacle to its triumph had always been, that it had never been the church of more than a small minority of the people of Ireland; and that it was the church of so very small a minority, he verily believed, was owing to those very laws which they now sought to repeal. Take them away, and the number of its disciples would increase, not from the spirit of conversion..... for any open attempt in that way would be impolitic—but from its superior reason, and from its more wholesome tenets, which would come more fairly into play as soon as it should be relieved from the invidious situation in which it at present stood. Take away the false protection, of exclusive laws, and superior excellence would prevail in the conflict of argument. The debate was closed by the Duke of Wellington, who treated the apprehended danger to the Irish church as futile, considering that the throne would be filled by a Protestant, and that the fundamental article of the union between the two countries was the union of the two churches. Adverting to the charge of inconsistency brought against himself and his colleagues, his grace remarked:—“A different topic to which I wish to advert, is a charge brought against several of my colleagues, and also against myself, by the noble earl on the cross-bench, of a want of consistency in our conduct. My lords, I admit that many of my colleagues, as well as myself, did on former occasions vote against a measure of a similar description to this; and, my lords, I must say that my colleagues and myself felt, when we adopted this measure, that we should be sacrificing ourselves and our popularity to that which we feel to be our duty to our sovereign and our country. We knew very well that if we put ourselves at the head of the Protestant cry of ‘No Popery,’ we should be much more popular even than those who have excited against us that very cry. But we felt that in so doing we should have left on the interests of the country a burden, which must end in bearing them down; and further, that we should have deserved the hate and execration of our countrymen. Then I am accused, and by a noble and learned friend of mine, of having acted with great secrecy respecting this measure. Now I beg to tell him that he has done that to me, in the course of the discussion., which he complains of others having done to him; in other words, he has, in the language of a right honourable friend of his and mine, thrown a large paving-stone instead of throwing a small pebble. I say, that if he accuses me of acting with secrecy on this question, he does not deal with me altogether fairly. He knows as well as I do how the cabinet was constructed on this question; and I ask him, had I any right to say a single word to any man whatsoever upon this measure, until the person most interested in the kingdom upon it had given his consent to my speaking out? Before he accused me of secrecy, and of improper secrecy, too, he ought to have known the precise day upon which I received the permission of the highest personage in the country, and had leave to open my mouth upon this measure. There is another point also on which a noble earl accused me of misconduct; and that is, that I did not at once dissolve the parliament. Now I must say that I think noble lords are mistaken in the notion of the benefits which they think that they would derive from a dissolution of parliament at this crisis. I believe that many of them are not aware of the consequences of a dissolution of parliament at any time. But when I know, as I did know, and as I do know, the state of the elective franchise in Ireland, when I recollected the number of men it took to watch one election which took place in Ireland in the course of last summer; when I knew the consequences which a dissolution would produce on the return to the house of commons, to say nothing of the risks which must have been incurred at each election—of collisions that might have led to something short of civil war—I say that, knowing all these things, I should have been wanting in duty to my sovereign and to my country if I had advised his majesty to dissolve his parliament.” On a division the same house of peers which in 1828 had declared, by a majority of forty-five, that emancipation would be a breach of the constitution, and dangerous to the Protestant establishment, now declared, by a majority of two hundred and seventeen against one hundred and twelve, it was consistent with the constitution; and that, if it did no good, it would not do any harm to the Protestant church.

On the 7th and 8th of April the bill passed through a committee, in which, as in the commons, many amendments were moved, but none carried. It was read a third time on the 10th of April, after another debate, in which the former arguments were repeated on both sides of the question; and on the 13th of the same month it received its final confirmation in the royal assent. The working of that measure will be best seen in the future pages of this history; but it may be here observed, that it has proved neither an immediate, nor a sufficient cure for the disorders of Ireland. Protestant ascendancy was too deeply and extensively rooted in all its institutions to admit of such a remedy; nor was it likely that the Roman Catholics, having acquired means to break their chain, would remain long without trying their efficiency. Agitation had procured this boon; and the Roman Catholics, thus successful, have sought to obtain other benefits by the same unhallowed means. Agitation is, in fact, still the bane of Ireland.

BILL FOR THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDERS.

