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from so doing by seeing the chief governor stand forth as the protector of those whom the constitution had placed beneath them.

Indeed lord Wellesley stood in an entirely false position: friendly himself to the Catholic claims, he was to administer Ireland according to anti-Catholic laws, and under an anti-Catholic cabinet. There was, therefore, a constant opposition between his own feelings and principles, and the spirit of the system on which it was his duty to act. The government of

Ireland ought always to be in harmony with the course of legislation pursued towards it; and it is absurd to place the reins of power in the hands of the keen partisans of the Catholics, while the Catholics themselves are excluded from political privileges. Anti-Catholic laws require anti-Catholic, though moderate, functionaries. A contrary course, by raising fruitless hopes in the one party, and anxious, though unnecessary, fears in the other, must keep the country in a state of incessant fermentation.

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CHAP. IV.

Mr. Canning's Bill for the admission of Catholic Peers to the rights of Sitting and Voting in the House of Lords-Mr. Canning's course of argument in support of it-The grounds of Mr. Peel's oppositionMr. Plunkett supports the Bill-Discussion of the Measure in its subsequent stages in the House of Commons-Its progress in the Lords-Opposed by Lord Colchester-The Lord Chancellor exposes the fallacy of the grounds on which the merits of the Measure had been placed by Mr. Canning, and its advocates-Course of Lord Grey's Argument-Lord Liverpool's Speech-The Bill is rejected— Remarks on the confined Position in which the Patrons of the Measure placed themselves, and the unsatisfactory course of argument into which they were thereby driven-Remarks on the Measure itself -Lord John Russell's Motion on Parliamentary Reform-Topics employed by him- Mr. Canning's Speech-Mr. Brougham's Motion on the Influence of the Crown-Rejection of the Bill for Dividing the County of York with respect to the Election of County MembersLord A. Hamilton's Plan of Scotch Burgh Reform-The Lord Advocate's Bill for the Regulation of the Expenditure of Scotch Burghs.

THE

HE general question of Roman Catholic emancipation was not brought forward this year: but a partial attempt was made to open the way for complete concession. Mr. Canning, having been selected

as

successor to the marquis of Hastings in the government of our East Indian possessio..s, was ambitious of distinguishing himself before he finally quitted that House, -whose favour had been to him fame and fortune-by being the author of some measure, which should in times to come stand forIward as a permanent part of our Constitution, and which should consecrate his name in the eves of a portion of his fellow subjects. He therefore came forward as the patron of the Roman Catholics; but as there was no reason to ex

more

pect, that a proposal for their general admission to political power would be received more favourably than in the preceding year, he limited his proposal to the restoration of the Catholic peers to the rights of sitting and voting in the House of Lords. Many might support this qualified measure, who would shrink from a comprehensive scheme of indulgence; the most formidable objections would be eluded; and the measure would have the air, not so much of favour to a sect, as of a public attestation to the unquestioned virtues and patriotism of a few distinguished individuals. If his proposition was adopted, the gain to the Roman Catholics was incalculable: it would be to them a sure pledge, a certain

means of speedy triumph. They could not long be excluded from the city, when once they were allowed to form part of the garrison

of the citadel.

It was on the 30th of April, that Mr. Canning moved for leave to bring in a bill to relieve Roman Catholic peers from the disabilities imposed on them by the act of the 30th of Charles II. with regard to the rights of sitting and voting in the House of Peers. After adverting very slightly, but with much rhetorical art to some objections which he anticipated, Mr. Canning

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entered into an historical review of the legislation of the reign of Charles II. towards the Catholics, and into an examination of the circumstances under which the act of the 30th of that king, had been - passed. The result of his examination was, that the true intent of the act in question, was, to exclude the duke of York, and that, though the provisions of it were general, its real aim was particular; whence he inferred, that it ought now to be repealed, as there was no longer any danger of a Popish successor to the throne. It was passed with great precipitation by the Commons, and urged with almost indecent haste through the Upper House, amid the various terrors, prejudices, and absurdities of the Popish plot. The Lords goaded from day to day by the Commons, assailed as they were by all the horrors of the Popish plot and with Titus Oates thundering at their doors, passed the bill, but with an exemption in favour of the duke of York. It was however, sufficiently comprehensive to exclude the whole of the Catholic Peers from their seats in parliament; not upon any ground of permanent disability, but because

they were then supposed to be involved in a particular plot for a specific purpose. This exclusion could not have been intended for

any

other purpose, than to calm the alarms and agitation which then prevailed. If then the present motion were rejected, what must be the condition of the Catholic Peers? That the measure, which our ancestors devised as a precautionary security, must be declared, in the face of the world, to be permanently fixed upon the peers and their successors for ever, without the shadow of present justification, or the smallest imputation of crime.

