[ [!-- Note Anchor 208 --][Footnote 208: Many years afterward the restriction as to the Lord Chancellorship of Ireland was abolished.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 209 --][Footnote 209: The plan which Pitt had intended to propose was to substitute in lieu of the Sacramental test a political test, to be imposed indiscriminately on all persons sitting in Parliament, or holding state or corporation offices, and also on all ministers of religion, of whatever description, etc., etc. This test was to disclaim in express terms the sovereignty of the people, and was to contain an oath of allegiance and "fidelity to the King's government of the realm, and to the established constitutions of Church and state."—Letter of Lord Grenville, given in Courts and Cabinets of George III., and quoted by Lord Stanhope, Life of Pitt, iii., 270. This plan seems very preferable to that now adopted, since it removed every appearance of making a distinction between the professors of the different creeds, when the same oath was to be taken by all indifferently.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 210 --][Footnote 210: The question had been discussed with the highest Papal authorities more than once since the beginning of the century. In 1812 Mgr. Quarantotti, the prelate who, during the detention of the Pope in France by Napoleon, was invested with the chief authority in ecclesiastical affairs at Rome, in a letter to the Vicar-apostolic, Dr. Poynter, formally announced the consent of the Papal See to give the King a veto on all ecclesiastical appointments within the United Kingdom; and, after his return to Rome, Pio VII. himself confirmed the former title by a second addressed, by his instructions, to the same Dr. Poynter, which letter, in 1816, was read by Mr. Grattan in the House of Commons, it being throughout understood that this concession of the veto to the King was conditional on the abolition of the disabilities and the endowment of the priesthood. And in 1825, after Lord Francis Egerton's resolution had been carried in the House of Commons, Dr. Doyle, one of the most eminent of the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, in an examination before a committee of the House of Lords, expressed the willingness of the Roman Catholic clergy to accept a state provision, if it were permanently annexed to each benefice, and accompanied with a concession of an equality of civil rights to the Roman Catholic laity.—See Life of Lord Liverpool, ii, 145; Diary of Lord Colchester, March 17, 1835, iii., 373; Peel's Memoirs, i., 306, 333 seq.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 211 --][Footnote 211: The sum to be thus employed seems to have been intended to be £300,000 a year.—Peel's Memoirs, i., 197. On the whole question of the payment and Peel's objections to it, see ibid., pp. 197, 306.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 212 --][Footnote 212: See his "Civil Despatches," iv., 570. In February, 1829, he said to Lord Sidmouth, "It is a bad business, but we are aground." "Does your Grace think, then," asked Lord Sidmouth, "that this concession will tranquillize Ireland?" "I can't tell; I hope it will," answered the Duke, who shortly discovered, and had the magnanimity to admit, his mistake.—Life of Lord Sidmouth, iii., 453. It is remarkable that the question of endowing the Roman Catholic clergy was again considered by Lord John Russell's ministry in 1848. A letter of Prince Albert in October of that year says, with reference to it: "The bishops have protested against Church endowment, being themselves well off; but the clergy would gratefully accept it if offered, but dare not avow this."—Life of the Prince Consort, ii., 186.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 213 --][Footnote 213: This first extract refers in part to the proposal which he made to the Duke to resign his office as Secretary of State, and to support the Emancipation as a private member, a design which he only relinquished at the Duke's earnest entreaty. The second extract refers to the seat in Parliament alone.—See Peel's Memoirs, i., 310, 312.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 214 --][Footnote 214: Speech to the electors of Bristol on being declared by the sheriffs duly elected member for that city, November 3, 1774.—Burke's Works, iii., 11, ed 1803.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 215 --][Footnote 215: It is worth pointing out, however, that, as if it were one of the natural fruits of the Reform Bill, the Liberal Committee of the Livery of London in 1832 passed a series of resolutions asserting the principle of delegation without the slightest modification; one resolution affirming "that members chosen to be representatives in Parliament ought to do such things as their constituents wish and direct them to do;" another, "that a signed engagement should be exacted from every member that he would at all times and in all things act conformably to the wishes of a majority of his constituents, or would at their request resign the trust with which they had honored him."—Annual Register, 1832, p. 300; quoted by Alison, 2d series, v., 355.]