{GEORGE IV. 1829—1830}

Emancipation having thus been gained, Mr. Peel brought in a bill for the disfranchisement of the Irish forty-shilling freeholders, and for raising the qualification to ten pounds. This was part and parcel of the general measure, and it met with no serious opposition even in Ireland. The very Whigs supported it, hostile as it was to popular rights and destructive of vested political franchises, as an essential part of a whole; the other and better part of which they were unwilling to lose. Mr. Brougham said, he consented to it as the price, the almost extravagant price, of the inestimable good which would result from emancipation; and it was described by Sir James Mackintosh as one of those tough morsels which he had scarcely been able to swallow. It was opposed by Mr. Huskisson and others as a measure uncalled for by any necessity, and not fitted to gain that object which alone was held out as justifying it. It was absurd, it was said, to allege as a pretext for it, the influence and conduct of the Catholic priesthood; for all who knew anything of that influence, knew that it was chiefly felt when it ran with the current of popular feeling; and that it was even exercised with a view to maintain submission to the laws. If the forty-shilling freeholders had been corrupt, like those of Penryn, their disfranchisement might be defended; but the only offence of the persons against whom this bill was directed, had been that they exercised their privilege honestly and independently, according to the dictates of their own consciences. In reply to this, Mr. Peel mentioned an instance of the power of the priests as having occurred at the Clare election. At the commencement of that election a landlord of the county had promised his interest to Mr. V. Fitzgerald. The landlord had a voter on his estate who was under great personal obligations to him; and previous to the commencement of the contest, he said to this voter, “I shall vote for Mr. Fitzgerald; I suppose you mean to do the same.” The man declared his determination to imitate the example of his patron; but as the struggle drew nearer, a degree of excitement was produced to which it was only necessary to allude: and the freeholder did not escape its effects. He came to his landlord with sixty pounds in his hands, and addressed him thus:—“I have saved this sum while your tenant, and upon your property. I cannot redeem the promise which I gave you. There, take the sixty pounds, make use of it to promote the interests of Mr. Fitzgerald; but my vote I must give to Mr. O’Connell.” “Could anything,” he asked, “be so painful as the situation of him who was obliged to perform such a part, to observe such a doubtful contest between his religion and his conscience?” On a division only seventeen members voted against the bill; and it passed into a law. Mr. O’Connell had publicly bound himself to reject even emancipation if accompanied by such a condition, and to perish in the field, or on the scaffold, if necessary, in defence of his “forties;” but he forgot his vows, and became silent and acquiescent.

THE CASE OF MR. O’CONNELL.

At the time of the Clare election Mr. O’Connell had assured the people that he was entitled to sit in parliament without taking the oaths, which no Catholic could take. He had staked his professional reputation on this point, and had given assurances that he held other learned opinions to the same purport. His return had subsequently been petitioned against; but a committee to whom the petition had been referred, had reported that he was duly elected. Now, according to the old law, under which Mr. O’Connell’s claim had arisen—he having been elected before the measure of emancipation had passed—if a person known and believed to be a Catholic could take certain oaths, which oaths involved an abjuration of Popery, he was entitled to take his seat. The new act, however, did not seem to forward his pretensions. The oath, indeed, which it substituted for those that were abrogated, could be taken by a Catholic as well as a Protestant; but that provision was expressly limited to “any person professing the Roman Catholic religion, after the commencement of this act, be returned as a member of the house of commons.” Mr. O’Connell and his friends, however, held that from the moment the bill received the royal assent, there was an end to the power of administering the abrogated oaths, or demanding any of the declarations which then stood repealed. On these grounds Mr. O’Connell hoped to take his seat in parliament. He presented himself at the table of the house on the 15th of May; and the clerk produced the oath which had been repealed by the late act. A brief conversation took place; and the clerk having communicated what took place to the speaker, he addressed the house thus: “It is my duty to state, if I have been correctly informed, that the course which the honourable member has proposed to take, is a course which, until overruled by stronger authority, I do not conceive it my duty to acquiesce in. I understand that he proposes to take the oath prescribed to be taken by Roman Catholics as it is to be found in an act of parliament recently passed. As I read that act of parliament, it is my impression, and on my impression it is my duty to act, that it involves two points relative to the course to be pursued in taking seats in this house. The first point is that of repealing the declaration against transubstantiation; the other, that of appointing an oath to be taken by such members of this house as profess the Roman Catholic creed; but with this condition, that those members should be returned subsequently to the passing of the act. Now the honourable member was returned, as the house is well aware, long before the passing of this act. I have, therefore, only to refer to the law affecting all the members of this house until the late act passed; and, with the single exception of repeating the declaration against transubstantiation, I have to state that the construction which has been uniformly put on the law of the land, and which has been repeatedly sanctioned and confirmed by act of parliament, is, that every member, before taking his seat, shall take the oath of allegiance and supremacy before the lord-steward, and the oath of abjuration at the table of this house. This is the course which, by law, the dignity and the privileges of this house require. I state this the rather because it is well known that this house is open to an appeal by petition, or it may be brought forward by any member in this house. In that case, the house will be better able to judge, and to state its opinion of the propriety of the conduct which it appeared to me to be my duty to pursue. I, therefore, state to the honourable gentleman that he must withdraw.” Mr. O’Connell having withdrawn, Mr. Brougham moved, that he should be called back, and heard at the table in support of his claim to be admitted on taking no other oath than that contained in the late act. Mr. W. Wynn was of opinion that Mr. O’Connell was entitled to be heard at the bar of the house, and that it made no difference whether he was heard there or at the table, though it was his opinion it might be better to adhere to the former course. Mr. Peel, however, thought there was a great distinction between hearing the applicant at the table and at the bar; and that he had no right to be heard at the former. The debate on this point was adjourned to the 18th of April; on which day it was finally ordered, on Mr. Peel’s motion, “that the member for Clare be heard at the bar, with reference to his claim to sit and vote in the house of commons without taking the oath of supremacy.” On his appearance at the bar, Mr. O’Connell maintained that the Act of Union with Ireland entitled him to sit without taking the oath of supremacy; and that the act lately passed entitled him to sit without taking the declaration against transubstantiation. He claimed, under the spirit and effect of the new statute, to sit without taking the oath of supremacy; and he claimed also, under its positive enactments, to sit without taking any other oath than what was therein contained. There were many points in his arguments very strongly put, and they were delivered with a temperance calculated to conciliate the good will of the house. Even the lawyers, also, who were opposed to Mr. O’Connell, confessed that there were doubts as to the true meaning of the oath of supremacy; but the house, notwithstanding, came to the resolution, that unless Mr. O’Connell took that oath, he was not entitled to sit or vote in that house. A motion to that effect, moved by the solicitor-general, was carried by a majority of one hundred and ninety against one hundred and sixteen. Mr. O’Connell was then called again to the bar, and the speaker having put the question to him whether he would take the oath or not, he replied:—“I see, in this oath, one assertion as to a matter of fact which I know is not true, and see in it another assertion, as to a matter of opinion which I believe is not true; I therefore refuse to take this oath.” A new writ was now ordered for a new election, and Mr. O’Connell went back to Ireland to be re-elected by his constituents. The decision had an untoward effect upon his mind; for he now loaded ministers with the most opprobrious epithets, as men who having been false to their own party could never be true to any other. It caused him, indeed, to announce his ulterior design to effect a repeal of the union by that system of agitation which had already proved so successful. This purpose he has deliberately followed up by the most inflammatory harangues, and various other modes of popular excitement. From that day to this year, indeed, his whole career has been one long course of agitation to effect the repeal of the union; but whether he or any other agitator in Ireland will ever be gratified by such an event demands a doubt.

