This hope was not likely, nor was it destined, to be realised. The Porte remained inflexible, and would grant no armistice; indeed, it had summoned a contingent of ships from Egypt, and a fleet of twenty-eight sail under Ibrahim Pasha was lying in the Bay of Navarino awaiting further reinforcements. Admiral Codrington, who commanded the allied fleet, now before Navarino, showed much forbearance. In concert with the French admiral, he warned Ibrahim Pasha not to leave the harbour, and obtained assurances which were speedily broken. Futile negotiations went on during the early part of October, ending in a massacre among the inhabitants of the coast by the direction of Ibrahim. The admirals of the allied fleet no longer hesitated. On the 20th the fleet entered the harbour. The first shots were fired by the Turco-Egyptian fleet, which was skilfully ranged in three lines, and in the form of a horseshoe. An action ensued, which lasted four hours, and resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Ottoman armament. Had the allied fleet at once proceeded to Constantinople, the Greek question might perhaps have been settled promptly, instead of being left to perplex cabinets for two years longer.
The news of Navarino reached England when the ministry of Lord Goderich was already tottering, and caused its members far more anxiety than satisfaction. Probably the wisest of them foresaw that, unless immediate action were taken, Russia would declare war single-handed against Turkey and enforce her own terms, but nothing in fact was done, and Wellington, on coming into power, found the question of our relations with Turkey and Greece still open. In spite of his own share in bringing about the co-operation of Russia with Great Britain, he was by no means prepared for a crusade on behalf of Greek independence, or for a definite rupture with Turkey. Hence the memorable phrases inserted in the king's speech of January 29, 1828, which described the battle of Navarino as "a collision wholly unexpected by His Majesty" and as "an untoward event," which His Majesty hoped would not be followed by further hostilities. These expressions, however much in accord with the pacific tone of the treaty of London, provoked an outburst of indignation from the friends of Greece in both houses. Lords Holland and Althorp, Lord John Russell, and Brougham recorded earnest protests against any disparagement of Admiral Codrington's action. The infatuation of the Porte, and the consequent war with Russia, checked further agitation on the subject, and Wellington's government was able to fall back on the policy of non-intervention proposed, though not always practised, by Canning. But the reactionary tendency of Wellington's foreign policy betrayed in the king's speech had its effect in alienating the more liberal of his colleagues. Nor was his position strengthened by his irresolute home policy. During the session of 1828 issues were raised which inevitably divided and ultimately broke up the cabinet.
TEST ACTS REPEALED.
The first of these difficulties was caused by the success of Lord John Russell's motion for the repeal of the test and corporation acts, under which dissenters were precluded from holding municipal and other offices. It was, indeed, a grave blot on the consistency of reformers that, while the claims of Roman catholics, and especially of Irish Roman catholics, had been vehemently urged for nearly thirty years, those of protestant nonconformists had been coldly neglected. Their legal disabilities, it is true, had gradually become almost nominal, and an indemnity act was passed yearly to cover the constant breaches of the obnoxious law. Still, the law was maintained, and was stoutly defended by such tories as Eldon on the principle that it was an important outwork of the union between Church and State. Even the Canningite members of the government supported it against Russell's attack, but on the very opposite ground—that it had become a dead letter. However, the measure for its repeal was carried in the house of commons by a majority of forty-four, including some well-known Churchmen. This measure would assuredly have been rejected in the house of lords had not Peel judiciously procured the insertion of a clause substituting for the sacramental test a declaration binding the office-holder to do nothing hostile to the Church. Thus modified, it passed the house of lords, with the assent of several bishops, in spite of the implacable opposition of Lords Eldon and Redesdale, and the Duke of Cumberland. But the declaration was amended by the addition of the words "upon the true faith of a Christian," which incidentally continued the statutable exclusion of Jews.
The enforced acceptance of this enactment was equivalent to a decisive reverse, and could not but injure the prestige of the government, but it did not actually cause a schism in the cabinet. It was otherwise when the duke proposed a corn bill in lieu of that rejected at his instance in the previous year. The difference between these measures was not very material, but the duke insisted upon certain regulations of detail, which Huskisson persistently opposed. Peel suggested a compromise which, after long altercation and some threats of resignation, was adopted. But the effect was to weaken the government still further in the eyes of the public, inasmuch as the principle of duties on a graduated scale had prevailed at last against the declared opinions of the duke. The inevitable rupture was only deferred for a few weeks, and arose out of motions for disfranchising East Retford and Penryn—a premonitory symptom of the great reform bill. These were among the most corrupt of the old "rotten boroughs," and the scandalous practices which flourished in both of them had more than once shocked even the unreformed parliament. In 1827 a bill for disfranchising Penryn had actually been carried by the house of commons in spite of Canning's dissent, and one for disfranchising East Retford would probably have been carried, but that it was introduced too late.
