THE TRIUMPH OF CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION.
On the 5th of March Mr. Peel moved “that the house resolve itself into a committee of the whole house to consider of the laws imposing civil disabilities on his majesty’s Roman Catholic subjects.” He commenced by stating, that, he rose as a minister of the king to vindicate the advice which an united cabinet had given to his majesty to recommend to the consideration of parliament the condition of the Catholics, and to submit to the house measures for carrying such recommendation into effect. He was aware, he said, that the subject was surrounded with difficulties; which difficulties were increased by the relation in which he himself stood to the question. Having, however, come to the honest conviction that the time had arrived, when an amicable adjustment of the disputed claims would be accompanied with less danger than any other course that could be suggested, he was prepared to act on that conviction, unchanged by the forfeiture of public confidence, or by the heavy loss of private friendship. He had long felt, he said, that with a house of commons favourable to emancipation, his position as a minister opposed to it was untenable; and he showed that he had more than once intimated his desire to resign office, and thus remove one obstacle to a settlement of the question. He had done so on the present occasion, though at the same time he notified to the Duke of Wellington, that seeing how the current of public opinion lay, he was ready to support the measure, provided it were undertaken on principles from which no danger to the Protestant establishment need be apprehended. He was aware, he said, that he was called on to make out a case for this change of policy; and he was now about to submit to the house a statement which proved to his own mind, with the force of demonstration that ministers were imperatively called on to recommend the measure, however inconsistent it might appear with their former tenets. The argument by which the case was made out by Mr. Peel resolved itself into the following propositions:—First, matters could not remain in their present state, the evils of divided councils being so great, that something must be done, and a government formed with a common opinion on the subject. Secondly, a united government once constituted must do one of two things—either grant further political rights to the Catholics, or recall those which they already possess. Thirdly, to deprive them of what they already have would be impossible; or at least would be infinitely more mischievous than to grant them more: therefore, no case remained to be adopted but that of concession. Having illustrated these propositions at great length, and with much force of argument, Mr. Peel proceeded to explain the nature of the measure which he and his colleagues proposed as that which ought finally to settle and adjust the question. The principle and basis of the measure was to be, he said, the abolition of civil distinctions and the equality of political rights, with a few exceptions only. Another pervading principle would be, in fact and in word, the maintenance of the Protestant religion as by law established, its doctrines, its discipline, and government. First of all, he would repeal those laws which placed Catholics, unless they took certain oaths, on a different footing from Protestants even in regard to real property; a distinction which Protestants and Catholics were equally interested in abolishing. The next provision would be the admission of Catholics to parliament on the same terms with Protestants; for unless this was granted, all other concessions of political power would be of no avail. The bill would, also, render Catholics admissible to all corporate offices in Ireland, and all offices connected with the administration of justice, and to all the higher civil offices of the state. He was aware, he said, of the objection as to the last; but having once resolved to yield political power, this could not be refused. In order to leave the avenues of ambition open to the Roman Catholic, he was of opinion that we ought to render him capable of being employed in the service of the country. As regards the oaths to be taken, it necessarily followed from their concessions, he said, that they should be modified. In the new oath, the Catholic would be called on to swear allegiance in the usual terms; to disclaim the deposing power of the pope, and the doctrine that his holiness had any temporal or civil power, directly or indirectly, within the realm; solemnly to abjure any intention of subverting the church establishment; and to bind himself not to employ any of his privileges to weaken the Protestant religion or government. As regarded the exceptions from the general rule, Mr. Pitt said that they lay within a narrow compass, and related to duties or offices connected with the established church. The only offices he meant to exclude Catholics from were those of lord-lieutenant, or chief governor of Ireland, and of lord high chancellor, or keeper, or commissioner of the great seal. He meant, however, to exclude Catholics from appointments in any of the Universities or Colleges, and from exercising any right of presentation, as lay patrons, to the benefices and dignities of the church of England. In the bill, also, there were certain prohibitions against carrying the insignia of office to places of Roman Catholic worship, and against the assumption, by prelates of that communion, of the same episcopal titles as those belonging to the church of England. There were also certain precautions against the increase of monastic institutions, particularly that of the Jesuits. A more effective check, however, on the consequences which might result from admitting Roman Catholics in Ireland to civil power, was meditated in a law for raising the qualification of the elective franchise, in counties, from forty shillings to ten pounds: by which