Chapter 43

{GEORGE IV. 1829—1830}

The Catholic Question..... Meeting of Parliament..... Suppression of the Catholic Association..... Rejection of Mr. Peel at Oxford..... The Triumph of Catholic Emancipation..... Bill for the Disfranchisement of the Forty-Shilling Freeholders..... The Case of Mr. O’Connell..... Financial Statements..... Motion for Parliamentary Reform..... Prorogation of Parliament..... State of Affairs in Ireland..... Agricultural and Commercial Distress..... Affairs on the Continent.

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

{A. D. 1829}

The recommendation of the late lord-lieutenant to agitate, was followed in Ireland to the very letter. When the Duke of Northumberland arrived in Dublin as his successor, he found agitation pervading the whole country. Protestants and Catholics alike were in the field, breathing defiance and revenge against each other, so that there was every prospect of a civil war. The premier’s situation at the opening of the year, from this cause, was one of great and peculiar difficulty. The whole tenor of his political life had been marked by hostility to the Catholic claims; and every individual associated with him in the government was pledged to resist their claims. The time had arrived, however, at the opening of the year, when it became necessary for the Duke of Wellington to decide on some mode of action; either to determine not to yield, or to grant emancipation, or to retire from the helm of state for a season, and permit a Whig government to carry the measure. The course which he pursued astounded the nation. The wisest and most honourable course which his grace could have taken, would have been to have retired, since it was scarcely fair to steal the crown of victory from statesmen who, during the whole of their political career, had ably and eloquently pleaded the cause of the Catholics. Yet such was the course he adopted. Although he had declared that he saw no prospect of the settlement of the question, and although he had recalled the late lord-lieutenant because he favoured the Catholics, yet he was now determined to grant with a free and liberal hand all that they had ever demanded. Nor did his grace alone change his opinions on this subject. While the country was reposing confidence that the leading members of the government were still faithful to their trust, these very men had determined to go over to the Catholics; and in secrecy and silence were arranging plans for carrying out a broad measure of emancipation. The first thing they did was to obtain the consent of the king; a matter of no small difficulty, as his reluctance to concession was deep-rooted and vehement. It cost the premier months of management, vigilance, and perseverance, to overcome his majesty’s antipathies; and it is probable that he would never have succeeded had it not been for the king’s indolence and love of ease. A dissolution of the ministry would have interrupted his ease; and the thought of this overcame his repugnance to the question. Till his consent was obtained not a whisper had been heard of the change of sentiment which had taken place in the cabinet; but a few days before the meeting of parliament the grand secret was told. The surprise which the announcement excited was only equalled by the indignation and contempt roused by so sudden an abandonment of principle. The Protestant community complained—and very justly—that they had been deceived. Up to that period, indeed, they had been allowed to rest in the belief that the question would not be mooted, or if it were, that the influence of the cabinet would stand in its way; but these, their long-tried friends, had been planning and plotting how they might secure a triumph to their enemies. They had been trusted by the Protestant party as the champions of their cause; but on a sudden they were found offering the hand of friendship to their enemies. It certainly would have been more manly if they had, on resolving to change sides, fairly and honestly avowed it from the first, for then the Protestants would have had time to counteract their designs; but it was evident at the meeting ol parliament that all opposition would be useless. It was too late to make a successful stand against the measure: it must be carried.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

Parliament reassembled on the 5th of-February. The speech, which was again delivered by commission, detailed at length our foreign relations, and announced the continued improvement of the revenue. The all-absorbing topic of interest, however, was that which referred to the coming measure of Catholic emancipation. It remarked:—“The state of Ireland has been the object of his majesty’s continued solicitude. His majesty laments that in that part of the United Kingdom an Association should still exist which is dangerous to the public peace, and inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution, which keeps alive discord and ill-will amongst his majesty’s subjects; and which must, if permitted to continue, effectually obstruct every effort permanently to improve the condition of Ireland. His majesty confidently relies on the wisdom and on the support of his parliament; and his majesty feels assured that you will commit to him such powers as may enable his majesty to maintain his just authority. His majesty recommends that, when this essential object shall have been accomplished, you should take into your deliberate consideration the whole condition of Ireland; and that you should review the laws which impose civil disabilities on his majesty’s Roman Catholic subjects. You will consider whether the removal of those disabilities can be effected consistently with the full and permanent security of our establishments in church and state, with the maintenance of the reformed religion established by law, and of the rights and privileges of the bishops and of the clergy of this realm, and of the churches committed to their charge. These are institutions which must ever be held sacred in this Protestant kingdom; and which it is the duty and the determination of his majesty to preserve inviolate. His majesty most earnestly recommends to you to enter upon the consideration of a subject of such paramount importance, deeply interest ing to the best feelings of his people, and involving the tranquillity and concord of the United Kingdom, with the temper and moderation which will best ensure the successful issue of your deliberations.” The tendency of this recommendation to parliament was at once perceived by the advocates of exclusion; and they loudly complained of desertion and surprise, charging the duke with a perfidious concealment of his designs till the last moment, and loading Messrs. Peel and Goulbourn with the most bitter execrations, on account of their supposed apostasy. The usual addresses, however, were carried without a division.

SUPPRESSION OF THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION.

The first thing to be done was the vindication of the laws: laws which had been long trampled beneath the feet of the Catholic agitators. In pursuance of the recommendation in the royal speech to suppress the Catholic Association, on the 10th of February Mr. Peel asked leave to bring in a bill for that purpose. The general outline of the measure which he proposed was briefly this. It was his intention, he said, to commit the enforcement of the law to one person only; and to intrust to him, who was fully cognizant of the state of affairs in Ireland, and who was also responsible for the tranquillity of that country, the new powers with which the house were now asked to invest the executive government. He proposed to give the lord-lieutenant, and to him alone, the power of suppressing any association or meeting which he might deem dangerous to the public peace, or inconsistent with the due administration of the law; together with power to interdict the assembling of any meeting, of which previous notice should have been given, and which he should think likely to endanger the public peace, or to prove inconsistent with the due administration of the law. In case it should be necessary to enforce the provisions of the law by which these powers would be conferred, it was proposed, by Mr. Peel, that the lord-lieutenant should be further empowered to select two magistrates for the purpose of suppressing the meeting, and requiring the people immediately to disperse. Finally, it was proposed to prohibit any meeting or association which might be interdicted from assembling, or which might be suppressed under this act from receiving and placing at their control any monies by the name of “rent,” or by any other name. In conclusion Mr. Peel said, that he was of opinion the act should, like that of 1825, which had been intended to suppress the Catholic and other associations, be limited; and he proposed to limit it to one year, and the end of the then next session of parliament. The bill passed both houses without opposition; for although its provisions were somewhat arbitrary in their nature, the friends of the Catholics voted for it as part of a system which was to result in Catholic emancipation. The associators, however, rendered the act unnecessary; for before it was completed, their dissolution was announced. They had gained their point, and for the present they were satisfied; they had demanded emancipation, unqualified emancipation, and nothing else; and when this was promised, when government submitted to their imperious demands, they put up the sword of defiance into its scabbard. The government boasted that they had suppressed the Association. But such a boast, as it has been justly observed, was as if a man should boast of his victory over a highwayman to whom he exclaims, when the pistol is at his breast, “Down with your pistol, Sir, and you shall have my purse and my watch:” the robber would have the best of it, and so had the Association.

REJECTION OF MR. PEEL AT OXFORD.

The University of Oxford had elected Mr. Peel as a champion to the Protestant cause; and when his mind underwent the change it manifested on the subject of Catholic emancipation, he could not in common decency or honesty retain his seat as member for that University. Under these circumstances he addressed a letter to the vice-chancellor, announcing his new views of policy by which he was to be guided, acknowledging that his resistance to the Catholic claims had been one main ground of his election by the University, and tendering his resignation. Mr. Peel, however, was proposed as a candidate at the new election, trusting that he might skill sit as the representative for Oxford in parliament. But in this he was disappointed. He had for an opponent Sir Robert Harry Inglis; and though the united influence of the Whigs was pushed to its utmost limit in behalf of the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Inglis, who was supported by the dignitaries of the church, and by the parochial clergy, was elected. Mr. Peel was subsequently returned for the borough of Westbury; and in this character he brought forward those measures which for twenty years he had repudiated as dangerous and ruinous to the best interests of the country, and which even now he was convinced were pregnant with danger to the constitution.

THE TRIUMPH OF CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION.

On the 5th of March Mr. Peel moved “that the house resolve itself into a committee of the whole house to consider of the laws imposing civil disabilities on his majesty’s Roman Catholic subjects.” He commenced by stating, that, he rose as a minister of the king to vindicate the advice which an united cabinet had given to his majesty to recommend to the consideration of parliament the condition of the Catholics, and to submit to the house measures for carrying such recommendation into effect. He was aware, he said, that the subject was surrounded with difficulties; which difficulties were increased by the relation in which he himself stood to the question. Having, however, come to the honest conviction that the time had arrived, when an amicable adjustment of the disputed claims would be accompanied with less danger than any other course that could be suggested, he was prepared to act on that conviction, unchanged by the forfeiture of public confidence, or by the heavy loss of private friendship. He had long felt, he said, that with a house of commons favourable to emancipation, his position as a minister opposed to it was untenable; and he showed that he had more than once intimated his desire to resign office, and thus remove one obstacle to a settlement of the question. He had done so on the present occasion, though at the same time he notified to the Duke of Wellington, that seeing how the current of public opinion lay, he was ready to support the measure, provided it were undertaken on principles from which no danger to the Protestant establishment need be apprehended. He was aware, he said, that he was called on to make out a case for this change of policy; and he was now about to submit to the house a statement which proved to his own mind, with the force of demonstration that ministers were imperatively called on to recommend the measure, however inconsistent it might appear with their former tenets. The argument by which the case was made out by Mr. Peel resolved itself into the following propositions:—First, matters could not remain in their present state, the evils of divided councils being so great, that something must be done, and a government formed with a common opinion on the subject. Secondly, a united government once constituted must do one of two things—either grant further political rights to the Catholics, or recall those which they already possess. Thirdly, to deprive them of what they already have would be impossible; or at least would be infinitely more mischievous than to grant them more: therefore, no case remained to be adopted but that of concession. Having illustrated these propositions at great length, and with much force of argument, Mr. Peel proceeded to explain the nature of the measure which he and his colleagues proposed as that which ought finally to settle and adjust the question. The principle and basis of the measure was to be, he said, the abolition of civil distinctions and the equality of political rights, with a few exceptions only. Another pervading principle would be, in fact and in word, the maintenance of the Protestant religion as by law established, its doctrines, its discipline, and government. First of all, he would repeal those laws which placed Catholics, unless they took certain oaths, on a different footing from Protestants even in regard to real property; a distinction which Protestants and Catholics were equally interested in abolishing. The next provision would be the admission of Catholics to parliament on the same terms with Protestants; for unless this was granted, all other concessions of political power would be of no avail. The bill would, also, render Catholics admissible to all corporate offices in Ireland, and all offices connected with the administration of justice, and to all the higher civil offices of the state. He was aware, he said, of the objection as to the last; but having once resolved to yield political power, this could not be refused. In order to leave the avenues of ambition open to the Roman Catholic, he was of opinion that we ought to render him capable of being employed in the service of the country. As regards the oaths to be taken, it necessarily followed from their concessions, he said, that they should be modified. In the new oath, the Catholic would be called on to swear allegiance in the usual terms; to disclaim the deposing power of the pope, and the doctrine that his holiness had any temporal or civil power, directly or indirectly, within the realm; solemnly to abjure any intention of subverting the church establishment; and to bind himself not to employ any of his privileges to weaken the Protestant religion or government. As regarded the exceptions from the general rule, Mr. Pitt said that they lay within a narrow compass, and related to duties or offices connected with the established church. The only offices he meant to exclude Catholics from were those of lord-lieutenant, or chief governor of Ireland, and of lord high chancellor, or keeper, or commissioner of the great seal. He meant, however, to exclude Catholics from appointments in any of the Universities or Colleges, and from exercising any right of presentation, as lay patrons, to the benefices and dignities of the church of England. In the bill, also, there were certain prohibitions against carrying the insignia of office to places of Roman Catholic worship, and against the assumption, by prelates of that communion, of the same episcopal titles as those belonging to the church of England. There were also certain precautions against the increase of monastic institutions, particularly that of the Jesuits. A more effective check, however, on the consequences which might result from admitting Roman Catholics in Ireland to civil power, was meditated in a law for raising the qualification of the elective franchise, in counties, from forty shillings to ten pounds: by which means that privilege would be limited to persons really possessed of property, and less liable to be misled by the priests. After detailing the features of the plan in a speech which occupied more than four hours, Mr. Peel remarked:—“And now, although I am not so sanguine as others in my expectations of the future, I have not the slightest hesitation in saying, I fully believe that the adjustment of this question in the manner proposed will not only give much better and stronger securities to the Protestant interest and establishment than any other that the present state of things admits of, but will also avert evils and dangers impending and immediate. I might have taken a more popular and palatable course: more popular with the individuals in concert with whom I long thought and acted, more palatable to the constituents whom I have lost; but I have consulted for the best, for Protestant interests and our Protestant establishment. This is my defence against the accusations I have endured; this is my consolation under the sacrifices I have made; this shall be my revenge. I trust that, by the means now proposed, the moral storm may lie lulled into a calm, the waters of strife may subside, and the elements of discord be stilled and composed. But if these expectations be disappointed; if unhappily civil strife and contentions shall arise; if the differences existing between us do not spring out of artificial distinctions and unequal privileges, but if there be something in the character of the Roman Catholic religion not to be contented with a participation of equal privileges, or with anything short of superiority, still I shall be content to make the trial. If the battle must be fought; if the contest which we would now avoid cannot be averted by those means, let the worst come to the worst—the battle will be fought for other objects, the contest will take place on other grounds; the contest then will be, not for an equality of civil rights, but for the predominance of an intolerant religion. If those more gloomy predictions shall be realized, and if our more favourable hopes shall not be justified by the result, we can fight that battle against the predominance of an intolerant religion more advantageously after this measure shall have been passed than we could do at present. We shall then have the sympathy of other nations; we shall have dissolved the great moral alliance that existed among the Roman Catholics: we shall have with us those great and illustrious authorities that long supported this measure, and which will then be transferred to us, and ranged upon our side: and I do not doubt that in that contest we shall be victorious, aided as we shall be by the unanimous feeling of all classes of society in this country, as demonstrated in the numerous petitions presented to this house, in which I find the best and most real securities for the maintenance of our Protestant constitution; aided, I will add, by the union of orthodoxy and dissent, by the assenting voice of Scotland; and, if other aid be necessary, cheered by the sympathies of every free state, and by the wishes and prayers of every free man, in whatever clime, or under whatever form of government he may live.”

