it did not necessarily follow, that the person filling that conventional office should have the disposal of the church patronage, for, according to the law of England, that attached to the office of Secretary of State. There was but little chance that a Catholic would ever be first lord commissioner of the Treasury, and he might be prime minister without holding that office; and, in any case, he could not advise the Crown in the disposal of church patronage. The law did not recognize such an office as that of prime minister. In the eye of the law, the ministers were all upon an equality. There were three Secretaries of State, and any arrangement with respect to their business was merely an arbitrary and conventional agreement. He apprehended that the signature of the Secretary for the Foreign, or Colonial Department, would be just as valid, if placed to any of these documents, as that of the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Although, therefore, there was no distinct disqualification of the Roman Catholics, with reference to the office of prime minister,' yet it would be so inconvenient for any person, not possessing that patronage, to act as prime minister, that it appeared to him highly improbable, if not physically impossible, that any Roman Catholic would attempt it. The

security afforded by the bill was, that there must be a Protestant Secretary of State to sign documents relating to church patronage, for they must be countersigned by some minister, and the bill declared that they should not be countersigned by a Catholic minister. Parliament would always find the responsible minister prima facie in the Secretary or other minister who countersigned.

Mr. Bankes, Mr. Trant, Mr. Bright, and others answered, that all this furnished the best possible reason for acceding to the amendment. Mr. Peel's argument amounted to this, that the bill itself would, by its indirect operation, keep back a Catholic from climbing to the office of prime minister, and would work out a practical security and disqualification. If so, why not declare it directly. In whatever light the constitution might view the office of prime minister, it must be acknowledged on all hands that it was one which was perfectly well known, and every man knew the power and influence attached to it. The bill to be sure declared that any Catholic minister, who should advise regarding church patronage, should be punishable as for a misdemeanour, and that would be some security, if the offender could be reached. But this offence, if ever committed, must be committed either in conjunction with his Majesty only, or else with the knowledge of his privy council.

Now, how was it possible for any court of law in this country to become acquainted with what passed in the privy council? What competent witness could be brought forward in a court of law to give evidence of the misdemeanour? If the House of Commons, indeed, procured proper information on the subject, it was in their power to make a privy-councillor speak out. The law of impeachment was strong and powerful enough for that. But what a state of things would it produce, if privy-councillors were compelled to palter with the oath of secrecy which they had taken? The security thus offered, therefore, was entirely useless and nugatory. Nor was the difficulty got rid of

by saying, that documents connected with church patronage might be, and constitutionally ought to be, signed by a Secretary of State. The only consequence deducible from this was, that, if ministers were sincere in placing church patronage beyond the reach of Catholic advice, the three Secretaries of State ought to be added to the excepted offices.

The amendment was lost; as were other amendments for extending the exclusion to the offices of privy councillor, and governor in any of the colonies.

On the other hand Mr. Peel proposed an amendment, by which, in the event of its becoming necessary to exercise the patronage attached to an office which happened to be held by a Catholic, that patronage was vested in the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being, instead of a commission to be named by the king, as the bill had originally proposed.

To the clause which required that all Jesuits, or other persons belonging to religious orders, already within the kingdom, should register themselves, and that no others should be admitted into the kingdom, after the passing of the bill, an addition was made to the effect, that it should be lawful for one of the Secretaries of State, by license, to allow a foreign Jesuit or member of a religious order, to come into the United Kingdom, and to remain therein for a period not exceeding six calendar months, with power to revoke such license if he should see fit; and if such foreign Jesuit or other person did not depart within twenty days after the license had been revoked, or within twenty days after the expiration of the license, he should be guilty of a misdemeanour, and

be banished for life from the United Kingdom. A list of all such licenses granted within the preceding twelve months was to be laid before parliament each session. The addition was made to meet the case of eminent scholars, persons engaged in historical or other inquiries, or other individuals who might be specially called hither by their pursuits of business, or of learning.

The motion for engrossing the bill with its amendments was carried by a majority of 233 to 106; and on Monday, the 30th of March, the third reading was moved by Mr. Peel. The Marquis of Chandos, on the other hand, moved that the bill should be read a third time that day six months. A debate ensued, in the course of which all that had been already said, more than once, on both sides, was said over again. The third reading was carried by a majority of 178, there being 320 in favour of it, and 142 against it. Thus, in only three weeks from the time at which it had been introduced, was passed a bill which its own supporters acknowledged to be an infringement of the constitution, and which, whether for evil or for good, introduced into the frame and spirit of that constitution, an infinitely more important change, than Britain had witnessed since the Revolution.