means that privilege would be limited to persons really possessed of property, and less liable to be misled by the priests. After detailing the features of the plan in a speech which occupied more than four hours, Mr. Peel remarked:—“And now, although I am not so sanguine as others in my expectations of the future, I have not the slightest hesitation in saying, I fully believe that the adjustment of this question in the manner proposed will not only give much better and stronger securities to the Protestant interest and establishment than any other that the present state of things admits of, but will also avert evils and dangers impending and immediate. I might have taken a more popular and palatable course: more popular with the individuals in concert with whom I long thought and acted, more palatable to the constituents whom I have lost; but I have consulted for the best, for Protestant interests and our Protestant establishment. This is my defence against the accusations I have endured; this is my consolation under the sacrifices I have made; this shall be my revenge. I trust that, by the means now proposed, the moral storm may lie lulled into a calm, the waters of strife may subside, and the elements of discord be stilled and composed. But if these expectations be disappointed; if unhappily civil strife and contentions shall arise; if the differences existing between us do not spring out of artificial distinctions and unequal privileges, but if there be something in the character of the Roman Catholic religion not to be contented with a participation of equal privileges, or with anything short of superiority, still I shall be content to make the trial. If the battle must be fought; if the contest which we would now avoid cannot be averted by those means, let the worst come to the worst—the battle will be fought for other objects, the contest will take place on other grounds; the contest then will be, not for an equality of civil rights, but for the predominance of an intolerant religion. If those more gloomy predictions shall be realized, and if our more favourable hopes shall not be justified by the result, we can fight that battle against the predominance of an intolerant religion more advantageously after this measure shall have been passed than we could do at present. We shall then have the sympathy of other nations; we shall have dissolved the great moral alliance that existed among the Roman Catholics: we shall have with us those great and illustrious authorities that long supported this measure, and which will then be transferred to us, and ranged upon our side: and I do not doubt that in that contest we shall be victorious, aided as we shall be by the unanimous feeling of all classes of society in this country, as demonstrated in the numerous petitions presented to this house, in which I find the best and most real securities for the maintenance of our Protestant constitution; aided, I will add, by the union of orthodoxy and dissent, by the assenting voice of Scotland; and, if other aid be necessary, cheered by the sympathies of every free state, and by the wishes and prayers of every free man, in whatever clime, or under whatever form of government he may live.”
The motion was not very powerfully opposed. The principal speakers in opposition were Sir Robert Inglis and Mr. Estcourt, the two members of Oxford University. The chief argument used was an assumption that the grant of equal privileges to Roman Catholics would be the destruction of the Protestant establishment. With regard to Ireland, it was said that discord and agitation were not new features in the condition of that country; that they were not a result of the penal laws; and that they would not cease on the removal of civil disabilities. As regarded the fear of civil war, it was remarked that reliance ought to have been placed on public opinion, and the moral determination of the British people. At best, too, it was argued, the evil days would only be postponed, and resistance to ulterior struggles rendered more difficult. It was asked, with respect to the divided state of the cabinet, why the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel, instead of changing their own line of policy, did not rather attempt to bring over their colleagues to their views, especially as they still confessed that there was danger in granting Catholic emancipation. Ministers were also taunted with conceding the question from intimidation; a fact which was evident in the provisions, called securities, against the danger of admitting the Catholics to wield the civil, judicial, and military powers of the state. If Mr. Peel and other converts, it was said, thought they could no longer resist, because they had not a majority in the house of commons, why did they refuse to accept a majority? Why was not parliament dissolved? Such a course, it was argued, was right at any time, when a measure strongly affecting the constitution was contemplated; and it was peculiarly necessary in the present instance, when the country had been deceived into a security, of which those who had practised the deception were now seeking to take advantage. The Marquis of Blandford even maintained, that if the house sanctioned the present audacious invasion of the constitution, it would break the trust reposed in it by the people of England, who were taken by surprise by the unexpected announcement made by ministers. Was it right, he asked, for the government to persist in measures to which public feeling was so strongly opposed? Constituted as the house was then, it did not express the just alarms of the people for the safety of the Protestant institutions of the country. As regards the securities proposed by ministers, they were treated with contempt. Viscount Corry said, that he had in vain looked for them: with the exception of the forty-shilling franchise being raised to ten pounds, there was no attempt at securities; and even that was a half measure.