The motion was not very powerfully opposed. The principal speakers in opposition were Sir Robert Inglis and Mr. Estcourt, the two members of Oxford University. The chief argument used was an assumption that the grant of equal privileges to Roman Catholics would be the destruction of the Protestant establishment. With regard to Ireland, it was said that discord and agitation were not new features in the condition of that country; that they were not a result of the penal laws; and that they would not cease on the removal of civil disabilities. As regarded the fear of civil war, it was remarked that reliance ought to have been placed on public opinion, and the moral determination of the British people. At best, too, it was argued, the evil days would only be postponed, and resistance to ulterior struggles rendered more difficult. It was asked, with respect to the divided state of the cabinet, why the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel, instead of changing their own line of policy, did not rather attempt to bring over their colleagues to their views, especially as they still confessed that there was danger in granting Catholic emancipation. Ministers were also taunted with conceding the question from intimidation; a fact which was evident in the provisions, called securities, against the danger of admitting the Catholics to wield the civil, judicial, and military powers of the state. If Mr. Peel and other converts, it was said, thought they could no longer resist, because they had not a majority in the house of commons, why did they refuse to accept a majority? Why was not parliament dissolved? Such a course, it was argued, was right at any time, when a measure strongly affecting the constitution was contemplated; and it was peculiarly necessary in the present instance, when the country had been deceived into a security, of which those who had practised the deception were now seeking to take advantage. The Marquis of Blandford even maintained, that if the house sanctioned the present audacious invasion of the constitution, it would break the trust reposed in it by the people of England, who were taken by surprise by the unexpected announcement made by ministers. Was it right, he asked, for the government to persist in measures to which public feeling was so strongly opposed? Constituted as the house was then, it did not express the just alarms of the people for the safety of the Protestant institutions of the country. As regards the securities proposed by ministers, they were treated with contempt. Viscount Corry said, that he had in vain looked for them: with the exception of the forty-shilling franchise being raised to ten pounds, there was no attempt at securities; and even that was a half measure.

The motion was supported by Sir. G. Murray, colonial secretary, and by Messrs. Grant, North, and Iiuskisson. These members repeated and enforced the positions that the pacification of Ireland was necessary to the safety of the empire; and that without emancipation pacification could not be effected. All classes in Ireland, it was argued, had identified themselves with the question, and Ireland had hence fallen into a state in which it was impossible for it to remain: it must either advance or recede; for all the ties which held society together had been loosened or broken. It was conceded that a certain state of things, not deserving the name of society, might be maintained by means of the sword; but such a frame of society, it was added, could have no analogy whatever to the British constitution. The only intimidation to which ministers could be accused of yielding, was the fear of continuing such a state of affairs, and aggravating all its evils by gradual accumulation, instead of restoring mutual goodwill and the peaceful empire of the law. No other intimidation existed: none was felt in Ireland; for what was the force of an unarmed multitude when measured against the force of the state? The power of the Catholics was as nothing. But when it was considered what effects might arise from disunion; when it was considered that a spirit of resentment was growing up, which roused men against each other, there did appear a kind of intimidation, of a nature which did not admit of contempt. The Protestant body—at least the body which arrogated to itself that title—knew the enthralment under which they had held the Catholics, and that an unarmed multitude must submit. But were we, it was asked, to destroy one part of the people, by rousing and inciting the other? It was rather the duty of government to protect the whole; to ensure them the greatest degree of protection; and to give to the people all the privileges they had a right to enjoy. To those who urged a dissolution of parliament, it was answered, that parliament as it existed was as capable of discussing the question now, as any parliament had been at any time during the last twenty-five years; that the question was a fit one for the consideration of the house of commons at all times; and that it was particularly fit for their consideration when it came recommended from the throne, as necessary for the safety and peace of the United Kingdom. A dissolution of parliament, remarked Mr. Peel, must leave the Catholic Association and the elective franchise in Ireland just as they were. If parliament were dissolved, the Catholic Association must be left as it was, as the common law was inadequate to suppress it; and being so left, it would overturn the representation of Ireland. Whatever majority might be returned from Great Britain, Ireland would return eighty or ninety members in the interest of the Association, forming a compact body, against the force of which it would be impossible to carry on the local government of the country. It had, indeed, been said, “Increase the army, or the constabulary force;” but a greater force could not be employed there. He would state one simple fact. Above five-sixths of the infantry had been engaged in aiding the government of Ireland, as by interposing between two hostile parties. Under such circumstances a reaction would compel them gradually to this alternative; namely, instead of resting the civil and social government on its base, to narrow it and to rest it on its apex. It was also denied that there was anything peculiar in the nature of the proposed measure to require a special appeal to the people, since it was incorrectly called a violation of the constitution. That constitution, it was argued, was not to be sought for solely in the acts of 1688: its foundations had been laid much earlier; laid by Catholic hands, and cemented with Catholic blood. But, even taking the compact of 1688 to be the foundation of our rights and liberties, yet the most diligent opponent of the Catholic claims would be unable to point out in the Bill of Rights a single clause by which the exclusion of Roman Catholics from seats in parliament was declared to be a fundamental, or indispensable principle of the British constitution; that bill merely regarded the liberties guaranteed to the people, and the protection of the throne from the intrusion of Popery. To the objection that the measure now contemplated was unconditional concession, concession without a single security for the Protestant establishment, it was answered, that principles of exclusion were not the securities to which the established religion either did trust, or ought to trust. The real securities of Protestantism would remain, unaffected by this bill, in the unalterable attachment of the people, who, though divided on minor topics, would unite in resisting the errors of Popery. The house, it was said, should also look at the great security which they would derive from the generous attachment of the people of Ireland, who, after ages of oppression, would find themselves restored to their place in society. Moreover, the securities which the bill contained were not so nugatory as they had been represented. Mr. Peel said, that when he looked at the petitions sent from all parts of the country, he could not help being struck with one extraordinary coincidence. These petitions prayed for those securities; and the prayers of them were similar, whether they came from the county of Wicklow, or from the county of Armagh, &c.; that it was impossible to arrive at any other conclusion than that those prayers, and the terms in which they were conveyed, had been suggested by one common head and source. And what were the securities prayed for? Why, the first was, “Put down the Catholic Association;” the second, “Correct the elective franchise of Ireland;” and the third, “Abolish for the future the order of the Jesuits in this country.” Now the bill which he proposed contained all these securities; and if the necessity of obtaining them were so great as the petitioners contended, let him be answered this question: “Would the Protestants ever have had the least chance of obtaining them if his majesty had not recommended that the disabilities of the Catholics should be taken into consideration, with the view to an adjustment of this question? Could any man say it was possible, though the unanimous voice of the Protestants of Ireland declared those securities to be necessary, that any one of them could have been obtained, unless a proposal or adjustment had been made?” On a division the motion was carried by a majority of three hundred and forty-eight against one hundred and sixty; a preponderance which, as regarded the house of commons, was decisive of the ultimate fate of the question.

Resolutions, proposed by Mr. Peel in the committee, were immediately agreed to; and a bill founded on them was introduced and read for the first time on the 10th of March. The opponents of the measure allowed the first reading to take place without opposition, it being arranged that the debate on the principle of the bill should take place on the second reading. That reading was fixed for the 17th, on which day it was moved by Mr. Peel. The motion led to a very warm debate. Sir Edward Knatchbull strongly attacked Mr. Peel on the desertion of his principles, as well as other members of the government, asserting that from it the confidence which had hitherto been accorded to public men, had received a blow from which it never would recover. Mr. Goulburn admitted that he had adopted new opinions on this subject; but he had done so, he said, because it was impossible that any other thing could be wisely done in the present state of Ireland. He contended that the measure proposed was calculated to give more complete ascendancy to the Protestant establishment, by diminishing the irritation, and removing the prejudices of its opponents. He argued, that it would also have the effect of causing the people to treat the ministers of the Protestant church with the respect and attention to which their character and virtues so eminently entitled them; and that it was only under such circumstances that the church could be employed as an important engine in the moral improvement of the people. These notions, however, were ridiculed by Mr. G. Bankes, who contended that, although the house did not surrender all the rights of the Protestant church at once, they gave the Catholics the first stepping-stone for reaching everything they might desire. It was admitted, he said, that the adherents of the Catholic faith would struggle for ascendancy; and that this bill was to give them the political power which would be the great instrument used in the struggle: and how a bill which did all this would tend to the security of the Protestant church surpassed human comprehension. The very framers of the measure saw the absurdity and the danger which it was employed to conceal; and they had endeavoured to obviate the danger by a precaution which proved its existence, but was impotent to prevent it. They had devised this remedy—that when the prime minister happened to be a Roman Catholic, all power connected with the established church should be vested in the hands of commissioners. But who was to appoint the commissioners? Why the prime minister. Lord Tullamore followed in a similar strain. Ministers, he said, had themselves given the tone on the opposite side of the question at public meetings; they had sat at the festive board, hearing with approbation the avowal of sentiments which they themselves had avowed, but now disclaimed completing the picture drawn by the poet—

“Drunk at a borough, civil at a ball. Friendly at Hackney, faithless at Whitehall.”

