Anglesey, who had been recently dismissed from the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, went beyond the duke in the use of purely military arguments; Grey ventured to prophesy not only a future reign of peace in Ireland, but an extension of protestantism, as the consequence of catholic emancipation. The hopeless attempt of Lyndhurst to vindicate his own consistency, and a forensic duel between Eldon and Plunket, who had been raised to the peerage in 1827, relieved the monotony of the debate, but probably did not influence a single vote. The old guard of the anti-catholic party remained firm, but the mass of tory peers followed their leader in his new policy, as they had followed him in his old, and the relief bill was read a third time in the house of lords on the 10th, by a majority of 104. Three days later it received the royal assent. Lord Eldon had virtually encouraged the king to refuse this, at the last moment, though he was too honest to accept the assurance of George IV. that the bill was introduced without his authority. But the son of George III. had not inherited his father's resolute character. After a few childish threats of retiring to Hanover and leaving the Duke of Clarence to make terms with the ministry, he abandoned further resistance and capitulated to Wellington, as Wellington had capitulated to O'Connell.
The disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders and the substitution of a ten-pound suffrage was the price to be paid for catholic emancipation, and no time was lost in completing the bargain. In days when it is assumed that every change in the electoral franchise must needs be in a downward direction, it may well appear amazing that so wholesale a destruction of privileges enjoyed for thirty-six years should have provoked so feeble an opposition. It is still more amazing that it should have passed without a protest from O'Connell himself, who had solemnly vowed to perish on the field or on the scaffold rather than submit to it. Yet so it was. These ignorant voters, it is true, had never ventured to call their souls their own, and had only ceased to be the servile creatures of their landlords in order to become the servile creatures of their priests. Still, it was they who, by their action in the Waterford and Clare elections, had forced the hand of the government, and achieved catholic emancipation. It may safely be said that after the reform act of 1832 it would have been politically impossible to disfranchise them; and even in the unreformed parliament it would have been scarcely possible if gratitude were a trustworthy motive in politics. On the other hand, the government could never have secured a majority for catholic emancipation, unless it had been distinctly understood to carry with it the extinction of democracy in Ireland. This, rather than declarations and restrictions of doubtful efficacy, was the real "security" on which the legislature relied for disarming the disloyalty of Irish catholics. For some time it answered its purpose so far as to keep the representation of that disloyalty within safe limits in the house of commons. But it naturally produced a contrary effect in Ireland itself, and was destined to be swept away before a fresh wave of agitation.
A few days before the relief bill passed the house of commons an episode occurred which is chiefly interesting for the light which it throws on the ideas then prevalent in the highest society. In 1828 Wellington had presided at a meeting for the establishment of King's College, London, an institution which was to be entirely under the influence of the established church, and which was intended as a counterpoise to the purely secular institution which had been recently founded under the title of the "London University". The Earl of Winchilsea, a peer of no personal importance, but a stalwart upholder of Church and State, published in the Standard newspaper of March 16, 1829, a virulent letter, describing the whole transaction "as a blind to the protestant and high church party," and accusing the prime minister of insidious designs for the introduction of popery in every department of the state. The duke at once sent Hardinge with a note couched in moderate language, demanding an apology. Winchilsea made no apology, but offered to express regret for having mistaken the duke's motives, if the duke would declare that when he presided at the meeting in question he was not contemplating any measure of catholic relief. Whereupon the duke demanded "that satisfaction which a gentleman has a right to require, and which a gentleman never refuses to give". A hostile meeting took place on March 21 in Battersea fields. The duke intentionally fired wide, and Winchilsea, after discharging his weapon in the air, tendered a written apology, in conformity with the so-called rules of honour. The duke was conscious that his conduct must have "shocked many good men," but he always maintained that it was the only way, and proved an effectual way, of dispelling the atmosphere of calumny in which he was surrounded. It is probable that he judged rightly of his contemporaries, and that he gained rather than lost in reputation by an act which, apart from its moral aspect, risked the success of a great measure largely depending on the continuance of his own life. It may be noticed that he afterwards became not only the personal friend of his antagonist, but the most influential member of the Anti-Duelling Association.[92]
EXCLUSION OF O'CONNELL.
Another episode, or rather sequel, of the great contest on catholic relief had more serious political consequences. Though O'Connell was the undoubted leader of the movement, and might almost have claimed to be the father of the act, he was most unwisely but deliberately excluded from its benefits. His exclusion was effected by a clause which rendered its operation strictly prospective, for the very purpose of shutting out the one catholic who had been elected under the old law. It had been decided by a committee of the house of commons that he was duly returned, the only question being whether he could take his seat without subscribing the oath now abolished. This question was brought to a test by the appearance of O'Connell in person in the house itself. The speaker, Charles Manners-Sutton, declared that he could not properly be admitted to be sworn under the new law, upon which O'Connell claimed a hearing. A long and futile discussion followed as to whether he should be heard at the table or at the bar. In the end he was heard at the bar, and produced a very favourable impression upon his opponents as well as his friends by the ingenuity of his arguments and the studied moderation of his tone. His case, however, was manifestly untenable from a legal point of view, and a new writ was ordered to be issued for the county of Clare.
Then was shown both the folly of stirring up so needlessly the inflammable materials of Irish sedition and the futility of imagining that catholic emancipation, right or wrong, would prove a healing measure. Having exhibited the better side of his character in his speech before the house of commons, O'Connell exhibited its worst side without stint or shame in his addresses to the Irish peasantry. Skilfully avoiding the language of sheer treason, he set no bounds to his coarse and outrageous vituperation of the nation which had sacrificed even its conscience to appease Ireland; nor did he shrink from denouncing Wellington and Peel as "those men who, false to their own party, can never be true to us". The note which he struck has never ceased to vibrate in the hearts of the excitable people which he might have educated into loyal citizenship, and the spirit which he evoked has been the evil genius of Ireland from his day to our own. He openly unfurled the standard of repeal, but the repeal he demanded did not involve the creation of an Irish republic. Ireland was still to be connected with Great Britain by "the golden link of the crown," and though agitation was carried to the verge of rebellion, the great agitator never actually advised his dupes to rise in arms for a war of independence. Short of this he did all in his power, and with too much success, to inflame them with a malignant hatred of the sister country. If the promoters of catholic emancipation had ever looked for any reward beyond the inward satisfaction of having done a righteous act, they were speedily and wofully undeceived.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] Wellington to Peel, January 9, 1828, in Parker, Sir Robert Peel, ii., 27.
[84] Lecky, History of Ireland, v., 358-60, n.; Stapleton, Life of Canning, ii., 131-34.
[85] Eldon to Sir William Scott, Twiss, Life of Eldon, ii., 416. For Eldon's Speech, see Twiss, iii., 498-512.