The cabinet of Lord Liverpool was formed on the basis of neutrality as regards the Catholic question; in other words, its members were allowed to advocate or oppose emancipation, just as they thought fit. Canning and Castlereagh were its friends; Lord Eldon was its bitterest opponent. The premier himself invariably spoke against it, but he was not virulent. His hostility to it arose from the conviction that Protestant ascendency was the real and proper basis of the British constitution, as revised under William III. To alter that basis was, in his eyes, to effect a revolution; and he predicted, in 1812 and in 1825, that if emancipation were granted, either the Protestant church in Ireland would be disestablished or the Roman Catholic Church there would be established by law. Events have proved, happily, that he was not altogether wrong.
The period of the Liverpool administration was, of course, a dreary one for Catholics. The efforts of Grattan, Wellesley, Sir Henry Parnell, Plunkett, and Canning to obtain for them some redress, ended for the most part in cruel disappointment. Yet in 1817 the government introduced a bill, which passed both houses, opening to them the army and navy, and thus generously bestowed on them the privilege of shedding their blood in the service of their oppressors. By annual acts of indemnity, also, Catholic officers were relieved from the penalty of not taking the oaths of supremacy.
In 1824, Lord Liverpool had so far relaxed his opposition to Catholic claims that he spoke in favor of Lord Lansdowne's two bills for giving the elective franchise to English as it had been given to Irish Catholics, and for throwing open to them magistracies and other inferior offices, besides allowing the Duke of Norfolk to execute his hereditary office of earl marshal. The bills were rejected, but the duke's claim was allowed. In 1826, just two years before his death, Lord Liverpool submitted to the king an important paper, in which he reminded his majesty that the cabinet he had framed in 1812 regarded emancipation from the first as an open question, and declared that he could not now be a party to any other arrangement. He humbly suggested that the king should advert to the actual state of the opinions of public men in the two houses of parliament, particularly of those in the House of Commons, upon the Roman Catholic question, and that he should seriously consider whether it would not be at least as impracticable as in 1812 to form an administration upon the exclusively Protestant principle. Thus Lord Liverpool himself, and his neutral or divided cabinet, prepared the way for emancipation in the year after his death.
Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool in 1827. He had long advocated the redress of Catholic wrongs. It was not his fault that Ireland was duped by the union. It had been his desire and intention that emancipation should seal and complete that measure. He could scarcely venture to speak of it, however, except in vague terms; for the smallest allusion to it on his part would have been sure to call down upon him the vengeance of the treasury benches. Yet he did allude to it in January and April, 1799, and thirteen years after, when, speaking of the Catholic claims, he declared that "expectations had been held out, the disappointment of which involved the moral guilt of an absolute breach of faith."
"Does history," asks Goldwin Smith, in discussing the wrongs of Ireland—"does history afford a parallel to that agony of seven centuries which has not yet reached its close? But England is the favorite of Heaven; and when she commits oppression, it will not recoil on the oppressor!"
If Canning's life had been spared, there is no doubt that he would have signalized his tenure of office by the completion, in some measure at least, of the designs of the Catholic Association. This body, formed by O'Connell in 1823, had infused new life and hope into Irish patriotism. Disappointed and betrayed as the people of Ireland had been by one statesman after another, they could not but expect something from Canning's hands, especially when they saw him rise in April, 1822, and move for leave to bring in a bill which should relieve Roman Catholic peers from the disabilities imposed on them by the Act 30 of Charles II., with regard to the right of sitting and voting in the House of Peers. His brilliant and beautiful speech was crowned with a certain success. His motion was carried by a majority of five; but Peel opposed the measure, and the Lords rejected it by a majority of forty-two. Their policy in such matters has always been one of obstruction. They declined to let noblemen so noble and so pacific, and of families so ancient, as the Dukes of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Petre, and Lord Stourton, sit beside them in their chambers as peers of the realm.
After this failure, Canning's zeal in the Catholic cause is said to have declined; but he doubtless felt his impotence, and waited only till a more favorable opportunity of serving the Catholic interests should arrive.