that the consent of the king to his admission should also be considered as a just cause for absolving the subject from his allegiance.

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 the bill. They were to be found in the unalterable attachment of the people, who, however much they might be divided on minor topics, would unite in resisting the errors of popery. The safety of the church did not depend on particular statutes, but on the combined force of habits and circumstances, which were not to be shaken. The House should look, too, at that great security which they would derive from the generous attachment of the people of Ireland, who, after ages of oppression, would now find themselves restored to their place in society. Moreover, the securities, which the bill actually contained, were not, in the opinion, at least, of the Protestants of Ireland, so nugatory as they were now represented. Mr. Peel said, that when he looked at the petitions which had been sent from all parts of the country, he could not help observing one very extraordinary coincidence. These petitions prayed for those securities, and the prayers of them were couched in terms so exactly similar, whether they came from the county of Wicklow, or from the county of Cork, or from the county of Armagh, or from the county of Wexford, 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 some common head and source. And what were the three securities prayed for? Why, the first was, "Put down the Catholic Association." The second was, "Correct the elective franchise of Ireland." And the third was, "Abolish for the future the order of the Jesuits in this country." Now the bill which he proposed happened to contain all these securities. And if the necessity of them were so great as the petitioners contended they were, 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 these securities to be necessary, that any one of them could have been obtained unless a proposal of adjustment had been made?

On a division, the motion was carried by a majority of 188; the votes being, 348 for the motion, and 160 against it. This preponderance was manifestly decisive of the ultimate fate of the question, at least in the House of Commons; and its extent betrayed an overwhelming weight of ministerial influence, which could scarcely fail to be less successfully employed in the House of Peers.

The country did not desert itself. Though deprived of its accustomed leaders, at the very moment when their vigilance and energy were most required, the public voice announced itself in an expression

of decided opposition; and if a judgment was to be formed from the number of petitions, which began, so soon as the intention of ministers was known, to crowd the tables of both Houses, the proposed measure was one to which the public mind of Britain was utterly averse. Ministers did not attempt to deny the fact, and hence their determination not to risk a new election. Hence, too, a determination to treat the petitioners with as little respect as possible, to regard the petitions as impertinent and troublesome encroachments on the time of an assembly, whose resolutions had been already taken. Before the first reading of the bill, there had been presented nine hundred and fifty-seven petitions against the intended alteration, and three hundred and fifty-seven in its favour. The former were uniformly spoken of with pity, as expressions of well-meaning but ignorant prejudice, or with indignation as the result of persecuting illiberality and knavish contrivance. It is quite true that such modes of expressing opinion always admit the expression of a great deal of opinion which is entitled to little weight: but then the very same facilities exist on both sides; no deduction is to be made from the one, which is not, on the same grounds, to be made from the other; and, after all proper subtractions, the fact remained, that the measure which was now to be forced upon the country was odious to the great majority of its Protestant population. But in parliament they were without leaders of weight and reputation; all the talkers were on the other side; their orators and influential men had wheeled round at the word of their captain, and joined the ranks of the

enemy. The changes, which rushed upon the public eye, were astounding. Those of men like Mr. Peel were matter of melancholy seriousness, because destructive of all public confidence, and drawing with them a practical revolution in the system of government. The hurried wheelings of the subaltern performers, were the ordinary phenomena of official nature, and only excited a smile at the awkwardness with which the evolution was sometimes performed.

But there were examples of change among men who ought to have stood aloof from the threats, as from the seductions, of power. Sir Thomas Lethbridge, one of the Members for Somersetshire, had attended a meeting of the county of Devon, held in the middle of January, to petition against farther concessions to the Catholics. He had there been the organ of most obstinate and enthusiastic resistance to their demands. On the 6th of February, after the royal speech, he had announced that his opinions were unchanged. In the beginning of March he now read his recantation, and announced all at once, that the plan of ministers was wise, patriotic, and excellent in all its parts. Announcements like these were received with shouts of laughter by the House, and with utter loathing by the country.

The House having gone into committee, and agreed to certain resolutions, a bill, in conformity, was directed to be prepared. It was brought in by Mr. Peel on the 10th of March, when it was read a first time. 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, notwithstanding the opposition of the anti-catholic members, who insisted that a week was too short a period to allow the country to form an opinion on the bill, after it should have been printed, and its details known. It was answered, that only the general principle of the bill was to be then decided: the details would remain for discussion in committee: that delay was sought only to rouse the prejudices, and inflame the passions of the people; and that, considering the state of excitation in which the public mind already was, it would be desirable to allay the agitation, by settling the question with all possible speed. Sir Francis Burdett, in fact, had already

said, in the debate on the motion for a committee, that "It was better to get on with the measure than to argue about it; that action, not talking, was to be looked to."-In truth, the inefficiency of the anticatholic population of Britain consisted in their very quietude. If, instead of confining their expression of opinion to petitions, they had followed the example of the Catholics of Ireland, and addressed to Ministers the same argument of "agitation" which had been so effective in the hands of the Association, their opinions would have come in that form, which, when adopted on the other side, ministers allowed to be legitimate and irresistible.