The measure was supported by Lord Palmerston and Sir George Murray with much eloquence and animation; but the speech which on this occasion claimed and deserved the greatest attention from the house was that of Mr. Sadler, a man of distinguished abilities, who had recently been returned to parliament for the borough of Newark, by the Duke of Newcastle’s interest. He rose, he said, to add his humble vote to that faithful band who had resigned the countenance of those whom they had hitherto deeply respected; who had surrendered, in the language of many, all pretensions to common sense or general information; who are branded as intolerants and bigots, from whom ministers had happily escaped; and, what was still more painful to generous minds, who were ranked among those that were as devoid of true liberality and benevolence, as of reason and intelligence. He continued: “All these things, however, move us not. In a cause like that of the Protestant constitution of England, now placed for the first time since its existence in a situation of imminent peril, an humble part in its triumph would indeed give me a share of that unmeasurable joy which its rescue would diffuse throughout the nation; but to be numbered as one of those who, faithful to the end, made a last though ineffectual struggle in its defence, will afford a melancholy satisfaction, which I would not exchange for all the pride, and power, and honours which may await a contrary course.” After this preamble, Mr. Sadler argued at great length against the principles of the bill, and its dangerous tendency toward the Protestant church: and showed its utter futility in remedying the evils which oppressed, or repaying the wrongs which she had suffered from so many generations. He remarked:—“Ireland degraded, deserted, oppressed, pillaged, is turbulent; and you listen to the selfish recommendations of her agitators. You seek not to know, or knowing you wilfully neglect, her real distresses. If you can calm the agitated surface of society, you heed not that fathomless depth of misery, sorrow, and distress whose troubled waves heave unseen and disregarded: and this, forsooth, is patriotism, Ireland asks of you bread, and you proffer her Catholic emancipation: and this, I presume, is construed to be the taking into our consideration, as his majesty recommended, the whole situation of Ireland.” As regards the nature of the measure, Mr. Sadler contended that it could only be described as an inroad on the constitution of the country, and a preparatory movement towards its final destruction. The securities, also, were treated by him as vague and unsatisfactory. Matters, he said, had reached such a point of noisy and dangerous discord between parties in Ireland, that ministers contended there must be an adjustment of the question. Adjustment generally terminated in mutual concessions and reciprocal advantages: but would the authors of this bill point out what it gave to the Protestant constitution for that which it took away? The Protestant faith surrendered everything, it received nothing. As a security, the office of viceroy, an office of pageantry, was to continue Protestant: but what Protestant cared an iota about it, when its holder was to be surrounded with Popish advisers, and to act by Popish instruments? The king, too, it seems, must still continue to be a Protestant. This reservation was the worst of all, and heightened every objection to the measure into abhorrence and disgust. “What!” he continued, “after establishing by a solemn act the doctrine that conscience ought to be free and unrestrained; that disabilities like that sought to be removed, inflict a wound upon the feelings of those whom they reach, intolerable to good and generous minds, worse than persecution, than even death itself, how do you apply it? Why you propose to sear this brand high upon the forehead, and deep into the heart of your very prince, while you render the scar more visible, and the insult more poignant, by making him the solitary individual, whose hereditary rank must be held and transmitted by the disgraceful tenure which you have stigmatized as the badge of slavery. Freedom of conscience to all subjects, but none to your king! Throw open the portals of legislation, that a Duke of Norfolk may take his seat in your senate; but hurl from his loftier seat there, the throne of the realm, a Duke of Lancaster, if he exercise the same privilege, and presume to have a conscience! Hitherto the British constitution has been fair, uniform, equal, demanding from all the same moral qualification. That qualification has long been declared, by a certain school of politicians, to be slavery. Ministers have now adopted their creed; yet they are content, nay, they propose, that the king shall be the only proclaimed slave in his dominions. Worse than this, however, remained behind: the proposed measure not only hurt the feelings of the monarch, it touched his title. It was a bill to reverse the attainder which had been passed upon Popery, and the natural consequences of this reversal were obvious. The privileges of Protestantism were the title-deeds of the royal family to the throne, the actual transfer of the estate which the king held in parliament and in the country. It was Protestant ascendancy now become a term of reproach, and Protestant ascendancy alone, that introduced the royal line that rules us; it was that which still formed the foundation of the throne, which combined its title with the very elements of the constitution, identified it with our liberty, consecrated it with the sanctities of our religion, and proclaimed our monarch king by the unanimous suffrages of all our institutions. The act of settlement indeed was to remain; and though it had been passed with difficulty by a parliament exclusively Protestant, it would of course be zealously maintained by a parliament partly Catholic: but still this was to remove the royal title from the broad foundation of national principles, supported by all the analogies of the constitution, and place it upon a mere act of parliament, or rather upon an exception from that act: whatever became of the legal title, the moral title of the king would be touched. But,” continued Mr. Sadler, “the intended change of the constitution was doubly objectionable on account of its unavoidable consequences. He contended that it would put the real liberties of the people in jeopardy; and that the united church of England and Ireland would be placed in peril by it, the moment it was passed. The real object of the attack was the establishment, or rather its principles and immunities. The war had begun; the siege commenced: the first parallel was nearly completed; the very leaders of the garrison were summoning a bold and numerous band of fresh assailants to the attack; and the approaches would be carried on till a final triumph was obtained over the most tolerant, the most learned, and the most efficient establishment which any country had ever yet been blessed with. And could any man, he asked, flatter himself that even when this was destroyed, a long and uninterrupted reign of quietness and peace would ensue? When this victim had been hunted down, the same pack would scent fresh game, and the cry against our remaining institutions would be renewed with double vigour, till nothing remained worth attack or defence. An oath was certainly to be taken, verbally forbidding Roman Catholics from harming the establishment; but they must be more or less than men to be enabled to keep such an oath. It was even immoral to present it to them: it established a war between words and principles, oaths and conscience: and which of these would finally prevail needed no explanation. That Roman Catholics once seated in the house should not feel disposed to lessen the influence, and finally to destroy a church which they abhorred was impossible; and that they should not make common cause for a similar purpose with other parties inspired by similar views was equally impossible. Much, it was true, had been said about the weakness of such a party in point of numbers; but a party acting invariably in unison on this point would ultimately carry it, and with it, all others of vital importance.” Referring to the apologies which had been made for these portentous changes, Mr. Sadler said that the country had been beguiled by them. He continued:—“I was one of those who thought the conduct of the noble and right honourable individuals who resigned in 1827 a sacrifice to principle and consistency: what it really was, it is now not worth while to inquire, since it was anything than that. It is now too late to rectify the error; all that remains is to regret most deeply, that, faithfully following those who have so secretly, suddenly, and unceremoniously deserted us, we were taught to regard a highly gifted individual, unhappily now no more, as one who ought not to serve his king and country as the head of the government, because he was favourable to the measure now so indecently forced upon the country. I do heartily repent of my share in the too successful attempt of hunting down so noble a victim; a man whom England and the world recognise as its ornament, whose eloquence was, at these days at least, unrivalled, the energies of whose capacious mind, stored with knowledge and elevated by genius, were devoted to the service of his country. This was the man with whom the present ministers could not act, and for a reason which vitiates their present doings. Coupling, therefore, that transaction with the present, if the annals of our country furnish so disgraceful a page, I have very imperfectly consulted them. But peace to his memory! My humble tribute is paid when it can be no longer heard nor regarded—when it is drowned by the voice of interested adulation now poured only into the ears of the living. He fell; but his character is reserved, it rises and triumphs over that of his surviving,—what shall I call them? Let their own consciences supply the hiatus.” Having paid this eloquent tribute to Mr. Canning, a tribute as just also as it is eloquent, Mr. Sadler contended that it was the duty of ministers to have gone to the people, since the invasion of the constitution, bad in itself and ruinous in its consequences, was beyond the power of parliament. The people of England, he continued, had not sent the members of the house of commons for the purpose of throwing open the doors of that house to the admission of Popery, to the scandal, disgrace, and danger of the Protestant establishment in church and state. He added in conclusion:—“Be assured they will resent it deeply and permanently if we proceed. I know how dear this sacred, this deserted cause is to the hearts and to the understandings of Englishmen. The principle may be indeed weak in this house, but abroad it marches in more than all its wonted might, attended, in spite of the aspersions of all its enemies, by the intelligence, the religion, the loyalty of the country; and if the honest zeal, nay, even the cherished prejudices of the people, swell its train, thank God for the accession. Here, sir, that cause, like those wasting tapers, may be melting away: there it burns unextinguishably. It lives abroad, though this house, which is its cradle, may be now preparing its grave. To their representatives the people committed their dearest birthright, the Protestant constitution, and have not deserted it, whoever has. If it must perish, I call God to witness that the people are guiltless. Let it, then, expire in this spot, the place of its birth, the scene of its long triumphs, betrayed, deserted in the house of its pretended friends, who while they smile are preparing to smite; let it here, while it receives blow after blow from those who have hitherto been its associates and supporters, fold itself up in its mantle, and, hiding its sorrow and disgrace, fall when it feels the last stab at its heart from the hand of one whom it had armed in its defence, and advanced to its highest honours.”

Mr. R. Grant on the other side contended that it was in vain to speak of applying to the evils of Ireland such cures as it was supposed might be found in the establishment of poor-laws, or the compulsory residence of the absentees: even if the expediency of these measures was assumed, this was not the proper time for their application: the question at present was, how existing discontent might be allayed, how the raging pestilence might be stopped. It was only after that had been done, that preventives could rationally be suggested, and it was only by removing the grievances of which Ireland complained, that that object could be effected. Although the evils of Ireland, he said, had been traced to many causes these causes themselves, even where they existed, were but the effects of the political distinctions founded on the difference of the religious creeds. The house had been told, for instance, to seek for the source of these evils in the local oppressions practised in Ireland, rather than in the general restrictive laws. Of local oppression, no doubt, plenty had always existed, but it had existed merely because the adherents of one creed were armed with power to oppress the believers in another faith, who were vested with no power. The same mischiefs, it was said, existed before the Reformation, when all Ireland was of one religion. True: and they had existed, just because, even before the Reformation, the same system of excluding the natives from political power had been long followed, though on different grounds. What Sir John Davies, who wrote in the days of Elizabeth, stated to be the cause of the evils of Ireland in his time, was in force still:—“From the earliest times,” said that writer of the English government of Ireland, “it seemed to be the rule of policy that the native Irish should someway or other be not admitted to the privileges of the constitution equally with the English residents. And in order to perpetuate the ascendancy of the latter, the governors of Ireland had determined to oppress the former as much as possible. Accordingly, it has been the system of rule in that country, for the last four hundred years, to attempt by all manner of means to root out the native Irish altogether.” That system had been acted on since the time of Sir John Davis in some form or other, and with consequences which would last so long as the laws against the Catholics remained unrepealed. This inequality of political power, then, was the cause; and by removing it, an end would be put to the turbulence and exasperation to which it gave birth. Mr. Grant further argued that this might be done without injury to the constitution, and that the constitution did not recognise any principle of exclusion against any portion of the community. Its essence, he said, was the communication of its protection and privileges to all. Lord Palmerston followed on the same side. He admitted that if the question were, whether we should have any Catholics at all; whether the religion throughout the empire should be exclusively Protestant; then all Ireland should be made Protestant. But this was not possible, Catholics there were, and Catholics there must be. There they were, good or bad; and, whether their tenets were wholesome or unwholesome, the persons holding them were six millions in number, and they were seated in the very heart of the empire. What, then, he asked, were we to do with them, since we were not able to exterminate them? Were we to make them our enemies, fiercer and more inveterate in proportion as we persecuted them? or were we by kindness and conciliation to convert them into friends? The latter was clearly the more expedient and desirable in itself, unless it were accompanied by some imminent danger. He called upon the house to turn the materials of discord into strength, and to imitate the skilful and benevolent physician, who from deadly herbs extracted healing balms, and made that the means of health which others, less able, or less good, used for the purposes of destruction.

Of all declaimers against the bill, Sir Charles Wetherell, the attorney-general, was the most violent. He had refused to draw up this bill in his official capacity; but he still remained in office, under a minister who was understood to have made implicit submission to his word of command the tenure by which office was to be held. Knowing that nothing but the difficulty of supplying his place prevented his discharge, he delivered a speech of defiance to his colleagues in office, which produced a great impression in the house and throughout the country. In explaining his objection to frame this bill, he said,—“When my attention was drawn to the framing of this bill, I felt it my duty to look over the oath taken by the lord chancellor, as well as that taken by the attorney-general; and it was my judgment, right or wrong, that, when desired to frame this bill, I was called to draw a bill subversive of the Protestant church, which his majesty was bound by his coronation-oath to support. If his majesty chose to dispense with the obligations of the coronation-oath, he might do so; but I would do no act to put him in jeopardy. These are the grounds on which I refused, and would refuse a hundred times over, to put one line to paper of what constitutes the atrocious bill now before the house. Hundreds of those who now listen to me must remember the able, valuable, and impressive speech delivered two years ago by the present lord-chancellor, then master of the rolls, and a member of this house. It will also be in the recollection of hundreds that that eminent individual, than whom none is more acute in reasoning, more classical in language, and more powerful in delivery, quarrelled with the late Mr. Canning on this very subject. Am I then to blame for refusing to do that, in the subordinate office of attorney-general, which a more eminent adviser of the crown, only two years ago, declared he would not consent to do? Am I, then, to be twitted, taunted, and attacked? I dare them to attack me. I have no speech to eat up. I have no apostasy disgracefully to explain. I have no paltry subterfuge to resort to. I have not to say that a thing is black one day and white another. I have not been in one year a Protestant master of the rolls, and in the next a Catholic lord-chancellor. I would rather remain as I am, the humble member for Plympton, than be guilty of such apostasy; such contradiction; such unexplainable conversion; such miserable, contemptible, apostasy.” As for the bill itself, Sir Charles stated, that when it was dissected and anatomized, it destroyed itself. It admitted the danger, and yet provided no security for Protestants. He would not have condescended to stultify himself by the composition of such a bill. The folly and contradictions be upon the heads of those who drew it. They might have turned him out of office; but he would not be made such a dirty tool as to draw that bill. “Let who would, he would not defile pen, or waste paper, by such an act of folly, and forfeit his character for common sense and honesty.”

