MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
A.D. 1822
On the meeting of parliament in January, one of the first subjects taken into consideration was the state of Ireland. For some years that country had been comparatively peaceable, but distress and outrage were again walking hand in hand in every part. To repress the spirit of lawless outrage, the Marquess of Londonderry—Lord Castlereagh, who had succeeded to that title at his father’s death—introduced and carried two bills for arming the administration with additional powers, the insurrection act, and the suspension of the habeas corpus. Several members wished the state of Ireland to be thoroughly investigated; but this did not accord with the views of ministers. At length a famine, from the failure of the potatoe-crop in 1821, spread over the country, and disease waited in its train. A fever, of the typhus kind, swept off its thousands, while starvation carried off its thousands more. Government, on discovering this, placed £500,000 at the disposal of Lord Wellesley, the lord-lieutenant, to be dispensed in charitable relief, or in employing the poor on works of public utility, and private charity afforded even more effectual aid; but still the people of Ireland could not be wholly rescued from the calamity which had overtaken them. Many were snatched from the jaws of death by this timely relief, but many more perished.
CHANGES IN THE CABINET.
The continued distress of the agriculturists in England, at the commencement of this year led to some modification in the state of public parties. At many county meetings such a loud and imperative call for retrenchment and remission of taxation, was made by both landholders and farmers, that the treasury-bench began to feel alarm. This, in fact, drove them to the expediency of strengthening their ranks by opening the doors of office to the Grenville party; which, though not united with the whigs, was generally opposed to ministers. Lord Grenville, the political head of the party, had retired from public life, but the Marquess of Buckingham was gratified by a ducal coronet, and Mr. Charles Wynne was made president of the board of control. A greater accession was gained in the exchange of Lord Sidmouth for Mr. Peel, as secretary of state for the home department. Lord Sidmouth, however, was permitted to retain a seat in the cabinet, but Mr. Canning was compelled to retire, the part which he had taken in the affairs of the queen having created feelings of resentment against him in the king’s mind.
MOTION TO RESTORE ROMAN CATHOLIC PEERS TO THEIR SEATS IN PARLIAMENT.
On the 30th of April, Mr. Canning, “wishing perhaps to give éclat to his departure from the scene of his glory,” moved in the house of commons for leave to bring in a bill for restoring the right of sitting and voting in parliament to Roman Catholic peers. In his speech he asked; “Do you imagine it never occurred to the representatives of Europe, when contemplating the imposing spectacle of the coronation; that it never occurred to the ambassadors of Catholic Austria, of Catholic Fiance, or of states more bigoted, if there be any more bigoted, to the Catholic religion, to reflect, that the moment this solemn ceremony was over, the Duke of Norfolk would become disseized of the exercise of his privileges among his fellow peers? stripped of his robes of office, which were to be laid aside, and hung up, until the day, when the coronation of a successor to his present most gracious sovereign should again call him forth to assist at a similar solemnization? Thus after being exhibited to the peers and people of England, to the representatives of princes and nations of the world—the Duke of Norfolk, highest in rank among the peers—the Lord Clifford and others, like him, representing a long line of illustrious ancestors, appeared as if they had been called forth and furnished for the occasion, like the lustres and banners that flamed and glittered in the scene; and were to be, like them, thrown by as useless and temporary formalities. They might, indeed, bend the knee and kiss the hand; they might bear the train, or rear the canopy; they might perform the offices assigned by Roman pride to their barbarian forefathers—Purpurea tollant auloa Britanni—but with the pageantry of that hour their importance faded away. As their distinction vanished, their humiliation returned: and he who headed the procession of peers to-day, could not sit among them as their equal, to-morrow.” This motion was strongly opposed by Mr. Peel, who was unable to see any reason for exempting Roman Catholic peers from political restrictions to which a community professing the same tenets were by law subject. The bill, notwithstanding, passed the commons by a majority of five; but it was rejected by the lords.