The motion was supported by Sir. G. Murray, colonial secretary, and by Messrs. Grant, North, and Iiuskisson. These members repeated and enforced the positions that the pacification of Ireland was necessary to the safety of the empire; and that without emancipation pacification could not be effected. All classes in Ireland, it was argued, had identified themselves with the question, and Ireland had hence fallen into a state in which it was impossible for it to remain: it must either advance or recede; for all the ties which held society together had been loosened or broken. It was conceded that a certain state of things, not deserving the name of society, might be maintained by means of the sword; but such a frame of society, it was added, could have no analogy whatever to the British constitution. The only intimidation to which ministers could be accused of yielding, was the fear of continuing such a state of affairs, and aggravating all its evils by gradual accumulation, instead of restoring mutual good-will and the peaceful empire of the law. No other intimidation existed: none was felt in Ireland; for what was the force of an unarmed multitude when measured against the force of the state? The power of the Catholics was as nothing. But when it was considered what effects might arise from disunion; when it was considered that a spirit of resentment was growing up, which roused men against each other, there did appear a kind of intimidation, of a nature which did not admit of contempt. The Protestant body—at least the body which arrogated to itself that title—knew the enthralment under which they had held the Catholics, and that an unarmed multitude must submit. But were we, it was asked, to destroy one part of the people, by rousing and inciting the other? It was rather the duty of government to protect the whole; to ensure them the greatest degree of protection; and to give to the people all the privileges they had a right to enjoy. To those who urged a dissolution of parliament, it was answered, that parliament as it existed was as capable of discussing the question now, as any parliament had been at any time during the last twenty-five years; that the question was a fit one for the consideration of the house of commons at all times; and that it was particularly fit for their consideration when it came recommended from the throne, as necessary for the safety and peace of the United Kingdom. A dissolution of parliament, remarked Mr. Peel, must leave the Catholic Association and the elective franchise in Ireland just as they were. If parliament were dissolved, the Catholic Association must be left as it was, as the common law was inadequate to suppress it; and being so left, it would overturn the representation of Ireland. Whatever majority might be returned from Great Britain, Ireland would return eighty or ninety members in the interest of the Association, forming a compact body, against the force of which it would be impossible to carry on the local government of the country. It had, indeed, been said, “Increase the army, or the constabulary force;” but a greater force could not be employed there. He would state one simple fact. Above five-sixths of the infantry had been engaged in aiding the government of Ireland, as by interposing between two hostile parties. Under such circumstances a reaction would compel them gradually to this alternative; namely, instead of resting the civil and social government on its base, to narrow it and to rest it on its apex. It was also denied that there was anything peculiar in the nature of the proposed measure to require a special appeal to the people, since it was incorrectly called a violation of the constitution. That constitution, it was argued, was not to be sought for solely in the acts of 1688: its foundations had been laid much earlier; laid by Catholic hands, and cemented with Catholic blood. But, even taking the compact of 1688 to be the foundation of our rights and liberties, yet the most diligent opponent of the Catholic claims would be unable to point out in the Bill of Rights a single clause by which the exclusion of Roman Catholics from seats in parliament was declared to be a fundamental, or indispensable principle of the British constitution; that bill merely regarded the liberties guaranteed to the people, and the protection of the throne from the intrusion of Popery. To the objection that the measure now contemplated was unconditional concession, concession without a single security for the Protestant establishment, it was answered, that principles of exclusion were not the securities to which the established religion either did trust, or ought to trust. The real securities of Protestantism would remain, unaffected by this bill, in the unalterable attachment of the people, who, though divided on minor topics, would unite in resisting the errors of Popery. The house, it was said, should also look at the great security which they would derive from the generous attachment of the people of Ireland, who, after ages of oppression, would find themselves restored to their place in society. Moreover, the securities which the bill contained were not so nugatory as they had been represented. Mr. Peel said, that when he looked at the petitions sent from all parts of the country, he could not help being struck with one extraordinary coincidence. These petitions prayed for those securities; and the prayers of them were similar, whether they came from the county of Wicklow, or from the county of Armagh, &c.; that it was impossible to arrive at any other conclusion than that those prayers, and the terms in which they were conveyed, had been suggested by one common head and source. And what were the securities prayed for? Why, the first was, “Put down the Catholic Association;” the second, “Correct the elective franchise of Ireland;” and the third, “Abolish for the future the order of the Jesuits in this country.” Now the bill which he proposed contained all these securities; and if the necessity of obtaining them were so great as the petitioners contended, let him be answered this question: “Would the Protestants ever have had the least chance of obtaining them if his majesty had not recommended that the disabilities of the Catholics should be taken into consideration, with the view to an adjustment of this question? Could any man say it was possible, though the unanimous voice of the Protestants of Ireland declared those securities to be necessary, that any one of them could have been obtained, unless a proposal or adjustment had been made?” On a division the motion was carried by a majority of three hundred and forty-eight against one hundred and sixty; a preponderance which, as regarded the house of commons, was decisive of the ultimate fate of the question.