This attack of the attorney-general called up Mr. Peel, who closed the debate. After complaining of the violence of his colleague, he reverted to the grounds on which he had first proposed the bill; again urging the state of Ireland, and the absolute necessity of doing something; the inability of his opponents to do anything better, though they vehemently opposed the measure now offered; the impossibility of any government standing which should set itself on avowed principles against concession; and the folly of treating the question as one which had any connexion with religion. The Catholics were never excluded at any time because of their religious creed; they were excluded for a supposed deficiency of civil worth, and the religious test was applied to them, not to detect the worship of saints, or any other tenet of their religion, but as a test to discover whether they were Roman Catholics. It was a test to discover the bad, intriguing subject, not the religionist; and, therefore, when he parted with the declaration against transubstantiation, it was not from any doubt which he entertained as to the doctrines of the Roman Catholics, but from looking at it as a test of exclusion, and from thinking that, when the exclusion was deemed unnecessary, the test of exclusion, might be dispensed with. Mr. Peel complained grievously that an unfair application had been made of his unhappy phrase, that the proposed measure would be “a breaking in upon the constitution of 1688.” He meant no more, he said, than that there would be an alteration in the words of the Bill of Rights: and if an alteration of its words were a breaking in upon the constitution, then had the constitution been often broken in upon. He called upon the house to consider the altered position of affairs in Ireland since the annunciation of this measure had been made; and warned it that if the bill was rejected, it would be attended with consequences fatal to the repose of the empire. He added, “I am well aware that the fate of this measure cannot now be altered: if it succeed, the credit will redound to others; if it fail, the responsibility will devolve upon me, and upon those with whom I have acted. These chances, with the loss of private friendship, and the alienation of public confidence, I must have foreseen and calculated before I ventured to recommend these measures. I assure the house that, in conducting them, I have met with the severest blow which it has ever been my lot to experience in my life; but I am convinced that the time will come, though I may not live perhaps to see it, when full justice will be done by men of all parties to the motives on which I have acted; when this question will be fully settled, and when others will see that I had no other alternative than to act as I have acted. They will then admit that the course which I have followed, and which I am still prepared to follow, whatever imputation it may expose me to, is the only course which is necessary for the diminution of the undue, illegitimate, and dangerous power of the Roman Catholics, and for the maintenance and security of the Protestant religion.”

The result of the division on this great question was three hundred and fifty-three for the second reading of the bill, and one hundred and eighty against it. The success of the bill in the commons was therefore certain; and it passed the committee in three days. During its progress in the committee several amendments were moved by the opponents of the bill, but they were all rejected; and on the 31st of March it was carried up to the lords by Mr. Peel, with an unusually large escort of members. It was immediately read a first time; and the Duke of Wellington then moved that it should be read a second time on the 2nd of April. This motion was opposed by Lord Bexley and the Earl of Malmesbury, as too precipitate, urging that on all former occasions a longer time had been allowed for consideration, and that breathless haste was the conduct of men called upon to decide as another dictated, rather than of legislators called to deliberate on a grave matter of public policy. Lord Holland, however, justified the motion, by referring to the haste with which the statutes about to be repealed had been originally passed: and it was carried without a division.

On the appointed day the Duke of Wellington moved the second reading of the bill, by stating that he trusted the house would believe that the course which he had now adopted on this question had not been adopted without the fullest conviction that it was a sound and a just one. His grace then went on to show the state of Ireland as it had existed for many years, describing it as bordering upon civil war, and attended by all the evils of civil war, adducing this state of things in justification of the measure. He conceived it his duty, he said, to correct the evil by other means than force. “I am one of those,” said his grace, “who have been engaged in war beyond most men, and, unfortunately, principally in civil war; and I must say this, that, at any sacrifice whatever, I would avoid every approach to civil war. I would do all I could, even sacrifice my life, to prevent such a catastrophe.

“Nothing could be so disastrous to the country; nothing so destructive to it prosperity as civil war; nothing could take place that tended so completely to demoralize and degrade as such a conflict, in which the hand of neighbour is raised against neighbour; that of the father against the son, and of the son against the father; of the brother against the brother; of the servant against his master: a conflict which must end in confusion and destruction. If civil war be so bad when occasioned by resistance to government; if such a collision is to be avoided by all means possible, how much more necessary is it to avoid a civil war, in which, in order to put down one portion, it would be necessary to arm and excite the other? I am quite sure that there is no man that now hears me who would not shudder were such a proposition made to him; yet such must have been the result had we attempted to terminate the state of things to which I have referred otherwise than by a measure of conciliation. In this view, then, merely, I think we are justified in the measure we have proposed to parliament.” On the other hand, his grace asked, what benefit could arise to any one class in the state from pertinaciously persisting in an opposition which had already produced bad consequences, and threatened worse? One of the chief obstacles to the measure, he continued, was the safety of the Protestant church. Now that part of the united church of England and Ireland which was placed in the latter kingdom, was in the peculiar situation of being the church of the minority of the people; and if violence against it were apprehended, he would ask whether that church was more likely to be defended against violence by an unanimous government, and a parliament united with government and with itself, or by a divided government, and a parliament of which the parts were opposed to each other? No man could look with patience and attention at the present state of this question without being convinced that the real interests of all classes in this country, and particularly the church itself, required the consideration and settlement now proposed. This settlement would give security to the church, strength to every department of the government, and general tranquillity to the country at large. In conclusion, his grace said, “On the whole I entertain no doubt that, after this measure shall have passed, the Roman Catholics will cease to exist as a separate interest in the state as they at present do. I have no doubt that they will cease to excite disunion in this or the other house of parliament. Parliament will then, I hope, be disposed to look at their conduct, and everything as respects that country, as they would look upon the people and the affairs of England and Scotland. I will say, however, that, if I am disappointed in my hopes of tranquillity after a trial has been given to the measure, I shall have no scruple in coming down to parliament and laying before it the state of the case, and calling for the necessary powers to enable the government to take the steps suited to the occasion. I shall do this in the same confidence that parliament will support me, that I feel in the present case.”

In reply, the Archbishop of Canterbury moved an amendment, that the bill should be read a second time that day six months. He was surprised, he said, that any man remembering the conduct of the Catholics at all times, and who knew, as every one must know, that even what was now proposed fell short of their ultimate objects, should attempt to justify a measure, on the ground that it would bring peace to Ireland. When he considered the use which had been made of the concession of the elective franchise, to produce consequences which, it was said, had rendered the present measure necessary; he could see no return of gratitude in the conduct of the Roman Catholics. When, too, he considered the liberality of the public, which had established a college for educating the Roman Catholic youth; when he looked at the liberality of parliament granting supplies for its support; when he saw those very men who had been bred up at the public expense becoming members of an Association which had existed in contempt of the government, and in defiance of the laws, lending themselves to the exaction of a tax levied on the people, and converting their places of worship into meetings for factious purposes; when he looked at all these circumstances, he saw little hope that the measure proposed would produce either tranquillity in Ireland, or safety to the church. To him it appeared irreconcilable with the Protestant essence of the constitution. It mattered not what circumstances produced the laws about to be repealed; they had been adopted, and re-established at the Revolution, as a necessary security for the constitution. By the coronation-oath, as then arranged, the king swore to maintain the true profession of the gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion established by law. How, he asked, was the king to do this? By attending churches in person? No! The king could only act by responsible advisers; and, therefore, when such a clause was inserted in the oath, it was presumed that the king would always have proper servants about him, who would enable him to discharge the obligations imposed upon him by the oath. Suppose the king to be surrounded by ministers who were all Roman Catholics; if so, it was clear he could do nothing towards fulfilling those obligations, for whatever measures he might contemplate for that purpose, there would be no one to carry them into effect. No adviser or minister of the crown, who could not enter into the views of the king for the maintenance of the true profession of the gospel and of the Protestant reformed religion, could assist the king to fulfil those obligations which were imposed upon him by the coronation-oath. His grace then went on to show the vital importance of having ministers in every department of the state well affected towards the Protestant religion. For instance, the secretary of the colonies, he said, had absolute power in respect to the church; church patronage was at his disposal, and the clergy were under his control. In dissensions, also, among the clergy, and for the protection of their interests, he was the person appealed to; and if there was not a strong Protestant spirit in the secretary, it would be in his power to discourage to the most alarming degree, and even almost to extinguish, the church of England in many of the colonies. Under all these circumstances, therefore, his grace concluded by moving, as an amendment, that the bill should be read a second time that day six months.

The debate in the lords continued four successive nights by adjournment. The spiritual lords who spoke, in addition to the mover of the amendment, were the Archbishops of York and Armagh, the Bishops of London, Salisbury, Durham, and Oxford. All of these opposed the bill, except the last, who contended that concession was called for, not merely by the situation of Ireland, but by the turn which talent and education had taken in this kingdom with reference to the question. Those peers, said his lordship, who opposed concession, were men advanced in years; but the individuals who were rising in the natural progress of things to fill the high offices of the state, were, with scarcely an exception, in favour of this measure. But independently of the fact that the talent, intelligence, and education of the country were marshalled in favour of concession, there were abundant reasons why he should vote for the measure. He would vote for it because it came recommended by his majesty’s speech from the throne; seconded by the declaration of the heir presumptive to the crown; supported by all the members of the royal family, except the Duke of Cumberland; carried through the other house by an overwhelming majority; supported by many members of the house of lords; supported, too, for many years by that great and eloquent statesman whom Providence had recently snatched away from the service of his country; and specially brought forward by those ministers who had hitherto been champions of the Protestant interest. These were extraordinary circumstances which had never been combined before; and he thought that a bill introduced in these circumstances would in a few years produce a different state of things in Ireland. As to the safety of the church of England he had no doubt, since the people of England possessed the most hostile feelings towards all the doctrines of Popery. The Irish church was certainly, he said, placed in an anomalous situation, and he had no wish to depreciate the dangers to which she was exposed; but instead of being increased by the measure before the house, they would be diminished by it. On the other hand, the Archbishop of Armagh argued, that the Irish church had everything to fear from Catholic emancipation. If the house, indeed, could subdue the intolerant spirit of the church of Rome, disarm the priests of their influence over the people, and withdraw the people from their allegiance to the see of Rome, making them citizens of their own country, and letting them take their stand among other dissenters, all might be well. But would any man, he asked, say that they could make the church of Rome tolerant, or persuade the priesthood of that church to hold an inferior rank to a clergy, the validity of whose orders they denied, and whose church they reviled as adulterous? Could any one suppose that the Roman Catholic priests would quit their hold upon the consciences, wills, and the passions of men, when their spiritual despotism was the most powerful engine for their own aggrandisement? The Roman Catholic priesthood must ever stand alone. It had set the indelible mark of separation on its own forehead, by its unnatural, though politic, restrictions, by its claim to exclusive pre-eminence, and by its dangerous and unconstitutional connexion with a foreign state. Ascendancy, he contended, would be placed within the reach of the Roman Catholics by this bill; and could any one believe that they would not attempt to seize upon that ascendancy when it was well known that the promotion of the interests of their church was with them a point of principle and of honour, which they considered as far superior to the claims of country or kindred. The confederacy of the priesthood, actuated by a hatred of whatever was Protestant, would leave no means untried to exalt their church at the expense of the Protestant establishment, and especially when they found that those who ought to support that establishment were divided into parties. Such must be their objects and their wishes; and the bill would furnish them with both. The bishops of London and Durham expressed the same sentiments regarding the inevitable danger to the Protestant establishments, which must necessarily spring from what was neither less nor more than a deliberate arming of the Catholics with the power required to effect objects which the Catholics themselves bad the caution carefully to conceal or disguise. They also denounced the folly of legislating upon the principle that men would lay down their mischievous designs whenever they obtained the means of putting them in execution. The enemies of Protestantism knew better; and it was remarkable, the Bishop of Durham observed, how strange a combination of persons hailed the dawn of the new policy. It had united in its favour the acclamations of Catholics and of all classes of liberals, down to the lowest grade of Socinians. When men, he added, whose opinions led them to keep down the ascendancy of any church, and others whose conscience bound them to labour against the ascendancy of the Protestant church, so acted, he could not help thinking that the consequences of the measure would be anything but friendly to that ascendancy.