The motions now introduced by Lord John Russell and Charles Tennyson respectively could scarcely have been thrown out by the same house, but squabbles arose in the cabinet, partly on the comparative guiltiness of the two venal constituencies, but chiefly on the disposal of the seats to be vacated. It was agreed at last that Penryn should be merged in the adjacent hundred, and the majority of the cabinet, represented by Peel, were for dealing in like manner with East Retford. The liberal section, however, represented by Huskisson, was bent on transferring its representation to Birmingham, and voted against Peel in the house of commons. Having thus vindicated his independence, Huskisson, somewhat too hastily, placed his resignation in the hands of the premier on May 20. The duke, having fairly lost patience with his insubordinate colleagues, was equally prompt in accepting it, and declined to receive the explanations offered. In the end, Palmerston, Dudley, Grant, and Lamb, followed the fortunes of Huskisson, and Wellington's government was completely purged of Canning's old supporters.
THE CLARE ELECTION.
Two military officers, without political experience, were now imported into the ministry. Sir George Murray succeeded Huskisson at the colonial office, and Sir Henry Hardinge replaced Palmerston as secretary at war, but was not admitted to the cabinet; Lord Aberdeen became foreign secretary, and Vesey Fitzgerald president of the board of trade, while Lord Francis Leveson Gower succeeded Lamb as chief secretary for Ireland. So purely tory an administration had not been formed since the days of Perceval. Looking back we can see that, for that very reason, it was doomed; but to politicians of 1828 Wellington's ascendency seemed assured, and it was not actually broken for above two years. By far the most important event of domestic history within that period was the crisis ending in the catholic emancipation act, and this crisis was immediately precipitated by the almost casual appointment of Vesey Fitzgerald. He was a popular Irish landlord, who had always supported catholic relief, and his re-election for the county of Clare was regarded as perfectly secure. The landlords were known to be entirely in his favour, and Irish tenants, miscalled "forty shilling freeholders," had been used to vote obsequiously for the candidate of their landlords. Indeed, these counterfeit freeholds had been manufactured recklessly throughout Ireland for the very purpose of extending landlord influence. Perhaps the recent defeat of a Beresford at Waterford by a nominee of Daniel O'Connell, who had made himself the leader of the movement for Catholic relief, ought to have undeceived the Irish tories, but no one could have foreseen so daring an act as the candidature of O'Connell himself, notwithstanding that, as a catholic, he was incapable of sitting in the house of commons.
The contest began on June 30 and lasted five days. All the gentry and electors of the higher class supported Fitzgerald, but all the poorer electors, headed by their priests, flocked to the poll and voted for O'Connell, who, on Fitzgerald's retirement, was triumphantly elected. The violence of O'Connell's language was unmeasured, and as was said by Sheil, "every altar became a tribune," but perfect order was maintained throughout. The terrorism which has since disgraced Irish elections and vitiated the whole representation of Ireland had no place in this startling victory, and the impression produced by it was thereby infinitely enhanced. Two conclusions were instantly drawn from it: the one, that electoral power in Ireland could not safely be left in the hands of the forty-shilling freeholders; the other, that, whether or not they were disfranchised, nothing short of political equality of the catholics of Ireland could avert the risk of civil war. It is seldom that momentous changes can be so clearly traced to a single cause as in the case of catholic emancipation. The whole interval between July, 1828, and April, 1829, was occupied by the discussion of this question, or circumstances arising out of it, and it may truly be said to have filled the whole horizon of domestic politics. The first and final recognition by a responsible government of emancipation as a political necessity dates immediately from the Clare election.
The question of catholic emancipation had been the only reason for the resignation of Pitt in 1801, but we have seen that he resumed office in 1804 under a pledge not to re-open it. It is certain that he never contemplated a complete emancipation of the catholics without safeguards for the interests of the established church. Such a safeguard (though ineffective against a future attack through disestablishment) was provided by the act of union,[84] which inviolably united the Irish and English churches. The catholic leaders, on their part, were profuse in their disavowals of hostility to that establishment and to the protestant government in Ireland. In their first solemn memorial, presented by Grenville on March 25, 1805, they expressly declared that "they do not seek or wish, in the remotest degree, to injure or encroach upon the rights, privileges, immunities, possessions, and revenues appertaining to the bishops and clergy of the protestant religion, or to the churches committed to their charge". They further volunteered an expression of their belief that no evil act could be justified by the good of the Church, and that papal infallibility was no article of the catholic faith. Thenceforward, frequent motions in support of the "catholic claims" were made in both houses of parliament. In 1810 such a motion was proposed in a very eloquent speech by Grattan, but Castlereagh, though a staunch friend of the cause, deprecated it as inopportune, since the catholics had injured themselves by imprudent conduct, and fresh declarations inconsistent with their former assurances. The motion was therefore rejected, and a similar fate befell motions of the same kind in the two following years, especially in the house of lords, where Eldon inflexibly resisted any concession, and always commanded a majority.