It is interesting to notice that a protest was entered {69} against the introduction of the words "on the true faith of a Christian" by Lord Holland, who represented the principles of Charles James Fox. The peers, it should be said, enjoy the privilege, which is not allowed to members of the representative chamber, of recording their formal protest on the books of their House against any motion or measure which has been carried in spite of their opposition, and of setting forth reasons on which their objection is founded. Many of the protests thus recorded form important contributions to political history. Lord Holland vindicates his protest in words which are well worth quoting: "Because the introduction of the words 'upon the true faith of a Christian' implies an opinion in which I cannot conscientiously concur, namely, that a particular faith in matters of religion is necessary to the proper discharge of duties purely political or temporal." Lord Eldon strongly condemned the action of the prelates who had voted in favor of the measure, and he used some words which showed that, however obtuse his bigotry may have been, he clearly saw what must inevitably come from the concession to religious liberty which was made by the passing of such a measure. "Sooner or later," he said, "perhaps in this very year, almost certainly in the next, the concessions to the Dissenters must be followed by the like concessions to the Roman Catholics." The Roman Catholic claims were already asserting themselves with a force which appealed irresistibly to the minds of all enlightened men.
The Catholic Association had been formed in Ireland for the purpose of advocating the claims of the vast majority of the Irish people, and it had found for its leader a man who must have made a great figure in the political life of any era, and who was especially qualified to take a leading place in such an agitation. Daniel O'Connell was one of the most remarkable men of his time. He was the first Irish political leader of modern days who professed the faith which may be called the national creed of his people. The leaders of great Irish movements just before his time—the Fitzgeralds, the Tones, and the Emmets—had {70} had been, like Grattan himself, members of the Established Church. O'Connell had, moreover, no sympathy whatever with the sentiments of the French Revolution. He had passed a few of his early years in France, he had seen some of the later excesses of the revolutionary period, and he had been inspired with a horror as great as that felt by Edmund Burke for the extravagances of the revolutionary era. He belonged to the landlord class, but his sympathies had always been with the popular and national movements of his countrymen. He had practised at the Irish bar, and had become the greatest advocate in the Irish law courts, and was thus enabled to combine with all the fire and energy of a born popular leader the subtlety and craft of a trained and practised lawyer. O'Connell was one of the greatest orators of a day when political oratory could display some of its most splendid illustrations. He had a commanding presence, indeed a colossal form, and a voice which was marvellous alike for the strength and the music of its varied intonations. Such men as Disraeli and Bulwer Lytton have borne enthusiastic tribute to the magic of that voice, and have declared it to be unrivalled in the political eloquence of the time. O'Connell made his voice heard at many great public meetings in England and in Scotland, as well as in Ireland, and his political views had, indeed, much in common with those of English and Scottish advanced Liberals.
[Sidenote: O'Connell and the Parliamentary Oath]
The Catholic Association was made, at one period of its career, the subject of an Act of Parliament which declared it to be, for a certain time, an illegal organization, and the period was now approaching when the prohibitory Act would have to be renewed or allowed to drop out of existence. In consequence of some ministerial rearrangements a vacancy had arisen in the Parliamentary representation of the county of Clare in Ireland, and O'Connell resolved on taking a bold and what then seemed to many a positively desperate step. He announced himself as a candidate for the vacancy in opposition to its former occupant, who, having been appointed to ministerial office, was compelled to resign his place in the House of {71} Commons and offer himself to his former constituents for re-election. O'Connell was not disqualified by positive enactment from becoming a candidate for a seat in Parliament; that is to say, there was no law actually declaring that a Roman Catholic, as such, could not enter the House of Commons. But, as we have explained already, it was the law of the land that no man could take his seat in that House until he had subscribed an oath which it was perfectly impossible for any Roman Catholic to accept, an oath disavowing and denouncing the very opinions which are an essential part of the Roman Catholic's faith. O'Connell, therefore, could not be prevented from becoming a candidate for the representation of Clare, and when the contest came on it ended in his being triumphantly returned by an overwhelming majority. O'Connell presented himself at the table of the House of Commons, and was called upon to subscribe the usual oath, which, of course, he absolutely refused to do. He was then ordered to withdraw, and he did withdraw, and the seat was declared vacant. O'Connell returned to Clare, again offered himself as candidate, and was again elected by a triumphant majority. Then, indeed, men like Lord Eldon must have begun to think that the old world was really coming to an end. King George and the Government found themselves face to face with a crisis to which there had been no parallel in the memory of living statesmen.