Of the temporal peers the defence of the bill was principally undertaken by the lord-chancellor, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Viscount God erich, the Earl of Westmoreland, Earl Grey, and Lord Plunkett. The lord-chancellor had a difficult task to perform. He was among those who up to this period had earnestly refuted all the pleas of concession which were now brought forward, and he had now to confute all these refutations. As late as last year he had declared his conviction, that emancipation, though accompanied by weighty securities, was pregnant with danger to the constitution and establishment; and he now declared his equally conscientious conviction, that emancipation, without any securities at all, would be conducive to the safety and prosperity of that constitution and establishment. This change of opinion might be fair and honest; but, unfortunately, Lord Lyndhurst denied the change which had taken place in his mind on this subject. He said that he had always held that if concession could be granted consistently with the security of the Protestant established church, and the great interests of the empire, it was the duty of parliament to give it. This was a bold assertion, and one which the public generally was not disposed to believe, since they knew that he had opposed concession with all the force of his learning and eloquence. The world might be wrong in saying that Lord Lyndhurst adopted his new creed by compulsion; but it was undoubtedly right in saying that it was a new creed. Having, however, defended his consistency in the best manner he could, or as he thought most proper, Lord Lyndhurst passed on to the merits of the measure. Ireland, he contended, had for years been growing worse and worse; and it was necessary, to effect a better state of things, that recourse should be had to conciliation. As to the dangers to be apprehended from concession, Lord Lyndhurst said he was now convinced that they were merely imaginary. And even if there were some danger, it seemed to him that the danger to be dreaded from the discontent of five millions of subjects, if their prayer were rejected, was infinitely the greatest and the worst. But he, for one, entertained no apprehensions that if the professors of the Roman Catholic religion should be introduced into parliament, they would exercise their influence to overthrow or injure the Protestant established church; and he entertained no apprehensions whatever, that in the discussion of those questions which concerned the church, her interests would be sacrificed. Looking at this measure both on a political and a religious principle, he was sure that it would put an end to the contentions and animosities which had prevailed, particularly in Ireland, and that it would operate to the advantage of the Protestant church and the Protestant religion. The Marquis of Anglesea, who had recently been recalled from his government of Ireland because he held out hopes of Catholic emancipation, also entered the ministerial phalanx which combated for that measure. He insisted principally on the military points of view in which the question ought to be considered. Every man, he said, acquainted with the state of Ireland would agree with him, that in a time of profound peace, under the exclusive laws, 25,000 men was but a scanty garrison for Ireland. In the event of war, or even of the rumour of war, that would be an improvident government which did not immediately add a force of 15,000 men to the previous military force. It could not be a question that both France and America wished to do us injury; and in the case of any collision with either of these powers, the first object of both would be to throw arms to a great extent into the hands of the discontented Irish. “I am arguing,” he continued, “be it observed, upon the supposition that the exclusive laws are in existence: for if they were not, the arms would not be received, or, if received, would be turned against the donors. But suppose that we are absolutely at war, and that there is a combination of the powers of Europe (no very unlikely contingency) against us: I then say that it would be madness in any administration, not to throw 70,000 men into Ireland. I should be sorry, with all the power of steam to convey troops from the continent, and all the advantages which modern science has recently introduced into the art of war, to see Ireland with so scanty a garrison in time of war, under the exclusive laws. But, on the other hand, suppose this bill to be passed into law by this day month; declare war if you like the next day; and I assert that you will have no difficulty, within six weeks, to raise in that country 50,000 able-bodied, and what is better, willing-hearted, men, who will traverse the continent, or find their way to any quarter of the globe to which you may choose to direct their arms. The passing of this bill is worth to the British empire more, far more, and I do not wish to exaggerate, than 100,000 bayonets.”

The measure was strongly opposed by Lord Tenterden, the chief-justice of England, the Duke of Richmond, and the Earls of Winchilsea, Harewood, Mansfield, Falmouth, and Ermiskillen. Lord Tenterden declared against it, because he knew it to be a violation of the constitution, and because he believed that it threatened ruin to the Protestant church, which he valued, not only for the purity of its doctrines, but because, of all churches that ever existed, it was most favourable to civil liberty. The other noble lords said that the Protestants had derived consolation from the declaration of the Duke of Wellington, at the opening of the session, that the measure would be found to be one which would satisfy the Protestants, give security to their institutions, and check the growth of Popery. The measure, however, was the reverse of what had been promised, and justified the worst apprehensions of those who loved the constitution. Instead of being calculated to satisfy the Protestants, the Protestant opinion of the country had already been unequivocally expressed against it. The expression of that opinion, had become louder and more general since the details of the measure had become known; and the rallying sound throughout the country now was, “Protestant ascendancy.” The Protestants of Great Britain were called on to bend before Irish rebels and seditious demagogues, and that too on mere conjectural grounds of imagined expediency. It was said, “You are to examine two dangers, and that the danger of disturbance was greater than any that could flow from concession.” When the latter clanger, however, was the sacrifice of the Protestant constitution, the parliament which incurred it was inexcusable, whether their conduct proceeded from dread of foreign attack, or of domestic dissension. It was easy to understand how men who did not believe that Protestantism formed an integral part of the constitution should pay for tranquillity what must appear to them so low a price. His majesty’s ministers, however, had always been of a different opinion. They had maintained and avowed that a measure like this was pregnant with danger to the constitution; and though their views of the expediency or inexpediency of incurring that danger might have changed, the danger itself must be the same. Nothing that had happened or was likely to happen could be put in the balance against this violation of the constitution. Was the British Protestant constitution a thing for which it was not worth while to encounter danger? would we defend it with our lives against invaders abroad, and yet sacrifice it to demagogues at home? The horrors of civil war were threatened: be it so; was the constitution to be sacrificed, whenever a number of unprincipled men threatened rebellion, if it was maintained? But that apprehension was groundless. The noble mover of this very measure had himself admitted that resistance was nowhere offered; that the Catholics were too wary and cautious to offer it; and that his troops found no occupation because they met with no enemy. Wise and good men would endeavour to tranquillize Ireland; but they would not give up, even for this object, the Protestant constitution of Ireland. The Marquis of Salisbury who had moved the address at the opening of the session, said that he had done so because he was prepared to change the condition of the Catholics; but he had never imagined that securities would not be provided, which securities he thought were to be found only in connecting the Catholic priesthood with the state. By abandoning securities their lordships would be signing the death-warrant of the Protestant establishment of Ireland and if the Protestant establishment of Ireland fell, that of England would shortly follow; and with the downfall of the church a revolution would ensue. Lord Eldon, in obedience to a general call made on him by the house, spoke at great length, and with evident sincerity on this important question. He commenced by stating that ministers who had introduced the bill, were actuated by a sense of their duty, though he lamented their conduct. At the same time he could not acquit the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel of wilfully deceiving the people, and bringing them into a state of apathy, by leading them into a persuasion that no measure of the kind would be brought forward at least this session. On Lord Lyndhurst, however, the ex-chancellor was more severe; that noble lord having endeavoured to excuse his own frailty by fixing a similar charge of inconsistency on Lord Eldon. As regards the measure itself, Lord Eldon said that he must say, once for all, that he did not mean to rest any part of his opposition to it on the terms of the coronation-oath; neither would he contend that to alter any of the laws enacted at the Revolution was beyond the competence of parliament. This, however, (looking at the 13th, 25th, and 30th of Charles II., that the exclusion from parliament produced by the last of those statutes,) was in conformity with the true construction of the acts of 1688, and with the act of union between England and Scotland in the reign of Queen Anne. These he contended were meant to be the ruling and governing principles of the constitution, until a strong necessity for altering it should be made apparent. His lordship then went on to show the futility of the securities demanded, and of the measure itself, as it regarded the tranquillization of Ireland. The securities tendered, he said, were of two kinds: first, those which belonged to the change as it might operate upon the minds of the Roman Catholics; secondly, those which were connected with the bill itself, and the other measure by which it was attended. First, they had passed a law to put down the Catholic Association; but although that was due to the dignity of Parliament, as a security against the dangers which he apprehended, neither that measure nor the precautionary clauses of the one then before the house were, in his mind, anything else than a mere nullity. But it was said, that only six or seven Roman Catholics could be admitted into that house, and only some thirty or forty into the commons. I ask, said his lordship, whether there is no other mode of obtaining seats in that house but by the suffrage of freeholders? The bill itself is one to which I feel the strongest objection. It provides in no shape for that advice which may be given by the ministers of the crown, who may all but one, be Roman Catholics. If there should be but one or two Protestant ministers I cannot see how they can maintain their opinions; and perhaps on the maintenance of their opinion might depend the maintenance of the Protestant constitution. In conclusion, Lord Eldon said, that he should have preferred that a proposition had been made by the noble duke for going into a committee to examine the reasons for originating such a bill, because it would have been but right that, in a matter of so much importance, your lordships should have known something more of the grounds of that expediency upon which you are called to legislate. Lord Plunkett said that he had reserved himself for the purpose of hearing the unanswerable arguments against the bill which Lord Eldon had threatened to produce when the measure came fairly before the house. As that noble and learned lord, however, had brought forth nothing but the _ipse dixit_ of his own authority, unsustained either by ingenious argument, by historical deduction, or by appeal to public and authenticated documents, he felt himself so far absolved from the necessity of refuting anticipated arguments, that he would apply his observations more particularly to the position, that the bill was calculated to subvert the Protestant constitution. In the course of his remarks on this vital point of the question, his lordship observed, that he had been asked whether this was a Protestant kingdom? and whether this was not a Protestant government, and a Protestant parliament? In one sense he admitted it was a Protestant kingdom, but it did not exclude papists. He admitted, also, that the parliament was essentially and predominantly Protestant; and in that sense, but in no other, the parliament was Protestant. He concluded by saying that the present bill did not give the Roman Catholics any benefit without an oath; an oath too which combined in its language every possible security that such a form could afford. Earl Grey spoke at great length, repeating the argument that an exclusion of Catholics had not originally formed any part of the Protestant government, since they had been found in parliament from the reign of Elizabeth down to that of Charles II.; that the exclusion was adopted to guard against political dangers of a temporary nature, which had long disappeared; that it formed no essential part of the Revolution settlement, or of the bill of rights; and that the coronation oath was never intended to restrain the king from consenting to such alterations as parliament in its wisdom might enact. Earl Grey also entered at great length into that important part of the question, which related to its bearing on the act of union with Scotland. On every ground, he continued, the right to make the change was clear; and, in his opinion, the justice and prudence of making it were equally obvious. The great object of alarm seemed to be the political power which the bill would confer, and which, it was said, was the object at which the Catholics had all along been aiming. The bill would certainly bestow political power; but, he argued, it was power of the most legitimate kind, and that to which they were justly entitled. As to the effect of the bill on the state of Ireland, he would not say that it would at once give tranquillity, and remove all dangers; but he felt sure that without it it was impossible to have tranquillity and freedom from danger in that country. By the system of exclusion, lie said, they had produced more than one rebellion in Ireland, which had been extinguished in blood; but had they, he asked, induced tranquillity? By no means. On the contrary, Ireland had been growing worse and worse every year, requiring a larger military force to keep the people obedient to the laws, and that in a time of peace. Was this the mode of making that country a useful portion of the empire? Was it the way in which we should be preparing for war? But, it was urged, if you pass this bill, the church of Ireland is destroyed, and Catholic ascendancy virtually proclaimed. That church, unfortunately, was placed in a situation which could not be freed from dangers of one sort or another. The great obstacle to its triumph had always been, that it had never been the church of more than a small minority of the people of Ireland; and that it was the church of so very small a minority, he verily believed, was owing to those very laws which they now sought to repeal. Take them away, and the number of its disciples would increase, not from the spirit of conversion..... for any open attempt in that way would be impolitic—but from its superior reason, and from its more wholesome tenets, which would come more fairly into play as soon as it should be relieved from the invidious situation in which it at present stood. Take away the false protection, of exclusive laws, and superior excellence would prevail in the conflict of argument. The debate was closed by the Duke of Wellington, who treated the apprehended danger to the Irish church as futile, considering that the throne would be filled by a Protestant, and that the fundamental article of the union between the two countries was the union of the two churches. Adverting to the charge of inconsistency brought against himself and his colleagues, his grace remarked:—“A different topic to which I wish to advert, is a charge brought against several of my colleagues, and also against myself, by the noble earl on the cross-bench, of a want of consistency in our conduct. My lords, I admit that many of my colleagues, as well as myself, did on former occasions vote against a measure of a similar description to this; and, my lords, I must say that my colleagues and myself felt, when we adopted this measure, that we should be sacrificing ourselves and our popularity to that which we feel to be our duty to our sovereign and our country. We knew very well that if we put ourselves at the head of the Protestant cry of ‘No Popery,’ we should be much more popular even than those who have excited against us that very cry. But we felt that in so doing we should have left on the interests of the country a burden, which must end in bearing them down; and further, that we should have deserved the hate and execration of our countrymen. Then I am accused, and by a noble and learned friend of mine, of having acted with great secrecy respecting this measure. Now I beg to tell him that he has done that to me, in the course of the discussion., which he complains of others having done to him; in other words, he has, in the language of a right honourable friend of his and mine, thrown a large paving-stone instead of throwing a small pebble. I say, that if he accuses me of acting with secrecy on this question, he does not deal with me altogether fairly. He knows as well as I do how the cabinet was constructed on this question; and I ask him, had I any right to say a single word to any man whatsoever upon this measure, until the person most interested in the kingdom upon it had given his consent to my speaking out? Before he accused me of secrecy, and of improper secrecy, too, he ought to have known the precise day upon which I received the permission of the highest personage in the country, and had leave to open my mouth upon this measure. There is another point also on which a noble earl accused me of misconduct; and that is, that I did not at once dissolve the parliament. Now I must say that I think noble lords are mistaken in the notion of the benefits which they think that they would derive from a dissolution of parliament at this crisis. I believe that many of them are not aware of the consequences of a dissolution of parliament at any time. But when I know, as I did know, and as I do know, the state of the elective franchise in Ireland, when I recollected the number of men it took to watch one election which took place in Ireland in the course of last summer; when I knew the consequences which a dissolution would produce on the return to the house of commons, to say nothing of the risks which must have been incurred at each election—of collisions that might have led to something short of civil war—I say that, knowing all these things, I should have been wanting in duty to my sovereign and to my country if I had advised his majesty to dissolve his parliament.” On a division the same house of peers which in 1828 had declared, by a majority of forty-five, that emancipation would be a breach of the constitution, and dangerous to the Protestant establishment, now declared, by a majority of two hundred and seventeen against one hundred and twelve, it was consistent with the constitution; and that, if it did no good, it would not do any harm to the Protestant church.

