He concluded by moving an address to the Prince Regent, that he would be pleased to give directions that a copy of the treaty would be laid before the House.
Lord Castlereagh who had previously admitted to the authenticity of the document moved for, after adducing, from the result of the preceding union of these sovereigns, arguments against regarding them with suspicion, informed the hon. gentlemen, that instead of any secrecy in their proceedings on the present occasion, the emperor of Russia had communicated to him a draft of the proposed treaty, he believed, before it had been communicated to the other sovereigns; and that after its signature a joint-letter had been addressed by them to the Prince Regent, stating the grounds on which it had been concluded, and anxiously desiring his accession to it: that his Royal Highness in reply had expressed his satisfaction at the nature of the treaty, and his assurance that the British Government would not be the one least disposed to act up to its principles. His lordship then went into a panegyric of the emperor of Russia, and finally characterised the motion as wholly unnecessary and of dangerous tendency if the confederacy could be shaken by attempts to degrade the sovereigns of Europe by unfounded imputations.
On a division of the House, the motion was rejected by a majority of 104 to 30.
The public opinion concerning this extraordinary treaty seems to have corresponded with that expressed by the hon. Mr. Bennet in his speech: "that the only motive which the noble lord could have for refusing its production was, that he was ashamed of it and of our allies."
[THE STATE OF IRELAND (1816).]
Source.—The Political Life of Sir Robert Peel, by Thomas Doubleday. London, 1856. Vol. I. pp. 169-172.
In the course of a debate on the army estimates in February, 1816, the Irish Secretary entered into the following extraordinary details on the employment of the soldiery in Ireland in the suppression of illicit distillation, as well as of insurrectionary movements in the wilder districts of Ireland:
"It must not be forgotten (said Mr. Peel) that the employment of a military force in Ireland, under existing circumstances, is calculated to save the government of that country from the necessity of recurring to those measures of civil rigour which parliament had sanctioned with its approbation. In some districts, where the military was not employed, they had been compelled to suspend trial by jury, under the operation of the Insurrection Act; but every one would allow that it was better to deter from the commission of crime than to transport for it. If they could succeed in deterring these, there was not the necessity to proclaim certain districts. What he asserted was no visionary speculation. Events, such as he now described, were passing at that moment. The Act to which he alluded had been applied to several baronies in Tipperary, upon the unanimous application of forty of the magistrates. He believed he was right in saying the unanimous application. In some cases, indeed, it had been refused; but he knew as a fact, that not less than seventy-six magistrates of that county, united for the paramount object of maintaining the public peace, had applied to government for the application of that bill. A similar course had been pursued in the county of Westmeath. It was proposed in some counties to remove the soldiers; but the answer was by the magistrates, 'If you remove the troops you must give us the Insurrection Act, as it will be impossible to do without it.' Even on constitutional grounds, therefore, and as calculated to prevent a recurrence to these really severe measures, he would venture to appeal to the House for its approbation of the alternative of employing the military to aid the civil power. With respect to its employment in another way, by doing the duty of custom-house officers, he wished to observe that this system had prevailed in Ireland at least as far back as in 1799. At that period, a regulation for the employment of a military force in that service was adopted. It was stated to be imperatively necessary for the suppression of illicit distillation; and it was further ordered, that any officer hesitating to employ his men on that service should be brought to a court-martial for disobedience of orders. He stated that, to prove the propriety of a remark made at the commencement of his address, that even if it should be thought that the introduction of a military force was a vicious practice, it was at all events unavoidable without the accomplishment of other essential reforms.