"SOLICITING A VOTE." FROM THE PAINTING BY R. W. BUSS, 1834.

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After a debate of four nights the second reading was carried by the large majority of one hundred and fifty-five, the numbers being two hundred and seventy-eight to one hundred and twenty-three. In the House of Lords the numbers were nearly four to one in favour of the measure, which was quickly passed into law. As soon as this fact was made known in Ireland, Mr. O'Connell moved that the society be dissolved. This was no sooner done than a new society was formed; and when the Attorney-General returned to Ireland he found it in active operation. It was in reference to this proceeding O'Connell boasted that he could drive a coach-and-four through an Act of Parliament. It was declared that the new Catholic Association should not assume, or in any manner exercise, the power of acting for the purpose of obtaining redress of grievances in Church or State, or any alteration in the law, or for the purpose of carrying on or assisting in the prosecution or defence of causes civil or criminal. Nothing could be more inoffensive or agreeable than its objects, which were to promote peace, harmony, and tranquillity; to encourage a liberal and enlightened system of education; to ascertain the population of Ireland, and the comparative numbers of different persuasions; to devise means of erecting suitable Catholic places of worship; to encourage Irish agriculture and manufactures, and to publish refutations of the charges against the Catholics. Such was the new platform; but the speeches were of the same defiant and belligerent strain as before. The speakers still prayed that God Almighty would increase the dissensions and differences of the Government, and rejoiced in the inspiring prospect of a cloud bursting on England from the North, where Russia had 1,300,000 men in arms.

On the 1st of March Sir Francis Burdett presented a Catholic petition, and in a speech of great eloquence and force moved for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the grievances of which it complained. The question thus brought before the House of Commons was one on which the Cabinet was divided. Canning had come down to the House from a sick bed, and on a crutch, to give his support to the motion. Plunket delivered one of his most powerful speeches on the same side. Peel took upon himself the heavy task of replying to both. He was supported by Mr. Leslie Foster. Brougham closed the debate; and the motion was carried by a majority of thirteen, amid loud cheers. Resolutions were adopted, and a Bill founded upon them passed the Commons, but it was lost in the Upper House, where it was thrown out, on the 19th of May, by a majority of sixty-five. It was on that occasion that the Duke of York, then heir presumptive to the Throne, made the celebrated declaration against all concession to the Catholics, which excited against him intense animosity in Ireland. At the conclusion of a vehement speech he said:—"If I have expressed myself warmly, especially in the latter part of what I have said, I must appeal to your lordships' generosity. I feel the subject most forcibly; but it affects me the more deeply when I recollect that to its agitation must be ascribed that severe illness and ten years of misery which had clouded the existence of my beloved father. I shall therefore conclude with assuring your lordships that I have uttered my honest and conscientious sentiments, founded upon principles I have imbibed from my earliest youth, to the justice of which I have subscribed after careful consideration in maturer years; and these are the principles to which I will adhere, and which I will maintain, and that up to the latest moment of my existence, whatever may be my situation of life, so help me God!"

It was not Protestants only that were alarmed at the democratic movement which was guided by O'Connell. The Roman Catholic peers, both in England and Ireland, shared their apprehensions. Lord Redesdale, writing to Lord Eldon, said:—"I learn that Lord Fingall and others, Catholics of English blood, are alarmed at the present state of things, and they may well be alarmed. If a revolution were to happen in Ireland, it would be in the end an Irish revolution, and no Catholic of English blood would fare better than a Protestant of English blood. So said Lord Castlehaven, an Irish Catholic of English blood, one hundred and seventy years ago, and so said a Roman Catholic, confidentially to me, above twenty years ago. The question is not simply Protestant and Catholic, but English and Irish; and the great motive of action will be hatred of the Sassenach, inflamed by the priests."

Apprehensions of this kind were not lessened by the memorable speech of Mr. Canning, delivered on the 15th of February, in which he gave a narrative of his labours and sacrifices in the Catholic cause, and complained of the exactions and ingratitude of its leaders. Having shown how he stood by the cause in the worst of times, he proceeded:—"Sir, I have always refused to act in obedience to the dictates of the Catholic leaders; I would never put myself into their hands, and I never will.... Much as I have wished to serve the Catholic cause, I have seen that the service of the Catholic leaders is no easy service. They are hard taskmasters, and the advocate who would satisfy them must deliver himself up to them bound hand and foot.... But to be taunted with a want of feeling for the Catholics, to be accused of compromising their interests, conscious as I am—as I cannot but be—of being entitled to their gratitude for a long course of active services, and for the sacrifice to their cause of interests of my own—this is a sort of treatment which would rouse even tameness itself to assert its honour and vindicate its claims."

Parliament was prorogued on the 31st of May, 1826, and two days afterwards dissolved. It had nearly run its course. It was the sixth Session, which had been abridged with a view of getting through the general election at a convenient season. But though short, the Session had much work to show of one kind or another, including some useful legislation. The Parliamentary papers printed occupied twenty-nine folio volumes, exclusive of the journals and votes. The Parliament whose existence was now terminated had, indeed, effected the most important changes in the policy of Great Britain, foreign and domestic. Mr. Canning had severed the connection, unnatural as it was damaging, between England and the Holy Alliance. The Government of the freest country in the world, presenting almost the only example of a constitution in which the power of the people was represented, was no longer to be associated in the councils of a conclave of despots; and this change of direction in its foreign policy was cordially adopted by the House of Commons and by the nation. Another great and vital change in national policy was the partial admission of the principles of Free Trade, which the Tories regarded, not without reason, as effecting a complete revolution, which extended its influence to the whole legislation and government.

ELECTION MEETING IN IRELAND. (See p. [254].)