On the 7th and 8th of April the bill passed through a committee, in which, as in the commons, many amendments were moved, but none carried. It was read a third time on the 10th of April, after another debate, in which the former arguments were repeated on both sides of the question; and on the 13th of the same month it received its final confirmation in the royal assent. The working of that measure will be best seen in the future pages of this history; but it may be here observed, that it has proved neither an immediate, nor a sufficient cure for the disorders of Ireland. Protestant ascendancy was too deeply and extensively rooted in all its institutions to admit of such a remedy; nor was it likely that the Roman Catholics, having acquired means to break their chain, would remain long without trying their efficiency. Agitation had procured this boon; and the Roman Catholics, thus successful, have sought to obtain other benefits by the same unhallowed means. Agitation is, in fact, still the bane of Ireland.

BILL FOR THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDERS.

{GEORGE IV. 1829—1830}

Emancipation having thus been gained, Mr. Peel brought in a bill for the disfranchisement of the Irish forty-shilling freeholders, and for raising the qualification to ten pounds. This was part and parcel of the general measure, and it met with no serious opposition even in Ireland. The very Whigs supported it, hostile as it was to popular rights and destructive of vested political franchises, as an essential part of a whole; the other and better part of which they were unwilling to lose. Mr. Brougham said, he consented to it as the price, the almost extravagant price, of the inestimable good which would result from emancipation; and it was described by Sir James Mackintosh as one of those tough morsels which he had scarcely been able to swallow. It was opposed by Mr. Huskisson and others as a measure uncalled for by any necessity, and not fitted to gain that object which alone was held out as justifying it. It was absurd, it was said, to allege as a pretext for it, the influence and conduct of the Catholic priesthood; for all who knew anything of that influence, knew that it was chiefly felt when it ran with the current of popular feeling; and that it was even exercised with a view to maintain submission to the laws. If the forty-shilling freeholders had been corrupt, like those of Penryn, their disfranchisement might be defended; but the only offence of the persons against whom this bill was directed, had been that they exercised their privilege honestly and independently, according to the dictates of their own consciences. In reply to this, Mr. Peel mentioned an instance of the power of the priests as having occurred at the Clare election. At the commencement of that election a landlord of the county had promised his interest to Mr. V. Fitzgerald. The landlord had a voter on his estate who was under great personal obligations to him; and previous to the commencement of the contest, he said to this voter, “I shall vote for Mr. Fitzgerald; I suppose you mean to do the same.” The man declared his determination to imitate the example of his patron; but as the struggle drew nearer, a degree of excitement was produced to which it was only necessary to allude: and the freeholder did not escape its effects. He came to his landlord with sixty pounds in his hands, and addressed him thus:—“I have saved this sum while your tenant, and upon your property. I cannot redeem the promise which I gave you. There, take the sixty pounds, make use of it to promote the interests of Mr. Fitzgerald; but my vote I must give to Mr. O’Connell.” “Could anything,” he asked, “be so painful as the situation of him who was obliged to perform such a part, to observe such a doubtful contest between his religion and his conscience?” On a division only seventeen members voted against the bill; and it passed into a law. Mr. O’Connell had publicly bound himself to reject even emancipation if accompanied by such a condition, and to perish in the field, or on the scaffold, if necessary, in defence of his “forties;” but he forgot his vows, and became silent and acquiescent.

THE CASE OF MR. O’CONNELL.

At the time of the Clare election Mr. O’Connell had assured the people that he was entitled to sit in parliament without taking the oaths, which no Catholic could take. He had staked his professional reputation on this point, and had given assurances that he held other learned opinions to the same purport. His return had subsequently been petitioned against; but a committee to whom the petition had been referred, had reported that he was duly elected. Now, according to the old law, under which Mr. O’Connell’s claim had arisen—he having been elected before the measure of emancipation had passed—if a person known and believed to be a Catholic could take certain oaths, which oaths involved an abjuration of Popery, he was entitled to take his seat. The new act, however, did not seem to forward his pretensions. The oath, indeed, which it substituted for those that were abrogated, could be taken by a Catholic as well as a Protestant; but that provision was expressly limited to “any person professing the Roman Catholic religion, after the commencement of this act, be returned as a member of the house of commons.” Mr. O’Connell and his friends, however, held that from the moment the bill received the royal assent, there was an end to the power of administering the abrogated oaths, or demanding any of the declarations which then stood repealed. On these grounds Mr. O’Connell hoped to take his seat in parliament. He presented himself at the table of the house on the 15th of May; and the clerk produced the oath which had been repealed by the late act. A brief conversation took place; and the clerk having communicated what took place to the speaker, he addressed the house thus: “It is my duty to state, if I have been correctly informed, that the course which the honourable member has proposed to take, is a course which, until overruled by stronger authority, I do not conceive it my duty to acquiesce in. I understand that he proposes to take the oath prescribed to be taken by Roman Catholics as it is to be found in an act of parliament recently passed. As I read that act of parliament, it is my impression, and on my impression it is my duty to act, that it involves two points relative to the course to be pursued in taking seats in this house. The first point is that of repealing the declaration against transubstantiation; the other, that of appointing an oath to be taken by such members of this house as profess the Roman Catholic creed; but with this condition, that those members should be returned subsequently to the passing of the act. Now the honourable member was returned, as the house is well aware, long before the passing of this act. I have, therefore, only to refer to the law affecting all the members of this house until the late act passed; and, with the single exception of repeating the declaration against transubstantiation, I have to state that the construction which has been uniformly put on the law of the land, and which has been repeatedly sanctioned and confirmed by act of parliament, is, that every member, before taking his seat, shall take the oath of allegiance and supremacy before the lord-steward, and the oath of abjuration at the table of this house. This is the course which, by law, the dignity and the privileges of this house require. I state this the rather because it is well known that this house is open to an appeal by petition, or it may be brought forward by any member in this house. In that case, the house will be better able to judge, and to state its opinion of the propriety of the conduct which it appeared to me to be my duty to pursue. I, therefore, state to the honourable gentleman that he must withdraw.” Mr. O’Connell having withdrawn, Mr. Brougham moved, that he should be called back, and heard at the table in support of his claim to be admitted on taking no other oath than that contained in the late act. Mr. W. Wynn was of opinion that Mr. O’Connell was entitled to be heard at the bar of the house, and that it made no difference whether he was heard there or at the table, though it was his opinion it might be better to adhere to the former course. Mr. Peel, however, thought there was a great distinction between hearing the applicant at the table and at the bar; and that he had no right to be heard at the former. The debate on this point was adjourned to the 18th of April; on which day it was finally ordered, on Mr. Peel’s motion, “that the member for Clare be heard at the bar, with reference to his claim to sit and vote in the house of commons without taking the oath of supremacy.” On his appearance at the bar, Mr. O’Connell maintained that the Act of Union with Ireland entitled him to sit without taking the oath of supremacy; and that the act lately passed entitled him to sit without taking the declaration against transubstantiation. He claimed, under the spirit and effect of the new statute, to sit without taking the oath of supremacy; and he claimed also, under its positive enactments, to sit without taking any other oath than what was therein contained. There were many points in his arguments very strongly put, and they were delivered with a temperance calculated to conciliate the good will of the house. Even the lawyers, also, who were opposed to Mr. O’Connell, confessed that there were doubts as to the true meaning of the oath of supremacy; but the house, notwithstanding, came to the resolution, that unless Mr. O’Connell took that oath, he was not entitled to sit or vote in that house. A motion to that effect, moved by the solicitor-general, was carried by a majority of one hundred and ninety against one hundred and sixteen. Mr. O’Connell was then called again to the bar, and the speaker having put the question to him whether he would take the oath or not, he replied:—“I see, in this oath, one assertion as to a matter of fact which I know is not true, and see in it another assertion, as to a matter of opinion which I believe is not true; I therefore refuse to take this oath.” A new writ was now ordered for a new election, and Mr. O’Connell went back to Ireland to be re-elected by his constituents. The decision had an untoward effect upon his mind; for he now loaded ministers with the most opprobrious epithets, as men who having been false to their own party could never be true to any other. It caused him, indeed, to announce his ulterior design to effect a repeal of the union by that system of agitation which had already proved so successful. This purpose he has deliberately followed up by the most inflammatory harangues, and various other modes of popular excitement. From that day to this year, indeed, his whole career has been one long course of agitation to effect the repeal of the union; but whether he or any other agitator in Ireland will ever be gratified by such an event demands a doubt.

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.

The chancellor of the exchequer opened the budget on the 8th of May. From his statements it appeared that the revenue of the preceding year so far exceeded his estimate as to leave a surplus of nearly £6,000,000 for the sinking-fund. For the present year, however, as the house was anxious to abolish the absurd system of defraying the expense of military and naval pensions, or the “dead weight” as it was called, by postponing its burdens, he estimated the gross revenue at £51,347,000 and the expenditure at £48,333,593, by which means he left only a clear sinking-fund of £3,000,000 for diminishing the public debt. The finance committee had recommended that this sum should always be kept inviolate for the purpose of reducing the national debt; and as the surplus on which they could calculate was no greater, no part of it could be applied to the reduction of the burthens of the country.

MOTION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

The last parliamentary result of the measures passed in regard to Ireland was a motion for parliamentary reform. On the 2nd of June, the Marquis of Blandford, one of the ultra-tories, moved a series of resolutions, which went to declare that there existed a number of boroughs the representation of which could be purchased, and others in which the number of electors was so small as to render them liable to the influence of bribery; and that such a system was disgraceful to the character of the house of commons, destructive of the confidence which the people should repose in it, and prejudicial to the best interests of the country. The Marquis of Blandford supported his motion on the ground that late events had shown how completely the representative body could be separated from the feelings, the wishes, and the opinions of the people. An imperious necessity had also been added to the already existing propriety of putting down the borough-monger and his trade: all the rights and liberties of the country were in jeopardy, so long as majorities were to be obtained by a traffic of seats and services. “After what had happened,” said his lordship, “the country demanded some statutory provision to secure its agriculture, its manufactures, and its trade; but more especially to secure Protestant interests against the influx and increase of the Roman Catholic party, one mode of securing this, and at the same time of purifying the representation, would be to abolish the borough market, which had now been thrown open to Catholics.” This motion, which was intended to be rather in the nature of a notice, than made with any design of having the topics which it embraced fully discussed, was supported by some of the old reformers, though on different grounds from that dislike of free trade, and apprehension of Catholic influence which animated the mover. Mr. W. Smith, in voting for the resolutions, expressed his high satisfaction that the relief bill had produced an effect unanticipated—the transforming a number of the highest tories in the land, into something very like radical reformers. The resolutions, however, were rejected by a majority of four hundred and one against one hundred and eighteen.

PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT, ETC.

Parliament was prorogued by commission on the 24th of June. The speech regretted that war still continued in the east of Europe; announced that his majesty had been enabled to renew his diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Porte; and adverted to the unfortunate condition of the Portuguese monarchy. In allusion to the Catholic relief bill, the speech remarked: “His majesty has commanded us in conclusion to express the sincere hope of his majesty that the important measures, which have been adopted by parliament in the course of the present session may tend, under the blessing of Divine Providence, to establish the tranquillity and improve the condition of Ireland; and that by strengthening the bonds of union between the several parts of this great empire, they may consolidate and augment its power and promote the happiness of his people.” About this time the legal arrangements rendered necessary by the dismissal of Sir Charles Wetherell were completed: Sir James Scarlett, who had filled the same office under Mr. Canning, became the attorney-general of the Duke of Wellington; Sir Nicholas Tindal was made chief-justice of the common pleas, Chief-Justice Best being removed into the house of peers, under the title of Lord Wynford; and Mr. Sugden succeeded the former as solicitor-general.

STATE OF AFFAIRS IN IRELAND.