The progress of events was, meanwhile, making a deep impression on the receptive mind of Sir Robert Peel, now Home Secretary, and by far the most rising and powerful member of the Administration. Huskisson, it should be said, had by this time ceased to belong to the Duke of Wellington's Government. There had been some misunderstanding between him and the Duke, arising out of a speech made by Huskisson in Liverpool, which was understood to contain a declaration that Huskisson had only accepted office on the express understanding that the policy of the Duke's Government was to be the policy of Canning. The Duke took exception to this, and declared that he had entered into no understanding as to his general {72} policy, but that what Huskisson probably had said was that he had accepted the composition of the Government as a guarantee in itself that a sound national policy was to be carried out.
[Sidenote: 1828—Demand for Catholic emancipation]
Huskisson accepted the explanation, and explained that this was what he really had said, and no doubt this was really the purpose of that passage in his speech; but the incident led to some friction between the two men, and was the beginning of other misunderstandings. Some difference of opinion afterwards arose on minor questions of policy, and Huskisson sent to the Duke a somewhat hasty letter announcing his resignation. The letter was intended to be only a conditional intimation of his purpose, but the Duke took it as positive and final, and announced it as such to the King. There was no course left open to Huskisson but to resign. The incident created much talk at the time, and gave rise to a good deal of satirical comment. Several other members of the Government, among whom was Lord Palmerston, resigned along with Huskisson, and they formed themselves into an independent party, bearing the name of the Canningites. It is curious to notice that the reconstructions caused in the Government by these resignations, and the new appointments which had to be made, led to that vacancy in the county of Clare which gave O'Connell an opportunity of coming forward as a candidate for the seat and being elected.
Peel saw that the Duke of Wellington's Government had lost some of its most influential members. Other events, too, had been turning his attention towards the growth of the agitation in Ireland. The Marquis of Wellesley, elder brother of the Duke of Wellington, had been Viceroy of Ireland. Wellesley had been a distinguished statesman, and as Viceroy of India had conducted to a successful issue, with the help of his younger brother, the great Mahratta war. When he became Viceroy of Ireland he had gone over to that country as a strong opponent of the Catholic claims, but his experience there soon convinced him that it would be impossible to resist those claims much longer, and at the same time {73} to keep Ireland in tranquillity. Therefore, when the Duke of Wellington, on coming into office as Prime Minister, refused to recognize the Catholic claims, Lord Wellesley resigned his place. He was succeeded by the Marquis of Anglesey, a soldier who had done brilliant service in the wars against Napoleon, and was well known as a determined opponent of the demands made by the advocates of Catholic emancipation. Lord Anglesey, too, became satisfied during his time of office in Ireland that there was no alternative between emancipation and an armed rebellion among the Irish Catholics, a large number of whom were actually serving in the ranks of the army. His opinions were again and again impressed on the Government, and the course he took only led to his recall from the Viceroyalty.
In the House of Commons an event took place which had a great effect on the mind of Peel. Early in 1828 Sir Francis Burdett, who held a very prominent place among the more advanced reformers of the time, and who represented Westminster in the House of Commons, brought forward a resolution inviting the House to consider the state of the laws affecting the Roman Catholics of the two islands, "with a view to such a final and conciliatory settlement as may be conducive to the peace and strength of the United Kingdom, to the stability of the Protestant Establishment, and to the general satisfaction and concord of all classes of his Majesty's subjects." The resolution was supported by a powerful speech from Brougham, in which he dwelt on the fact that not one of those who opposed the motion had expressed any conviction that the existing state of things could long continue, and that it was impossible to overlook or deny the great advance which the movement for Catholic Emancipation had been making in and out of Parliament. Peel was greatly impressed by this argument, and also by the fact that the men who supported Burdett and Brougham in the House of Commons represented the best part of the intellect and statesmanship of that House. The resolution was carried by 272 votes against 266 on the other side, a small majority, {74} indeed, but a majority that at such a time was large enough to show a man of Peel's intellect the practical progress which the demand for Catholic Emancipation had already made.
[Sidenote: 1828—Peel and Catholic emancipation]