Else why say, when you grant almost all that they desire, that still you are not willing to trust them without some restriction, which shows you do not consider them worthy to be trusted?

Moreover, why was this change of the constitution to be forced upon the people of Britain in defiance of public opinion? Was there only one party to be regarded in the transaction? Was every thing else to be swallowed up in the interrogatories-what do the Catholics want? what do the Catholics threaten? And was it to be forgotten that there were such beings in existence as the Protestant population of England and Scotland? No observant man could doubt that public opinion, manifested by the petitions which were pouring into the House day after day, was opposed to concession. When Mr. Peel admitted that, in the event of a new election, this country would return a majority determined to resist, he admitted that he was forcing through parliament a measure of which this country disapproved; and was it right, or prudent, that, on the most important change, which had taken place since the Revolution, the voice of the country should be, not merely not consulted, but contemned and set at defiance? The country, forsooth, should have borne this in mind at the election of 1826; and should have tied down their representatives to vote against concession; and so they would have done, if they had been told, that the men, whom they trusted, were so soon to desert, and to betray them. The Catholic Question was not made a leading feature in the election of 1826 because the people saw a minister in power, under whom, supported

as he was by the very proposers of the present measure, they had no apprehension that any system of concession, and least of all, of boundless, and unqualified concession, could ever succeed. How, moreover, could so flimsy a pretext for disregarding the wishes of the country, be listened to in the mouth of Mr. Peel? According to his own statement, he had found, in 1825, that the nearly balanced state of the House rendered it difficult for government to proceed. It would only have been fair, therefore, in the home secretary, knowing with what unbounded confidence the people reposed on him, to have told them, that, unless they gave him a House of Commons decidedly adverse to concession, he would immediately abandon them for the enemy. It was confidence in the known opinions and the supposed firmness of the leading ministers, which had prevented the anti-catholic party from courting excitation at the elections by putting forth a strength which seemed to be unnecessary; and it was strange logic, as well as strange morality, that the men, who had thus been trusted, should make the very confidence reposed in them a pretext for betraying it. But again, if Mr. Peel, and other new made converts, seriously thought that they could no longer be called on to resist, because they had not a majority in the House of Commons, what did they mean by refusing to accept a majority? Let parliament be but dissolved, and there would be an end of that pretext. If the opinion expressed in petitions was to be contemned, and the voice of the country, as Mr. Peel had avowed, was to be listened to only as it came from its representatives, give the people at

least an opportunity of so express ing it. It was mere absurdity to talk of the constitution of the present House as a deliberate manifestation of the public voice, and the public wishes; ministers themselves admitted that it was not, for they could not deny that a new election would return a majority fatal to the Catholic claims. But what did they mean by deserting the field, because the people had left them unarmed, and yet refusing in the very same breath, to adopt the constitutional means which would enable the people to send them forth to certain victory? Let them say at once that they were determined to surrender the constitution, be the opinion of the country what it might; but, let them not seek, in the state of parliamentary opinion regarding this measure, a false and flimsy excuse for capitulating, while they declined to use the only expedient, by which a parliamentary opinion, representing that of the country, could be ascertained.

Different members, accordingly, urged the propriety of dissolving parliament, as a measure which would be right at any time, when such a revolution was in view as a deliberate breaking up of the constitution, and which was peculiarly necessary in the present instance, where the country had been de ceived into a security, of which those, who had practised the deception, were now seeking to take advantage. The marquis of Blandford maintained, that, if the House sanctioned the present audacious invasion of the constitution, it would break the trust reposed in it as the representatives of the people of England, who, he contended, were taken by surprise by

the unexpected announcement with which ministers opened the session. Was it right 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. Ministers should first have taken the deliberate opinions of the public, before they proceeded with their intended invasion of the constitu tion.

Mr. Estcourt, one of the members for the University of Oxford, denied that the present parliament was qualified to settle the Catholic question. It had been elected in 1826, when the affairs of the country were under the guidance of that vigilant protector of the Protestant cause-the late lord Liverpool. There was not then the same anxiety about the Catholic question, for the country had confidence in his lordship, and in the right hon. home secretary himself. It was therefore incumbent on ministers to have taken the sense of the country, by calling a new House of Commons, before they ventured to introduce so extraordinary a measure as that of admitting the Catholics to parliament and to the offices of the state. Were the purposes, for which the constitution of 1688, the date of the civil and religious liberties of England, was framed, compatible with the measure which the House was then called upon to sanction? Was not that constitution framed for a specific purpose, namely, the driving out of a Popish king, and the abolishing of Popish counsels ? If so, and that it was so the preamble of the Bill of Rights and

the whole tenour of the Act of Settlement proved-why was not the conduct, pursued in 1688, when the constitution was founded, imitated, when it was designed to alter that constitution? In 1688 the sense of the country was taken by calling the convention parliament, before the constitution was established. At present, it was not too much to ask, why the sense of the country should not also be taken, when that constitution was about to be invaded. He felt the more anxious that the feelings of the people towards the Catholic question should be faithfully represented, because he had heard of no security for the preservation of the established church and the upholding of Protestant ascendancy.