The Catholic relief bill was impotent to stem the tide of agitation in Ireland. That country, indeed, in the very year that it passed, presented the same scenes of violence and outrage as before. While the registation rendered necessary by the act which disfranchised the forty-shilling freeholders was going on, Mr. O’Connell was taking measures to secure his re-election for the county of Clare. In a letter to the electors he again raised the standard of defiance to government. It represented himself and his constituents, in fact, as the conquerors of the government; and spoke of it as faithless and insulting. In it he remarked: “The house of commons have deprived me of the right conferred on me by the people of Clare. They have, in my opinion, unjustly and illegally deprived me of that right; but from their decision there is no appeal, save to the people. I appeal to you. In my person the county of Clare has been insulted. The brand of degradation has been raised to mark me, because the people of Clare fairly selected me. Will the people of Clare endure this insult, now that they can firmly but constitutionally efface it for ever? Electors of the county of Clare, to you is due the glory of converting Peel and conquering Wellington! The last election for Clare is admitted to have been the immediate irresistible cause of producing the Catholic relief bill. You have achieved the religious liberty of Ireland. Another such victory in Clare, and we shall attain the political freedom of our beloved country.” The victory which had been achieved, he said, was still necessary to be maintained in order to “prevent Catholic rights and liberties from being sapped and undermined by the insidious policy of those men who, false to their own party, can never be true to us, and who have yielded, not to reason, but to necessity, in granting us freedom of conscience.” Even the Catholic relief bill itself did not escape the censure of Mr. O’Connell. The prohibition contained in it against the growth of the monastic orders especially was denounced by him. He remarked:—“I trust I shall be the instrument of erasing from the statute-book that paltry imitation of the worst and still existing portion of Jacobinism, a miserable imitation, which pretends to do that which nature and religion forbid to be done—to extinguish monastic orders in Ireland. While it is law, its penalties will be submitted to; but let me add as a matter of fact, that its mandate will most assuredly not be obeyed. It was formerly death in Ireland to be a friar; and the Irish earth is still scarcely dry from the blow of martyred friars: the friars multiplied in the face of death. Oh for the sagacity of Peel, and the awful wisdom of Wellington, that meditate to suppress monastic orders in Ireland by a pecuniary penalty, and the dread of a foreign mission, under the name of banishment!” In this letter Mr. O’Connell made some magnificent promises to the electors of Clare and the people of Ireland at large. He would obtain the repeal of the disfranchisement act, of the subletting act, and of the vestry bill; would assail the system of “grand jury jobbing, and grand jury assessment;” would procure an equitable distribution of church property between the poor on the one hand, and the laborious portion of the Protestant clergy on the other; would cleanse the Augean stables of the law, for which Herculean task his professional habits gave him peculiar facilities; would procure for every Catholic rector of a parish, a parochial house, and an adequate glebe; would make manifest the monstrous injustice that had been done to the Jesuits and the monastic orders; would wage war against the East India charter; would strain every nerve in the cause of parliamentary reform; and would provide a system of poor laws for Ireland that would be agreeable even to those who had to pay their money for the support of the poor. He added:—“If the gentry of Clare are desirous to have as their representative a man who is able and most desirous to protect in parliament their properties and permanent interests, let them do me the honour to elect me. But let them not lay the flattering unction to their souls, that they can, without an independent man of business as their representative, postpone the introduction of the English system of poor laws.” As soon as Mr. O’Connell took the field an “aggregate meeting” of Catholics, which was nothing else than a meeting of the Catholic Association took place, to consider what steps should be adopted to forward his re-election. The first thing done was to vote £5000 of the rent as an aid to assist the agitator in standing for the county of Clare, The election did not excite much interest, as Mr. O’Connell was not opposed; but it was preceded and accompanied by “triumphant entries” as they were called; that is, assemblages of large crowds of people, to whom were addressed harangues in which inflammatory abuse was mixed up with low buffoonery. On the subject of the repeal of the union with England, he said at Youghall:—“We have now a brighter era opened to us; and I trust that all classes of my countrymen will join together, and, by forming one general firm phalanx, achieve what is still wanting to make Ireland what it ought to be. Ireland had her 1782, she shall have another 1782. Let no man tell me it is useless to look for a repeal of the odious union, that blot upon our national character. I revere the union between England and Scotland; but the union which converted Ireland into a province, which deprived Ireland of her parliament, it is for the repeal of that measure we must now use all the constitutional means in our power: that union which engenders absenteeism, and the thousand other evils which naturally flow in its train. We are bound to England by the golden link of the crown; and far be it from me to weaken that connexion by my present observations: I want no disseveration; but I want and must have a repeal of that cursed measure which deprived Ireland of her senate, and thereby made her a dependent upon British aristocracy and British interests. I may perhaps be told that to attempt a repeal of the union would be chimerical. I pity the man who requires an argument in support of the position that Ireland wants her parliament; and that individual who pronounces the attainment of such a consummation to be Utopian, is reminded of the Catholic question. Look at the Catholic cause. Do I not remember when it was difficult to procure a meeting of five Catholics to look for a restoration of our then withheld rights? I recollect when we agitators were almost as much execrated by our fellow-slaves, as we were by our oppressors. For the attainment of the repeal of the union, I shall have the co-operation of all classes and grades in society: the Orangemen of the north, the Methodist of the south, and the quiet unpresuming Quaker, who may think his gains shall be thereby augmented, all shall be joined in one common cause, the restoration of Ireland’s parliament.” But this was a mild attack upon England compared with other portions of the agitator’s speeches. It is no wonder then that Ireland soon presented scenes of as much violence as those from which the emancipation bill was to relieve her for ever. The hostile feelings of parties continued, and manifested themselves in the same way as heretofore. Catholics and Protestants alike had recourse to organization, and the slightest accident, the most casual collisions produced contention, and generally ended in bloodshed. Thus on the 12th of July, which the Protestants had resolved to celebrate, the Catholics determined to oppose their intention by force wherever they could, and in the counties of Clare, Tipperary, Armagh, Leitrim, Cavan, Fermanagh, and Monaghan, the aspect of open war was assumed, and it was only prevented by the presence of the military. Many lives were, indeed, sacrificed, and many thousands were driven from their homes by the opposing parties. In several instances where death had occurred from the interference of the police, or from their resistance when attacked, trials ensued; but this only tended to exasperate the Catholics still more. An acquittal, though proceeding on the clearest evidence that life had been justly taken from an armed aggressor, was uniformly ascribed to partiality. Imagining that the law existed only to be used against them they took the task of retribution for supposed injuries into their own hands, and assumed arms to gratify revenge, in defiance of the law Judges, juries, and the government were laughed at by Catholic criminals, for no witness dared to communicate what he knew against them. At the close of this year, indeed, matters had proceeded to such a length in Ireland, and especially in Tipperary, that the magistrates expressed an opinion that nothing but a revival of the insurrection act would secure the peace of the country. But this could not be effected, for it had expired, and parliament was not sitting. So Ireland was left to be rent asunder with the spirit of faction. “State gipsies” were left to pick the pockets of the ignorant as they pleased, or as they could gain control over those of the people, by their artful and seditious harangues.

AGRICULTURAL AND COMMERCIAL DISTRESS.

{GEORGE IV. 1829—1830}

England, also, this year presented its scenes of lawlessness. This arose from different causes to those which gave rise to the insurrection in Ireland. These causes were the distress which prevailed among the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial classes. The depression in every branch of trade experienced this year naturally gave rise to a reduction of wages among the artisans. These artisans, however, unreasonably ascribed this reduction, not to the necessities of trade, but to the avarice of their employers; and they still more unreasonably proceeded to their usual correctives—voluntary idleness, and the destruction of property. The example was set by the silk-weavers of Spitalfields and Bethnal-Green, who refused to work except at an increased rate of wages, and made their way by night into the shops of workmen possessed of materials belonging to the refractory masters, and destroyed them. Overawed by the combination, the masters agreed finally to pay the same wages that had been paid in 1824, although its continuation would prove ruinous to them. Similar scenes were exhibited, and the same results followed at Macclesfield, Nuneaton, and Bedworth. Nor did the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire escape the contagion. About the end of May the weavers of Barnsley, like the silk-weavers of Bethnal-Green and Macclesfield, forced upon their employers a list of prices. By August and September, however, the masters found it impossible to keep to these prices; and when they proposed a reduction, the workmen immediately left their work, and commenced a riot. Warehouses were attacked, as were also the houses of such weavers as had taken out work at reduced prices; and it was only by calling in the aid of the military that tranquillity was restored. Yet lawless and mischievous as these proceedings were, it was clear that they originated from the misery of those engaged in them. A report, drawn up at Huddersfield by a committee of masters, stated, “that within the several townships engaged in fancy business, there were 13,000 individuals who had not more than twopence halfpenny per day to live on; and out of this they had to find wear and tear for looms.” This report added, “Whatever be the cause of such distress, it is feared that the agonizing condition of families so circumstanced cannot long be endured. The difficulty of obtaining relief by the ordinary course, and the aggravating circumstances often attending applications for it, have a powerful tendency to drive the applicants ultimately to desperation. In laying these painful statements before the members of his majesty’s government and other influential gentlemen, the master manufacturers wish to do it respectfully, impelled by a sense of duty which they owe to the government and the public, and especially to their workmen, who have hitherto borne their sufferings with extreme patience.” The distress was aggravated by a bad harvest and a severe winter, all of which contributed to bring the productive classes of the community, and especially the lowest orders, into a state of abject misery.

FOREIGN POLITICS.

The foreign affairs requiring notice, as affecting Great Britain, were principally those in the East. During this year Turkey was obliged to sue to the Russian autocrat for peace; for both the Russian army and navy were successful in all their operations. The terms granted were as follows:—The Pruth was to constitute the European limit as before; but Silistria was to be dismantled. An alteration was to be made in the Asiatic boundaries, so that the whole eastern coast of the Black Sea, from the Kuban to the harbour of St. Nicholas, together with the fortresses of Anapa and Poti, should remain in possession of Russia. The principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were to be confirmed in their rights; but the Hospodars were to be nominated only for life, and no Turks allowed to dwell there. Free trade was to be allowed on the Black Sea, and navigation through the straits for vessels belonging to Russia, as well as all other countries at peace with the Porte. The sultan was to defray the expenses of the war, and to accede to the treaties concluded at London regarding the Greeks. The bases of the intended negociations respecting Greece were finally arranged among the allies, at a conference on the 22nd of March in the present year. The protocol signed by them read as follows:—“1. The continental boundary line of the Greek state is to be drawn from the gulf of Volo to the gulf of Arsa. All countries south of this line to be included in the Greek state, to which the adjacent islands, comprehending Euboea and the Cyclades, are likewise to belong 2. An annual tribute of 1,500,000 Turkish piastres to be paid by this Greek state. Only a third part to be paid during the first year, and to be gradually increased till it reaches the maximum in the fourth. 3. Turkish subjects who may be forced to depart from the Greek territory to be indemnified. 4. Greece is to remain under the suzerainty of the Porte, which form of government is to approach as nearly as possible to & monarchical form, and to be hereditary in the family of a Christian prince, to be chosen for the first time by the three powers, in concert with the Porte. He is not to be a member of the families reigning in the states which are parties to the treaty of July 6th.” Finally, the three powers, however, agreed to restrict the territory of the new state within narrower limits than were assumed in this protocol. The line adopted was further to the south. It commenced on the east at Zeitouni, a little to the northward of Thermopylae, and ran across the country in the direction of Vrachori, till it reached the river Aspropotamos, or the ancient Achelous, whose course it was then to follow as far as the sea. It thus excluded not only Thessaly, but Acarnaniaand the town of Vonizza, which the Greeks had taken early in the year, and an extensive tract of level country lying round the gulf of Calarno. The whole western frontier of northern Greece was left open by it to the attacks of its barbarian foes. And this determination was made without the wishes of the Greeks being consulted, or any communication made to the Greek government. The matter was, in truth, decided at London without the intervention of either Turkish or Greek minister; but the Porte and the Greek government were alike compelled to agree to the articles drawn up by the three powers.

In the Netherlands the session of the States-general, during the present year, was less tranquil and satisfactory than any that had been held since the Restoration. The king himself continued popular; but his government produced general dissatisfaction by some obnoxious measures; especially by dismissing judges who were supposed to be too obstinate; by partiality in official appointments; and by exercising severity against the press when it criticised the policy of administration. When the States-general met, the second chamber was immediately occupied in discussing an immense number of petitions, recommending improvements in the present system of government. Some ameliorations were made; but government resisted the proposal that cases of alleged abuse of the liberty of the press should be tried by a jury, and also the introduction of grand juries, and the extension of jury trials to the provincial courts and other criminal tribunals. On the other hand, a numerous body in the chamber censured every measure of the government, and resisted every project of its ministers; and the session ended with an increase of that excitement and dissatisfaction which for some time had been growing up in the public mind.

