CATHOLIC RELIEF.
When Liverpool replaced Perceval as prime minister in 1812, catholic emancipation became an open question in the cabinet. In that year Canning succeeded in carrying triumphantly a resolution pledging the house of commons to consider the question seriously in the next session, and a like resolution was only lost by one vote in the house of lords. Accordingly, in 1813, Grattan's motion for a committee of the whole house on catholic disabilities was accepted, and a bill for their removal passed its second reading. But it was loaded with vexatious securities in committee and wrecked by the vigorous opposition of the speaker, Abbot, who on May 24 carried by a majority of four an amendment withholding the right to sit and vote in parliament. After this, the bill was of course abandoned, but another was unanimously passed exempting from penalties Roman catholics holding certain military and civil offices, to which, by a harsh construction of law, they were not eligible. In 1817 the question was debated at great length in the house of commons, and several leading men took part in it, but the motion for catholic relief was again defeated by a majority of twenty-four. It was revived in 1819 by Grattan, who delivered on this occasion one of his greatest speeches, and succeeded in reducing the majority to two only. In 1821 a further advance was made by Plunket's success in obtaining a committee to consider the claims of the catholics. This was carried by a majority of six, and followed up by two bills, removing all catholic disabilities with very slight exceptions, but subject to stringent and somewhat illusory securities for the loyalty of the priesthood. Ultimately on April 2 a comprehensive measure of catholic relief passed the house of commons by a majority of nineteen. All the most influential members of the lower house now voted in its favour, but the attitude of the upper house remained unchanged. The spirit of Eldon still ruled the peers, and his speech against Plunket's relief bill contains a complete armoury of protestant arguments. But the catholics had a still more doughty opponent in the Duke of York, who delivered on this occasion the first of his famous declarations, binding himself to life-long hostility. As Eldon said, "he did more to quiet this matter than everything else put together".[85]
The year 1821 marks a turning point in the history of the catholic question, since the protestant cause, no longer safe in the house of commons, was felt by its champions to depend on the crown and the house of lords. But it would be an error to suppose that catholic relief was ever a popular cry in this country, like retrenchment and reform. On the contrary, the feelings of the masses in Great Britain were never roused in regard to it, and, if roused at all, would probably have been enlisted on the other side. It would be too much to say that the controversy was merely academical, for it was keen enough to split up parties and produce dualism in cabinets. But it was never a hustings question. It filled a much larger space in the minds of statesmen than in the minds of the people, and even among statesmen it was so far secondary that it could be treated as an open question in Liverpool's ministry for a period of fifteen years. No doubt the disturbed state of Ireland, which ultimately supplied the motive power for carrying the emancipation act, contributed at an earlier stage to damp the zeal of its advocates. Whatever the merits of the union, it had failed to pacify the country, thereby verifying the warning of Cornwallis, that, although Ireland could not be saved without the union, "you must not take it for granted that it will be saved by it".
In 1800, the very year of the union, the habeas corpus act had been suspended and another act passed for the suppression of rebellion. Though repealed in the following year, these coercive measures were renewed in 1803, after Emmet's abortive rising, and continued in 1804. In 1805, when they expired, special commissions were appointed for the repression of crime in the south and west of Ireland. In 1807 the habeas corpus act was again suspended and a rigorous insurrection act passed which continued in force until 1810. In that year a Catholic Committee was formed, anticipating the more notorious Catholic Association. An essential part of the scheme was the formation of a representative assembly in Dublin, to discuss and procure redress for the wrongs of catholics. This project was put down by the Irish government, which treated it as a breach of the convention act of 1793. The next ten years seem to have been somewhat quieter in Ireland, and the disturbances which followed the peace in Great Britain had no counterpart in that country. Still, it was thought necessary to suppress another catholic convention in 1814, and to renew the insurrection act, which remained in force with one interval till 1817. It can well be imagined that a population so lawless, and so prone to horrible outrages which shock Englishmen more than a thousand crimes against property, should have excited little general sympathy by their complaints of political grievances. These grievances were justly denounced by party leaders, but in the eyes of ordinary politicians, and still more of electors, coercion rather than concession was the appropriate remedy for the ills of Ireland.
CATHOLIC RELIEF.