Resolutions, proposed by Mr. Peel in the committee, were immediately agreed to; and a bill founded on them was introduced and read for the first time on the 10th of March. The opponents of the measure allowed the first reading to take place without opposition, it being arranged that the debate on the principle of the bill should take place on the second reading. That reading was fixed for the 17th, on which day it was moved by Mr. Peel. The motion led to a very warm debate. Sir Edward Knatchbull strongly attacked Mr. Peel on the desertion of his principles, as well as other members of the government, asserting that from it the confidence which had hitherto been accorded to public men, had received a blow from which it never would recover. Mr. Goulburn admitted that he had adopted new opinions on this subject; but he had done so, he said, because it was impossible that any other thing could be wisely done in the present state of Ireland. He contended that the measure proposed was calculated to give more complete ascendancy to the Protestant establishment, by diminishing the irritation, and removing the prejudices of its opponents. He argued, that it would also have the effect of causing the people to treat the ministers of the Protestant church with the respect and attention to which their character and virtues so eminently entitled them; and that it was only under such circumstances that the church could be employed as an important engine in the moral improvement of the people. These notions, however, were ridiculed by Mr. G. Bankes, who contended that, although the house did not surrender all the rights of the Protestant church at once, they gave the Catholics the first stepping-stone for reaching everything they might desire. It was admitted, he said, that the adherents of the Catholic faith would struggle for ascendancy; and that this bill was to give them the political power which would be the great instrument used in the struggle: and how a bill which did all this would tend to the security of the Protestant church surpassed human comprehension. The very framers of the measure saw the absurdity and the danger which it was employed to conceal; and they had endeavoured to obviate the danger by a precaution which proved its existence, but was impotent to prevent it. They had devised this remedy—that when the prime minister happened to be a Roman Catholic, all power connected with the established church should be vested in the hands of commissioners. But who was to appoint the commissioners? Why the prime minister. Lord Tullamore followed in a similar strain. Ministers, he said, had themselves given the tone on the opposite side of the question at public meetings; they had sat at the festive board, hearing with approbation the avowal of sentiments which they themselves had avowed, but now disclaimed completing the picture drawn by the poet—
“Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball. Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.”
The measure was supported by Lord Palmerston and Sir George Murray with much eloquence and animation; but the speech which on this occasion claimed and deserved the greatest attention from the house was that of Mr. Sadler, a man of distinguished abilities, who had recently been returned to parliament for the borough of Newark, by the Duke of Newcastle’s interest. He rose, he said, to add his humble vote to that faithful band who had resigned the countenance of those whom they had hitherto deeply respected; who had surrendered, in the language of many, all pretensions to common sense or general information; who are branded as intolerants and bigots, from whom ministers had happily escaped; and, what was still more painful to generous minds, who were ranked among those that were as devoid of true liberality and benevolence, as of reason and intelligence. He continued: “All these things, however, move us not. In a cause like that of the Protestant constitution of England, now placed for the first time since its existence in a situation of imminent peril, an humble part in its triumph would indeed give me a share of that unmeasurable joy which its rescue would diffuse throughout the nation; but to be numbered as one of those who, faithful to the end, made a last though ineffectual struggle in its defence, will afford a melancholy satisfaction, which I would not exchange for all the pride, and power, and honours which may await a contrary course.” After this preamble, Mr. Sadler argued at great length against the principles of the bill, and its dangerous tendency toward the Protestant church: and showed its utter futility in remedying the evils which oppressed, or repaying the wrongs which she had suffered from so many generations. He remarked:—“Ireland degraded, deserted, oppressed, pillaged, is turbulent; and you listen to the selfish recommendations of her agitators. You seek not to know, or knowing you wilfully neglect, her real distresses. If you can calm the agitated surface of society, you