During this year, also, the government of France was embarrassed with difficulties. A new ministry had been formed under the presidency of Prince Polignac, all the members of which belonged to that section which advocated irresponsible power in politics, and essential domination in religion. Nothing could exceed the unpopularity of these appointments. The press teemed with denouncements both of the men and their measures; and prosecutions for its bold sentiments became the order of the day. Prosecutions increased, from the fact that associations were formed to resist the payment of taxes, in case ministers should attempt to rule without a chamber. Finally, the cabinet itself became divided. One great cause of its unpopularity was, that it contained Labourdonnaye, who had signalized himself by recommending a terrific system of proscription, and had, after the manner of Marius and Sylla at Rome, classified those descriptions of people on whom he demanded vengeance. Labourdonnaye retired towards the close of the year; but public opinion continued against the administration as strong and unanimous as ever. At one time, the organs of the cabinet threatened a dissolution of the chambers, and at another, the ultra-journals preached the doctrine of ruling without the chambers. The more accredited organs of the cabinet, indeed, did not openly repeat such sentiments, but they were connected in the minds of the people with that set of opinions which the cabinet represented. If the one party, indeed, were led astray by assuming evil designs not in existence, ministers were equally blind as to the character of their antagonists. The year finally closed in mutual recriminations; ministers keeping their places until the convocation of the legislature should determine, whether the chambers were to decide the fate of the cabinet, or the cabinet that of the chambers. One fact, however, was favourable to the interests of France: namely, that its foreign relations remained peaceful and unaltered.

In Portugal, Don Miguel this year unfolded to the world his true character. Early in this year an unsuccessful attempt was made in Oporto at insurrection in favour of Donna Maria, and the usurper made use of this occurrence to multiply arrests in the capital. Every individual whom any creature of government disliked, or any private enemy thought proper to denounce by an anonymous accusation, was forthwith consigned to the dungeons of the Limveiro, or of St. Julian. The actual conspirators at Oporto were tried by commission, and several of them were exiled, and the rest acquitted as persons against whom nothing was proved. Miguel, however, was shocked at the lenity of the sentence, and refused to ratify it; ordering at the same time a new sentence to be framed, by which five prisoners condemned to perpetual exile were directed to be hanged, and two who were to have been transported for ten years, to transportation for life. In comparison with death, the condition of the prisoners, with whom the jails and fortresses were crowded to suffocation, was scarcely to be envied. Though all were uncondemned, and most of them innocent, the whole were delivered over to the merciless authority of apostolic miscreants, who seemed to find no gratification but in the invention of new modes of inflicting misery.

Among the incarcerated were many persons in affluent circumstances, who charitably contributed to support the poorer prisoners, whom their tyrants were willing should perish by starvation. To deprive them of all assistance, indeed, government ordered their benefactors to be removed from the dungeons in the city, to those of St. Julian, Belem, and Bugio. Here, without being brought to trial, the prisoners were cut off from all communication, even with the members of their own families. Many of them died of want and confinement, and the usurper was suspected of poisoning others. No rank, sex, or character was respected; a child of five years of age was kept in solitary confinement five days, and subjected to the tortures of a prison to extort evidence against its father and mother. A refugee Spanish bishop, who had been a member of the Cortes of 1812, and had since lived in security at Lisbon, was thrown into a dungeon, and died in four days, in consequence of maltreatment, and his body was thrown into a hole in the esplanade of the castle without burial. The most sanguinary scenes took place both at Oporto and Lisbon. The rage of the tyrant was backed by the priests, who in their sermons and publications applauded the work of death and devastation as an acceptable offering to the Divine Majesty. One Jose Agostino, a monk and court preacher, published a pamphlet called “The Beast Flayed,” urging the necessity of multiplying sacrifices, and recommending that the constitutionalists should be hanged up by the feet, and the people joyfully treated with fresh meat from the gallows. These sentiments only added fuel to the flames of Don Miguel’s vengeance, and the kingdom was laid at the mercy of a set of men to whose vengeance, brutality, and avarice there were no bounds. One step downward in the path of moral turpitude ever leads to another. From the moment of his return, Don Miguel had hated his sister Bonna Maria, because she had been her brother’s regent, and had been faithful to the constitution. Miguel learned that a footman formerly in the service of his sister had set out for England, and he fancied that he had been sent by Donna Maria with her money and jewels, in order to secure them from his rapacity. It is probable, also, that he imagined the servant had been sent to England for the purpose of making known the dreadful state of the country; and enraged thereby, he rushed into her chamber with a pistol in his hand, and demanded an account of the flight of her servant. Donna Maria stood for a while trembling in silence, but as Miguel was about to strike her with the pistol which was armed with a bayonet, she threw herself upon him, and overturned him. Her chamberlain now flew to her rescue. Miguel sprang up, and when on the point of again attacking her, Count Camarido threw himself before him. The tyrant disabled him by stabbing him in the arm, and fired at the princess; and though the ball missed her, it killed a servant by her side. Other domestics now interfered, and the life of Donna Maria was saved. She was hurried away from his brutal fury. While scenes of outrage and wrong were being committed daily throughout the whole of Portugal, the necessities of the government increased, notwithstanding a forced issue of paper money was made. Recourse was had to an expedition to reduce Terceira, one of the Azores, the only spot in the dominions of Portugal which remained true to its rightful monarch. This expedition set sail about the middle of June, and the troops succeeded in effecting a landing; but they were totally defeated by the islanders, under Villa Flor, who had made his escape with the Marquis Palmella and nineteen other general officers from the rage of Miguel. In the meantime the tyrant’s interest was supported at Madrid by the great influence of his mother over the family of Ferdinand, who, in fact, regarded Miguel with peculiar complacency, because he had destroyed a constitutional government. The other sovereigns of Europe however, still kept aloof from any communication with the usurper. It was contended by the Portuguese refugees, and the ministers of Don Pedro, that they ought to drive Miguel from his throne by positive interference. These applications were especially made to the British ministry; but though Lord Aberdeen admitted to their fullest extent the obligations created by the treaties existing between Britain and Portugal, he maintained that they gave no countenance to any demand made for interference in an internal revolution. He remarked: “It is assumed that the usurpation of the throne of Portugal by the infant Don Miguel has given to her most faithful majesty the right of demanding from this country effectual succours for the recovery of her crown and kingdom. But in the whole series of treaties there is no express stipulation which can warrant this pretension, neither is such an obligation implied by their general tenor and spirit. It is either for the purpose of resisting successful rebellion, or of deciding by force a doubtful question of succession that Great Britain is now called upon to act. But it is impossible to imagine that any independent state could ever intend thus to commit the control and direction of its internal affairs to the hands of another power. For, doubtless, if his Britannic majesty be under the necessity of furnishing effectual succours in the event of any internal revolt or dissension in Portugal, it would become a duty, and, indeed, it would be essential to take care that no such case should exist if it could be prevented. Hence a constant and minute interference in the affairs of Portugal would be indispensable; for his majesty could never consent to hold his fleets and armies at the disposal of a king of Portugal, without exercising those due precautions and that superintendence which would assure him that his forces would not be employed in averting the effects of misgovernment, folly, or caprice. Is this a condition in which any state professing to be independent could endure to exist? The truth is, that the whole spirit of the treaties, as well as their history, shows that the principle of the guarantee given by England is the protection of Portugal from foreign interference.” The British government, therefore, refused to interfere in this domestic quarrel; and it also considered itself bound to observe a strict neutrality in regard to all military operations. A considerable number of Portuguese exiles, resident on our southern coast, appeared to have some design of fitting out an expedition against Don Miguel; and the British government, holding such views as above unfolded, informed the Brazilian minister that it would not allow such designs to be carried on in British harbours, and that the refugees must remove further from the coast. The Brazilian minister replied, that these troops were about to be conveyed to Brazil; and accordingly four vessels, having on board six hundred and fifty-two officers, with Count Saldanha at their head, sailed from Plymouth. The British government, however, suspected that the true design was to land those troops at Terceira; and notice was given to them before they sailed that any such attempt would be resisted. A small force, under the command of Captain Walpole, was despatched to enforce the prohibition; his instructions being to cruise off the island; to inform the Portuguese that he had authority to prevent their landing; and if they made any effort to effect a landing, to resist such an attempt by force, and to drive them away from that neighbourhood. The suspicions of the government were in this instance justified. The expedition of Count Saldanha appeared off Terceira on the 16th of January; and was discovered by Captain Walpole standing right in for Port Praya. Two shots were fired for the purpose of bringing them to; but without effect. The vessels then lay-to; and to a note from Captain Walpole, inquiring what was their object in coming thither, Saldanha answered, that his object in appearing there was to fulfil the orders of her majesty the Queen of Portugal, which directed him to conduct, unarmed, without any hostile appearance, to the isle of Terceira, the men that were on board the four vessels in sight, which island has never ceased to acknowledge Donna Maria II. as its legitimate sovereign. He added:—“As a faithful subject and soldier, I think it unnecessary to assure you that I am determined to fulfil my duty at all peril.” Captain Walpole replied, that he had instructions to obey, and an imperious duty to perform; that both of them prevented him from allowing the count, or any part of his force, to land either at Terceira, or on any part of the western islands of the Azores, or even to continue in that neighbourhood. To this communication Saldanha replied, that he considered himself and his men, in such circumstances, Captain Walpole’s prisoners; that they would follow his vessels where-ever he chose to take them; but must have a written order to that effect, and be supplied with water and provisions; if he had not this written order, he said, he would pursue his course, and endeavour at all risks to fulfil his instructions. Captain Walpole’s reply still was, “Go where you choose, but don’t stay here; if you persist in hovering about these islands, it is my duty and firm determination to carry those measures you are already in possession of into full effect.” After this angry correspondence the Portuguese finally sailed away; and the British commander having watched them until they arrived within five hundred miles of Sicily, returned to his station at Terceira. Count Saldanha and his squadron instead of returning to England, proceeded to Brest. This occurrence excited much notice in Europe, and it was brought under discussion in the British parliament. It was represented by the opposition as a direct act of hostility in favour of the usurper, against the acknowledged Queen of Portugal, then residing in England; and as an armed interference in favour of Miguel at the very moment when it was pretended that the duties of neutrality did not admit of interference. It was asked, if not bound by treaties to assist the queen in recovering her crown, whence arose our right to prevent her, by means of her own subjects, from making the attempt? Why, when recognizing her right, refusing to admit the title of Miguel, and pretending to maintain a strict neutrality, had we interfered by force against a lawful sovereign? And what could excuse the barbarous injustice of telling the lawful monarch that, in so far as we were concerned, she must work out her own restoration by her own strength; and then, when she puts forth her strength; telling her that we would not allow it to be employed? To all this it was replied that the armament attacked had been fitted out in a British port, an answer which decided the merits of the question; for whether the observance of neutrality between two competitors for the crown of Portugal was right or wrong, appeared in this case a matter of indifference; as it had been decided on, no other course could justly have been taken: and if Miguel’s armament had been fitted out in a British port, it would have met with a similar interruption. If ministers were to be attacked, indeed, the only vulnerable point was the maintenance of a strict neutrality towards a tyrant who had voluntarily sworn to our government that he would obey the laws and preserve the constitution of their country. In the meantime negociations had been going on between Don Pedro and the ministers of England and Austria to effect some arrangement of affairs; and a deputation had been sent by the Portuguese constitutionalists to point out how these affairs stood, and to urge the necessity of adopting active measures. Don Pedro, however, refused to accept propositions from foreign negociation which involved any sacrifice of his daughter’s claims, while he assured the Portuguese that he would maintain the rights of their queen without entering into any compromise with the usurper of her throne. But Pedro did not strengthen the hopes of his friends at this time by the resolution which he admitted of recalling his daughter from England to Brazil; and the British government itself remonstrated with him on the impolicy of that step. Donna Maria’s return to Rio de Janeiro seemed to convey the idea, indeed, that she had abandoned all pretensions to the crown of Portugal, and had left Don Miguel undisputed master of the field. But such was not in reality the case. Don Pedro had ulterior objects in view by the recall of his daughter; and the Brazilian minister made a public declaration, to the effect that Donna Maria’s departure from Europe neither involved an abdication of the crown on the part of her majesty, nor an indifference on the part of Don Pedro to his daughter’s rights.

The history of Spain furnishes but few events of importance during the present year. In the early part of it, Ferdinand lost his queen, and towards the close he contracted a third marriage with a princess of Naples. The marriage was celebrated at Madrid, to the great dissatisfaction of the adherents of Ferdinand’s brother, Don Carlos. During the year, conspiracies transpired in Catalonia. They were supposed to have been excited by the Count d’Espagne for the sake of private advantage, and they were followed by cruel executions. The rest of the country remained tranquil; but its finances were in so dreadful a state of exhaustion from a long continuance of misgovernment and exclusion, that Cadiz was declared a free port, in the hope of restoring foreign commerce to its ancient condition. At this time, however, the Spanish government, which had been driven from the English money-market by its faithless conduct respecting the Cortes’ bonds, ran the risk of losing its credit with all the European states, by a discovery of its fraud in a French loan.