Among the opponents of the bill was viscount Corry, who had seconded the address, agreeing to his majesty's recommendation to take the subject into consideration. He had seconded that address, he said, because he conceived that the adjustment of the question could be much better effected under the immediate influence of government than upon the motion of any individual; but at the same time he had reserved to himself the right of exercising an unbiassed opinion with respect to the measure when it should be brought forward, and had distinctly stated that he should be opposed to any measure of relief, which was not accompanied with sufficient safeguards. However sanguine might have been the hopes he had entertained that he should be able to agree with ministers with respect to the important measure in contemplation, he must confess that the plan, which had now been detailed, had completely dissipated

them. He had in vain looked for securities. In fact, with the exception of the 40s. franchise being raised to 107., there was no attempt at securities, and even that was only a half measure. With this single exception, and the exclusion of Catholics from the offices of lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and lord-chancellors of England and Ireland, the bill was one of unqualified, unconditional emancipation. To a measure of this sort he could never assent; and although it might be more strictly conformable to the forms of the House to state his objection to the measure in the committee, he felt that he was pursuing a more straight-forward course by opposing in limine a measure to which he had the strongest objection, than by waiting till the Speaker should leave the chair, with the hope of obtaining securities which he saw it was in vain to expect.

The motion, on the other hand, was supported by sir G. Murray, the colonial secretary, Mr. C. Grant, Mr. North, and Mr. Huskisson; the opposition members who spoke contenting themselves, as has been already noticed, with general approbation and congratulation. They repeated and enforced the positions, that the pacification of Ireland was necessary to the safety of the empire, and that without emancipation that pacification could not be effected. It had been often averred, they said, that emancipation, however interesting to a few of the higher classes, was utterly uninteresting to the great bulk of the population of Ireland; but the recent events in Ireland completely refuted such statements; for all classes had identified themselves with that very question.

The result had been, that Ireland had 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. The only question, then, which the government had to determine was, whether it should attempt to forward or to throw back the improvement of the condition of the people of Ireland. By retracing our steps nothing could be done. A certain state of things, indeed, not deserving the name of society, might be maintained by means of the sword, but such a frame of society could have no analogy whatever to the British constitution. The only intimidation which ministers could be accused of yielding to, was the fear of continuing such a state of things, and aggravating all its evils by gradual accumulation, instead of restoring mutual good will, and the peaceful empire of the law. There was no other intimidation in existence. The power of the Catholics was as nothing. No intimidation had been felt in Ireland; an unarmed multitude afforded none, since, when measured against the power of the state, its force 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 being despised; for no army could be effectual in putting down a system of private outrage and revenge. 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 VOL. LXXI.

must submit. But were we to destroy one part of the people by rousing and inciting the other? It was 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.

A

To those who urged a dissolution of parliament, that the country. might have an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon the measure, it was answered, that parliament, as it existed, was as capable of discussing this question now, as any parliament had been at any time during the last five and twenty years; that this, like every other question, either of a foreign or domestic nature, was fit for the consideration of the House of Commons at all times, when brought forward by any member of that House; and that it was particularly fit for their consideration, when it came recommended from the throne as necessary for the safety and the peace of the United Kingdom. dissolution of parliament, said Mr. Peel, meant, that the Catholic Association and the elective franchise should be left as they were. If parliament were to be dissolved, the Catholic Association must be left as it was; for the law-officers of the Crown had declared, that the common law was inadequate to suppress it; and being so left, it would overturn the representation of Ireland. Whatever majority they might have from Great Britain, that majority would not justify them in bursting asunder the ties between landlord and tenant in Ireland, and in strengthening the influence of the priesthood in that country. If eighty or ninety persons were returned in the interest of the Catholic Association, and, form[D]

ing themselves into a compact and united band, were determined night ly to harass and oppose, how could the government transact the affairsof Ireland? He knew that they could carry the measures they proposed; but he knew also that no government could carry on the local administration of Ireland, if they were to be met by such a decided opposition at every turn. It had been said, increase the army or the constabulary force in Ireland. They could not apply a greater force in Ireland. He would state one simple fact. Above five-sixths of the infantry had been employed in conducting the government of Ireland, not in repressing violence, but chiefly in interposing between two hostile parties. There must, under such circumstances, be a reaction which 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. Neither was there any thing peculiar in the nature of the proposed measure to require a special appeal to the people. It was incorrect to represent it as a violation of the constitution. That constitution 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 either a fundamental or an indispensable principle of the British constitution. It was true that the Bill of Rights

recorded the grievances committed against the liberties of the people by the preceding monarch, and the remedies provided to prevent a recurrence of them; and that it excluded from the throne any person who should refuse to take the declaration which it contained, and who should profess the popish religion. Such were the two distinctions drawn in the Bill of Rights; but the indispensable articles of it related to the liberties so guaranteed to the people, and to the protection of the throne from the intrusion of popery. All else was mere machinery. The Bill of Rights provided that the king should make, subscribe, and audibly repeat, the declaration mentioned in the statute made in the 30th year of the reign of Charles II.; and the allusion to that act showed, that it came within the contemplation of those who were the authors and promoters of the Revolution. If, then, they had been of opinion, that the exclusion of Roman Catholics from seats in parliament was as indispensable as the Protestant character of the person who filled the throne, how did it happen that there was no provision for the one, when there was an express provision for the other? They found no difficulty in saying, that, if the king should hold communion with the church of Rome, or profess the popish religion, or marry a papist, he should be excluded from the throne; and that, in such cases, the people were absolved from their allegiance: and it would have been just as easy, and, if they had entertained such an intention, it would have been almost impossible for them to have omitted saying, that every Roman Catholic should be prohibited from taking his seat in either House of parliament, and: