Sligo, Armagh, and Lincoln did adorn.
The first in matchless impudence surpassed,
The next in bigotry—in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go,
To beard the third she shaved the other two."
Like other politicians, O'Connell did not escape without occasional personal passages at arms. In one of these, with Mr. Doherty, then Irish Solicitor-General, in May, 1830, O'Connell may be said to have come off second-best. He had attacked Doherty for his conduct as Crown lawyer in what was called the Doneraile conspiracy. The whole of the Tory party sided with Doherty, who made a forcible defence, attacking his assailant in turn, and the Whigs did not very warmly support O'Connell, who had then only been a few months in Parliament. This rencontre, which took place while "The Duke" was Premier, raised Doherty to the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas in Ireland—and led to Peel's offering him a seat in the Cabinet in 1834, and a Peerage in 1840. O'Connell used to say, and with truth, that he had placed Doherty on the Bench.
On another occasion O'Connell was far more successful. This was the celebrated Breach of Privilege case.
Victoria ascended the throne in June, 1837. Shortly after there was a General Election, and a great many of the members returned were petitioned against. The Tories had raised a large fund to defray the cost of these proceedings, and it was called "The Spottiswoode Subscription," as Spottiswoode, the Queen's printer (a patent life-office of much emolument), acted as its treasurer. Angry debates arose in the House of Commons on this subject, and personalities were so much and so tumultuously bandied to and fro, that Mr. Abercrombie, the Speaker, threatened to resign if they were repeated,—as if, grasping Scotchman as he was, he could ever have brought himself to resign the £6,000 a-year attached to the office!
The controverted elections were duly referred to the usual Election Committees, ballotted for out of the members then in the House. These committees were duly sworn, as juries are, to do justice between man and man. But it was unhappily notorious that when the majority were Whigs, they almost invariably decided against Tory members, and vice versâ. As ill luck would have it, the majority of the decisions went to unseat Liberal members. As parties were nearly balanced in Parliament, at that time—indeed the Whigs remained in office merely because there was a new and inexperienced sovereign who would have been puzzled how to act on a change of ministry—the Liberals complained of the decisions of the Election Committees.
On February 23, 1838, Lord Maidstone, who had been elected for Northamptonshire, and was the eldest son of the intolerant Earl of Winchelsea, who fought a duel on the Catholic Relief Bill, with Wellington, in 1 829, drew the attention of the House of Commons to a Breach of Privilege. He complained that, two days before, at a public dinner given at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Mr. O'Connell had declared that in the Election Committees "Corruption of the worst description existed, and above all there was the perjury of the Tory politicians." Also, that he "was ready to be a martyr to justice and truth; but not to false swearing, and therefore, he repeated, that there was foul perjury in the Tory Committees of the House of Commons."