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.

The chancellor of the exchequer opened the budget on the 8th of May. From his statements it appeared that the revenue of the preceding year so far exceeded his estimate as to leave a surplus of nearly £6,000,000 for the sinking-fund. For the present year, however, as the house was anxious to abolish the absurd system of defraying the expense of military and naval pensions, or the “dead weight” as it was called, by postponing its burdens, he estimated the gross revenue at £51,347,000 and the expenditure at £48,333,593, by which means he left only a clear sinking-fund of £3,000,000 for diminishing the public debt. The finance committee had recommended that this sum should always be kept inviolate for the purpose of reducing the national debt; and as the surplus on which they could calculate was no greater, no part of it could be applied to the reduction of the burthens of the country.

MOTION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

The last parliamentary result of the measures passed in regard to Ireland was a motion for parliamentary reform. On the 2nd of June, the Marquis of Blandford, one of the ultra-tories, moved a series of resolutions, which went to declare that there existed a number of boroughs the representation of which could be purchased, and others in which the number of electors was so small as to render them liable to the influence of bribery; and that such a system was disgraceful to the character of the house of commons, destructive of the confidence which the people should repose in it, and prejudicial to the best interests of the country. The Marquis of Blandford supported his motion on the ground that late events had shown how completely the representative body could be separated from the feelings, the wishes, and the opinions of the people. An imperious necessity had also been added to the already existing propriety of putting down the borough-monger and his trade: all the rights and liberties of the country were in jeopardy, so long as majorities were to be obtained by a traffic of seats and services. “After what had happened,” said his lordship, “the country demanded some statutory provision to secure its agriculture, its manufactures, and its trade; but more especially to secure Protestant interests against the influx and increase of the Roman Catholic party, one mode of securing this, and at the same time of purifying the representation, would be to abolish the borough market, which had now been thrown open to Catholics.” This motion, which was intended to be rather in the nature of a notice, than made with any design of having the topics which it embraced fully discussed, was supported by some of the old reformers, though on different grounds from that dislike of free trade, and apprehension of Catholic influence which animated the mover. Mr. W. Smith, in voting for the resolutions, expressed his high satisfaction that the relief bill had produced an effect unanticipated—the transforming a number of the highest tories in the land, into something very like radical reformers. The resolutions, however, were rejected by a majority of four hundred and one against one hundred and eighteen.

PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT, ETC.