Peel moved that the bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics should be read a second time. The motion led to a debate which was continued, by adjournment, on the 18th. In so far as the speakers reiterated the grounds on which the necessity of emancipation had been maintained so long, it would be wearisome to repeat what has been so often recorded. It will only be necessary to notice those less hacknied topics, which sprung out of the nature and history of the particular measure itself, and the situation of the persons, who, for the first time, had been brought to see its expediency.

Sir Edward Knatchbull, one of the members for the county of Kent, in opposing the bill, maintained, that it was in vain for Mr. Peel, and others of the ministry who had changed sides along with him, to seek a justification in the state of Ireland; for it would be ridiculous to represent that state as being more alarming than it had often been during the years in which these men had set themselves against every degree of concession. There was not a single point in the condition or history of Ireland, which had not been urged

for concession, and which Mr. Peel and his friends had not as constantly rejected as a reason for adopting measures, which they still allowed were innovations on the constitution. When they stood

upon the condition of Ireland as the sole reason for a change, not of opinions, but of conduct, they were bound to shew, what there was in that condition more pernicious and alarming than what had been before; but that was not the fact. The present lord Plunkett, when, as attorney general, he prosecuted some ribbandmen in 1822, had stated, that "the individuals he was then prosecuting belonged to a society consisting entirely of Roman Catholics, whose object was, to overthrow the government of the country." Assuredly Ireland presented no worse symptom now. Not one of the converted ministers could draw any picture of Ireland, which was not a copy of some old, and still more horrid portraiture, at which they themselves had been accustomed, till three months ago, to look without apprehension. Mr. Peel had seen before him for years every cause of change, which he could find now; if he

yielded now, he ought never to have resisted; and how was he to excuse himself for having quitted the ministry of Mr. Canning in 1827, because Mr. Canning was inclined to do that which Mr, Peel had now determined to do, and which, if it was to be done at all, would have been far better done, when Mr. Peel insisted that it ought never to be done at all? Concession would have come with a far better grace from Mr. Canning, the long tried friend of the Catholics, than when extorted from men who had invariably been their opponents. Since the home secretary saw so clearly now, it would have been well for himself and the country if he had seen as clearly in 1827, when his gifted friend was still living, and minister. Mr. Canning had said then, as so many had often said before, every thing that Mr. Peel could say now; but Mr. Peel, just because all that could be said was insufficient to justify a breach of the constitution like that now meditated, had broken off his political connection with Mr. Canning, had resigned his office, supported by a body of friends and political adherents, more numerous and respectable than had ever followed a retiring minister, and supported by them merely because they saw in that retirement a new pledge of his honest adherence to the cause which he had now abandoned. Yet this was the very man, who, in the moment of his desertion, turns round and accuses his friends of having failed to support him! "Of all changes," said sir Edward, "want of support by his friends, is the very last I should have expected to hear from him. He has even alluded, with no friendly feel

ing to the meeting of the county, which I have the honour to represent, (Kent) to petition parliament to maintain the Protestant constitution. I can only say, that, in holding that meeting, we thought we were giving him him our best and utmost support." Equally frivol

ous

was it for the right hon. secretary to talk of the small majorities, which of late years had sometimes carried the question in favour of the Catholics, as a justification of his throwing himself into their arms. Even the present majority was insufficient for that purpose. All the world knew, how it had been manufactured. Ministers first secured a majority by changing, and then pretended to change because there was a majority. If the home secretary and his colleagues had joined their voices and influence to the one hundred and sixty members, who, but the other night, had voted against the committee, the vote of that night would have been very different. Still less fair and comprehensible was the argument pretended to be drawn from the evils of a divided cabinet. Was the present cabinet more divided on this question than any other of which Mr. Peel had been a member? It was much less so. If the noble duke at the head of it had pursued a different course, was there a doubt that there would be no disunion on the subject. The case was different, when Mr. Huskisson, Mr. C. Grant, and lord Palmerston, all of them friendly to emancipation, formed part of the ministry; but when they retired from office, and the duke of Wellington supplied their places with men selected by himself, the argument of a divided cabinet was at an end. It was not considerations