heed not that fathomless depth of misery, sorrow, and distress whose troubled waves heave unseen and disregarded: and this, forsooth, is patriotism, Ireland asks of you bread, and you proffer her Catholic emancipation: and this, I presume, is construed to be the taking into our consideration, as his majesty recommended, the whole situation of Ireland.” As regards the nature of the measure, Mr. Sadler contended that it could only be described as an inroad on the constitution of the country, and a preparatory movement towards its final destruction. The securities, also, were treated by him as vague and unsatisfactory. Matters, he said, had reached such a point of noisy and dangerous discord between parties in Ireland, that ministers contended there must be an adjustment of the question. Adjustment generally terminated in mutual concessions and reciprocal advantages: but would the authors of this bill point out what it gave to the Protestant constitution for that which it took away? The Protestant faith surrendered everything, it received nothing. As a security, the office of viceroy, an office of pageantry, was to continue Protestant: but what Protestant cared an iota about it, when its holder was to be surrounded with Popish advisers, and to act by Popish instruments? The king, too, it seems, must still continue to be a Protestant. This reservation was the worst of all, and heightened every objection to the measure into abhorrence and disgust. “What!” he continued, “after establishing by a solemn act the doctrine that conscience ought to be free and unrestrained; that disabilities like that sought to be removed, inflict a wound upon the feelings of those whom they reach, intolerable to good and generous minds, worse than persecution, than even death itself, how do you apply it? Why you propose to sear this brand high upon the forehead, and deep into the heart of your very prince, while you render the scar more visible, and the insult more poignant, by making him the solitary individual, whose hereditary rank must be held and transmitted by the disgraceful tenure which you have stigmatized as the badge of slavery. Freedom of conscience to all subjects, but none to your king! Throw open the portals of legislation, that a Duke of Norfolk may take his seat in your senate; but hurl from his loftier seat there, the throne of the realm, a Duke of Lancaster, if he exercise the same privilege, and presume to have a conscience! Hitherto the British constitution has been fair, uniform, equal, demanding from all the same moral qualification. That qualification has long been declared, by a certain school of politicians, to be slavery. Ministers have now adopted their creed; yet they are content, nay, they propose, that the king shall be the only proclaimed slave in his dominions. Worse than this, however, remained behind: the proposed measure not only hurt the feelings of the monarch, it touched his title. It was a bill to reverse the attainder which had been passed upon Popery, and the natural consequences of this reversal were obvious. The privileges of Protestantism were the title-deeds of the royal family to the throne, the actual transfer of the estate which the king held in parliament and in the country. It was Protestant ascendancy now become a term of reproach, and Protestant ascendancy alone, that introduced the royal line that rules us; it was that which still formed the foundation of the throne, which combined its title with the very elements of the constitution, identified it with our liberty, consecrated it with the sanctities of our religion, and proclaimed our monarch king by the unanimous suffrages of all our institutions. The act of settlement indeed was to remain; and though it had been passed with difficulty by a parliament exclusively Protestant, it would of course be zealously maintained by a parliament partly Catholic: but still this was to remove the royal title from the broad foundation of national principles, supported by all the analogies of the constitution, and place it upon a mere act of parliament, or rather upon an exception from that act: whatever became of the legal title, the moral title of the king would be touched. But,” continued Mr. Sadler, “the intended change of the constitution was doubly objectionable on account of its unavoidable consequences. He contended that it would put the real liberties of the people in jeopardy; and that the united church of England and Ireland would be placed in peril by it, the moment it was passed. The real object of the attack was the establishment, or rather its principles and immunities. The war had begun; the siege commenced: the first parallel was nearly completed; the very leaders of the garrison were summoning a bold and numerous band of fresh assailants to the attack; and the approaches would be carried on till a final triumph was obtained over the most tolerant, the most learned, and the most efficient establishment which any country had ever yet been blessed with. And could any man, he asked, flatter himself that even when this was destroyed, a long and uninterrupted reign of quietness and peace would ensue? When this victim had been hunted down, the same pack would scent fresh game, and the cry against our remaining institutions would be renewed with double vigour, till nothing remained worth attack or defence. An oath was certainly to be taken, verbally forbidding Roman Catholics from harming the establishment; but they must be more or less than men to be enabled to keep such an oath. It was even immoral to present it to them: it established a war between words and principles, oaths and conscience: and which of these would finally prevail needed no explanation. That Roman Catholics once seated in the house should not feel disposed to lessen the influence, and finally to destroy a church which they abhorred was impossible; and that they should not make common cause for a similar purpose with other parties inspired by similar views was equally impossible. Much, it was true, had been said about the weakness of such a party in point of numbers; but a party acting invariably in unison on this point would ultimately carry it, and with it, all others of vital importance.” Referring to the apologies which had been made for these portentous changes, Mr. Sadler said that the country had been beguiled by them. He continued:—“I was one of those who thought the conduct of the noble and right honourable individuals who resigned in 1827 a sacrifice to principle and consistency: what it really was, it is now not worth while to inquire, since it was anything than that. It is now too late to rectify the error; all that remains is to regret most deeply, that, faithfully following those who have so secretly, suddenly, and unceremoniously deserted us, we were taught to regard a highly gifted individual, unhappily now no more, as one who ought not to serve his king and country as the head of the government, because he was favourable to the measure now so indecently forced upon the country. I do heartily repent of my share in the too successful attempt of hunting down so noble a victim; a man whom England and the world recognise as its ornament, whose eloquence was, at these days at least, unrivalled, the energies of whose capacious mind, stored with knowledge and elevated by genius, were devoted to the service of his country. This was the man with whom the present ministers could not act, and for a reason which vitiates their present doings. Coupling, therefore, that transaction with the present, if the annals of our country furnish so disgraceful a page, I have very imperfectly consulted them. But peace to his memory! My humble tribute is paid when it can be no longer heard nor regarded—when it is drowned by the voice of interested adulation now poured only into the ears of the living. He fell; but his character is reserved, it rises and triumphs over that of his surviving,—what shall I call them? Let their own consciences supply the hiatus.” Having paid this eloquent tribute to Mr. Canning, a tribute as just also as it is eloquent, Mr. Sadler contended that it was the duty of ministers to have gone to the people, since the invasion of the constitution, bad in itself and ruinous in its consequences, was beyond the power of parliament. The people of England, he continued, had not sent the members of the house of commons for the purpose of throwing open the doors of that house to the admission of Popery, to the scandal, disgrace, and danger of the Protestant establishment in church and state. He added in conclusion:—“Be assured they will resent it deeply and permanently if we proceed. I know how dear this sacred, this deserted cause is to the hearts and to the understandings of Englishmen. The principle may be indeed weak in this house, but abroad it marches in more than all its wonted might, attended, in spite of the aspersions of all its enemies, by the intelligence, the religion, the loyalty of the country; and if the honest zeal, nay, even the cherished prejudices of the people, swell its train, thank God for the accession. Here, sir, that cause, like those wasting tapers, may be melting away: there it burns unextinguishably. It lives abroad, though this house, which is its cradle, may be now preparing its grave. To their representatives the people committed their dearest birthright, the Protestant constitution, and have not deserted it, whoever has. If it must perish, I call God to witness that the people are guiltless. Let it, then, expire in this spot, the place of its birth, the scene of its long triumphs, betrayed, deserted in the house of its pretended friends, who while they smile are preparing to smite; let it here, while it receives blow after blow from those who have hitherto been its associates and supporters, fold itself up in its mantle, and, hiding its sorrow and disgrace, fall when it feels the last stab at its heart from the hand of one whom it had armed in its defence, and advanced to its highest honours.”