In the mean time, the speech of sir Charles Wetherell had procured for him an intimation that his Majesty had no further occasion for his services. After the indignant plainness with which he had denounced their manoeuvring and apostacy, ministers could not allow him to retain his office of Attorneygeneral, without admitting that he was their master. But even his dismissal forced them into an

acknowledgment that they dreaded to intrust themselves to the judgment of the country. If they promoted the Solicitor-general to the vacant office, a new election for Cambridge would have been rendered necessary, and that was a danger which ministers dared not to incur, in the present state of the public mind. They therefore allowed the office of Attorney-general to remain vacant, until, their measure having been carried, and public agitation having subsided, they transferred to it a nisi prius lawyer who had once been a whig, in the person of sir James Scarlett; having provided for the Solicitor-general by placing him at the head of the Common Pleas. They knew that they were acting in defiance of public opinion; they confessed that a new election would send that opinion into parliament to confound their policy. Mr. Peel acknowledged that he reckoned on the alienation of public confidence, which is never alienated from a man whom the public think right; and it is not easy to imagine a bolder avowal from the lips of a statesman than that he and his friends are using the powers of office (for there lay their logic) to extort from the representatives of the people their consent to a measure against which he knows and admits that the hearts and opinions of the great majority of the people are set. In the same spirit the Protestant petitions, which, night after night, expressed the wishes of the Protestant portion of the empire, were treated, always with neglect, often with contempt. The House of Commons actually grudged the time consumed in presenting them; and sir Francis Burdett frankly declared on one occasion, that the friends of the

bill should apply themselves "to action," instead of wasting time in argument. All petitions against the bill were scouted as mere ebullitions of ignorance, bigotry, and love of oppression, and that too by the very men who had raised on the opinions which these petitions contained, the whole fabric of their political fortunes. The petitioners themselves were openly told that their opinions were worthless, that the subject under discussion was far removed beyond the reach of their understandings; that is, that they were utterly disqualified to judge of the value of their constitution, or of the mischief which might be done to a Protestant establishment by Catholic power. These, forsooth, were topics on which the House of Commons declared that no man in the empire could pretend to form an opinion, except about two-thirds of their own number. The truth was that, considering the character of the proceedings which, as ministers alleged, had produced a state necessity, the only fault of the petitioners was, that they petitioned constitutionally. It surely could not be more criminal to in defence of Protestant rights, than in support of Catholic demands. Since ministers admitted they must bow to six millions of noisy Catholics, headed by a Catholic Association, what would they have said to fifteen millions of Protestants under the guidance of a Protestant Association? While they allowed that they neither could, nor were entitled to, intermeddle with the former, until they had conceded all that it claimed, what degree of effrontery would have enabled them to blame the latter, while they refused every thing that it desired? The Catholics set the law at defiance, threatening tumult and rebellion,

agitate"

and they were met with respect, flattery, and concession. The Protestants confined themselves within the quiet and peaceful paths of the constitution, which they and their fathers had been taught to believe would protect them, and they were treated with ridicule and contempt. For the first time the government

of a British monarch announced to the British public, that, when they set their minds on some great public object, or wish to avoid some great public danger, they are not to be listened to, unless they assume the attitude of insurrection, and speak the plain and bold language of open menace.

H

ITHERTO the most steady and uniform resistance to the demands of the Catholics had been found in the House of Lords. Whenever the Commons passed a bill, or adopted a resolution, favourable to their views, a large majority of the peers had always refused to concur in any thing which went to alter the Protestant characteristics of the constitution. Even in 1828, when the lower House had passed resolutions intended to be the foundation of a relief bill, they had been rejected by the peers by a majority of fortyfive. Not twelve months had elapsed; and the Protestants, finding themselves deserted and be trayed among their own representatives, placed their last hope in the steadiness which had so often distinguished the House of Lords. It was not to be expected, however, that the dictatorial powers of the ministry, which had been strong enough to make the lower House disregard the public opinion, of which it ought to have been the organ, would lose their efficacy, when applied to a body less deVOL. LXXI.

pendent on popular sentiment. The aristocracy obeyed the word of command, as the Commons had done; the same means which had secured a triumph in the one House, prepared the way for it in the other.

On the 31st of March, the day following that on which the bill had passed the House of Commons, it was brought up to the Lords by Mr. Peel, and was immediately read a first time. The duke of Wellington then moved, that the second reading should take place two days thereafter, on the 2nd of April. Lord Bexley and the earl of Malmesbury opposed this motion, on the ground that such precipitate haste was unbecoming; urging that, on all former occasions, a much longer time had been allowed for consideration, and that such breathless hurry was the conduct of men who were merely to decide as another dictated, rather than of legislators called to deliberate on a grave matter of public policy. The duke answered, that the subject had been sufficiently discussed already, and that the public were anxious to obtain their lordships' decision. Lord [F]