Canning, however, though suspected of lukewarmness, did not let the question rest in 1822. On April 30, while still out of office, he introduced a bill which he could scarcely have expected to become law, for enabling Roman catholic peers to sit and vote in the house of lords. This bill was passed in the commons by a majority of five, but rejected in the lords by a majority of forty-four, in spite of somewhat transparent assertions that it was not intended to prejudice the main issue. On April 18, 1823, an angry protest from Burdett against the "annual farce" of motions leading to nothing was followed by a quarrel between Canning and Brougham, who accused Canning, then foreign secretary, of "monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office"; and when Plunket moved, as usual, for the relief of catholics, a temporary secession of radicals took place, which left him in a ridiculous minority. In spite of this discomfiture, Lord Nugent succeeded in carrying through the commons a bill, granting the parliamentary franchise to Roman catholics in Great Britain. The bill was lost in the lords, and the question remained dormant in 1824; but in 1825 it received a fresh impulse. This time it was Burdett who, at the instance of Lansdowne and Brougham, appeared as spokesman of the catholics. His action was in some respects inopportune, as the "Catholic Association," founded by O'Connell and Sheil in 1823, was now usurping the functions of a government, and regularly levying taxes under the name of "rent". The necessity of suppressing it, though not apparent to Lord Wellesley, the lord-lieutenant, was strongly felt on both sides of the house of commons. A bill for this purpose, but applicable to all similar associations, was rapidly carried by large majorities in both houses, and the opposition was fain to rely mainly on the declaration that it would be put in force against catholic associations only, and not against those of the Orangemen, as the more violent of the Irish protestants were called. It is needless to say that it was evaded by the former, but on March 1, while it was still before the house of lords, Burdett took courage to move another preliminary resolution in favour of the catholics, and obtained a majority of thirteen. A bill founded on this resolution was at once introduced.
The debates on this bill were memorable in several respects and opened the last stage but one in the long history of catholic relief. In the first place, more than one opponent publicly avowed his conversion to it; in the second place, now that its "settlement" was actually within view, the necessity of providing a counterpoise became admitted. Accordingly, one independent member proposed a state grant of £250,000 a year for the endowment of the catholic clergy, who might thus be indirectly bound over to good behaviour, while another proposed the disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders. Both of these bills were read a second time, but held over until the fate of the main relief bill should be determined. That bill passed the house of commons on May 10, 1825, by a majority of twenty-one, and Peel tendered his resignation to Lord Liverpool.[86] Two days later, the Duke of York, on presenting a petition against the bill in the house of lords, delivered another speech which fell like a thunder-clap on the country, and has been celebrated ever since as an audacious breach of constitutional usage. In this speech, he justified the inflexible attitude of his father, whose mental disorder he expressly attributed to the agitation of the catholic question. He concluded by declaring that his principles were the same, imbibed in early youth and confirmed by mature reflection, and that he would maintain them up to the latest moment of his existence, "whatever might be his situation in life". It is certain that, in thus pledging himself, he acted without having consulted the king, who somewhat resented so direct an allusion to his prospect of succession. Still, the sensation produced by the duke's utterance was prodigious, and he remained the favourite champion of the protestant cause until his death. Brougham attacked him with furious sarcasm in the commons, but the lords threw out Burdett's relief bill by a majority of forty-eight, and the No-popery cry influenced the general election of 1826. In that year no further effort was made by the friends of catholic claims, but O'Connell showed his growing power in Ireland by exciting a political revolt of the peasantry at Waterford, and procuring the defeat of Lord George Beresford.
CATHOLIC RELIEF.
In the session of 1827, before Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool, Burdett renewed his motion of 1825 on the catholic question, but found himself defeated by four votes. The division had taken place in a full house, after the fierce encounter, already mentioned, between Copley and Canning; but it cannot be regarded as a decisive token of contrast between the old and the new parliament, since relief was now claimed without any mention of "securities". The subject was in abeyance during the short administrations of Canning and Goderich, but was raised again by Burdett in May, 1828, after the repeal of the test and corporation acts. The number of votes on the catholic side, 272, was the same as in 1827, that on the protestant side, 266, was less by ten, the result being a majority of six for the motion. A similar resolution was lost in the house of lords, as a matter of course; but the language held by the new lord chancellor, Lyndhurst, and by Wellington himself, as prime minister, prepared observant men for an impending change of policy. Then followed the Clare election, which revealed nothing which might not have been foreseen, but which had the same effect in precipitating the removal of catholic disabilities as the Irish famine afterwards had in precipitating the repeal of the corn laws.
We now know that Peel had made up his mind to yield shortly after the Clare election,[87] partly influenced by the alarming reports of Anglesey, the Irish lord-lieutenant, on the state of Ireland. We also know that Wellington himself was more than half convinced of the necessity of concession, and was preparing to strengthen his government for the coming struggle, in the event of Peel feeling bound to retire. Meanwhile a vacancy in the ministry had been created by the Duke of Clarence's resignation of his office of lord high admiral. In spite of the limitations imposed on his power, he had insisted on hoisting his flag, and assumed command. For this he was severely reprehended by the king and Wellington, and was virtually forced to resign office. Melville now became once more first lord of the admiralty, and was succeeded by Ellenborough at the board of control. Ellenborough retained his former office of lord privy seal, which Wellington was holding in reserve with a view to strengthening the government. But the public of those days remained in entire ignorance of their intentions until the meeting of parliament on February 5, 1829.