Mr. R. Grant on the other side contended that it was in vain to speak of applying to the evils of Ireland such cures as it was supposed might be found in the establishment of poor-laws, or the compulsory residence of the absentees: even if the expediency of these measures was assumed, this was not the proper time for their application: the question at present was, how existing discontent might be allayed, how the raging pestilence might be stopped. It was only after that had been done, that preventives could rationally be suggested, and it was only by removing the grievances of which Ireland complained, that that object could be effected. Although the evils of Ireland, he said, had been traced to many causes these causes themselves, even where they existed, were but the effects of the political distinctions founded on the difference of the religious creeds. The house had been told, for instance, to seek for the source of these evils in the local oppressions practised in Ireland, rather than in the general restrictive laws. Of local oppression, no doubt, plenty had always existed, but it had existed merely because the adherents of one creed were armed with power to oppress the believers in another faith, who were vested with no power. The same mischiefs, it was said, existed before the Reformation, when all Ireland was of one religion. True: and they had existed, just because, even before the Reformation, the same system of excluding the natives from political power had been long followed, though on different grounds. What Sir John Davies, who wrote in the days of Elizabeth, stated to be the cause of the evils of Ireland in his time, was in force still:—“From the earliest times,” said that writer of the English government of Ireland, “it seemed to be the rule of policy that the native Irish should someway or other be not admitted to the privileges of the constitution equally with the English residents. And in order to perpetuate the ascendancy of the latter, the governors of Ireland had determined to oppress the former as much as possible. Accordingly, it has been the system of rule in that country, for the last four hundred years, to attempt by all manner of means to root out the native Irish altogether.” That system had been acted on since the time of Sir John Davis in some form or other, and with consequences which would last so long as the laws against the Catholics remained unrepealed. This inequality of political power, then, was the cause; and by removing it, an end would be put to the turbulence and exasperation to which it gave birth. Mr. Grant further argued that this might be done without injury to the constitution, and that the constitution did not recognise any principle of exclusion against any portion of the community. Its essence, he said, was the communication of its protection and privileges to all. Lord Palmerston followed on the same side. He admitted that if the question were, whether we should have any Catholics at all; whether the religion throughout the empire should be exclusively Protestant; then all Ireland should be made Protestant. But this was not possible, Catholics there were, and Catholics there must be. There they were, good or bad; and, whether their tenets were wholesome or unwholesome, the persons holding them were six millions in number, and they were seated in the very heart of the empire. What, then, he asked, were we to do with them, since we were not able to exterminate them? Were we to make them our enemies, fiercer and more inveterate in proportion as we persecuted them? or were we by kindness and conciliation to convert them into friends? The latter was clearly the more expedient and desirable in itself, unless it were accompanied by some imminent danger. He called upon the house to turn the materials of discord into strength, and to imitate the skilful and benevolent physician, who from deadly herbs extracted healing balms, and made that the means of health which others, less able, or less good, used for the purposes of destruction.
Of all declaimers against the bill, Sir Charles Wetherell, the attorney-general, was the most violent. He had refused to draw up this bill in his official capacity; but he still remained in office, under a minister who was understood to have made implicit submission to his word of command the tenure by which office was to be held. Knowing that nothing but the difficulty of supplying his place prevented his discharge, he delivered a speech of defiance to his colleagues in office, which produced a great impression in the house and throughout the country. In explaining his objection to frame this bill, he said,—“When my attention was drawn to the framing of this bill, I felt it my duty to look over the oath taken by the lord chancellor, as well as that taken by the attorney-general; and it was my judgment, right or wrong, that, when desired to frame this bill, I was called to draw a bill subversive of the Protestant church, which his majesty was bound by his coronation-oath to support. If his majesty chose to dispense with the obligations of the coronation-oath, he might do so; but I would do no act to put him in jeopardy. These are the grounds on which I refused, and would refuse a hundred times over, to put one line to paper of what constitutes the atrocious bill now before the house. Hundreds of those who now listen to me must remember the able, valuable, and impressive speech delivered two years ago by the present lord-chancellor, then master of the rolls, and a member of this house. It will also be in the recollection of hundreds that that eminent individual, than whom none is more acute in reasoning, more classical in language, and more powerful in delivery, quarrelled with the late Mr. Canning on this very subject. Am I then to blame for refusing to do that, in the subordinate office of attorney-general, which a more eminent adviser of the crown, only two years ago, declared he would not consent to do? Am I, then, to be twitted, taunted, and attacked? I dare them to attack me. I have no speech to eat up. I have no apostasy disgracefully to explain. I have no paltry subterfuge to resort to. I have not to say that a thing is black one day and white another. I have not been in one year a Protestant master of the rolls, and in the next a Catholic lord-chancellor. I would rather remain as I am, the humble member for Plympton, than be guilty of such apostasy; such contradiction; such unexplainable conversion; such miserable, contemptible, apostasy.” As for the bill itself, Sir Charles stated, that when it was dissected and anatomized, it destroyed itself. It admitted the danger, and yet provided no security for Protestants. He would not have condescended to stultify himself by the composition of such a bill. The folly and contradictions be upon the heads of those who drew it. They might have turned him out of office; but he would not be made such a dirty tool as to draw that bill. “Let who would, he would not defile pen, or waste paper, by such an act of folly, and forfeit his character for common sense and honesty.”
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.