In further support of his proposition, that the exclusion of the Catholic was originally intended to be only a temporary measure, he quoted a standing order of the House, made in 1675, "that no oath should be imposed by bill or otherwise upon the peers, with a penalty, in case of refusal, to lose their places or votes in parliament or liberty of debates therein." From the existence of this order unrepealed down to the present time, one of two things, Mr. Canning contended, must be inferredeither that the lords were at the moment in the possession and exercise of their calm deliberative functions, and, intending the expulsion of the peers to be but temporary, did not revoke the standing order; or that, in the hurry and rage of their proceeding, they forebore to pause and look back at the order, they had just before adopted. The more probable inference was, that acting under the influence of the menaces of the Commons, and under the hazard, if they refused their assent to the measures then demanded, of being involved in the charge of conspiracy to murder the king, and subvert the constitution,

their sober and deliberate judgment was overpowered by the sense of the temporary danger, but that they yet looked forward to a time, when, after the passing of the storm, they might recur to the principles of their standing order. That order was therefore suffered to remain unnoticed (for to bring it into notice would have been, in the heat of the time, to ensure its repeal and yet surely it was too recent to be forgotten), a dormant but solemn recognition of those privileges of the peerage which were suspended, not annihilated, by the act of parliament. There was no other rational way of reconciling so apparent a contradiction. When a bill is passed for suspending the operation of the Habeas Corpus act, the Habeas Corpus act remains upon the Statute book unrepealed; to break out again with unchanged lustre, when the veil of the suspension is removed.

In

like manner this standing order was probably considered as retain ing its force, while it retained its situation; though overlaid for a time by the oppression of the occasional statute. This construction, he added, derived considerable force from the act itself; which was indeed a sad specimen of legislative skill. The preamble declared, that divers good laws had been made to prevent the increase and dangers of popery; which had not had the desired effect by reason of the free access of popish recusants to his majesty's person and court, and by reason of their privilege of late merely to sit in parliament. Now the latter part of this preamble was nonsense; for it was not of late that the Catholic lords had the privilege of sitting in parliament; up to that period they sat in the House of Lords as a matter of

right, and were not excluded by the restrictions of the 5th of Elizabeth, which affected the House of Commons. In the latter House, some Catholics had contrived by evasions of one kind or another to retain their seats, and there had been two or three expulsions of popish recusants. The declaration in the preamble could therefore apply only to the Commons; and yet the exclusion, which the bill effected, comprehended both, and in its consequences excluded the Lords, not only from their seats in their own House of Parliament, but also from presenting themselves at court. From the latter disability the Catholic peer had been freed by the 31st of Geo. III., on condition of denying the temporal and civil power of the Pope within the realm. After he had made this disclaimer, he had a right to enter the court and closet of the monarch, and there tender his advice

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he might, if he were an assassin, plunge a poniard into his sovereign's breast at such an interview, so easily and simply acquired he might influence the royal mind without danger or risk, or personal responsibility; but if he turned his horses heads towards the parliament House to justify, in his place as a peer, the advice he had given in the royal closet, he was met by a justice of the peace, and told that into the parliament he could not enter until he took the spiritual oaths, and that the taking of these was a necessary preliminary to the privilege of defending the counsel he had given. "But the strange anomalies," continued Mr. Canning, "in the situation of Catholic peers are not yet exhausted. Fertile as was the reign of George III. in acts of re

hef, ameliorating the condition of his Roman Catholic subjects;-it remained for his present majesty, at the opening of his auspicious reign, to add a further anomaly to the condition of his Catholic peers, by a distinction the most gracious and benevolent in design, but bringing some mixture of bitterness with enjoyment; a distinction exalting, indeed, the dignity of the Catholic peer, but at the same time sharpening the sting of his recollections. I allude to the coronation. Last year, for the first time for upwards of one hundred and thirty years, were Catholic peers summoned to attend a coronation :-an august and awful ceremony; not to be viewed as an unmeaning pomp a mere gorgeous pageant; but as a public ratification, by the sovereign of a free people, of the compact which binds together all the orders of the realm. This solemn political rite was celebrated with all the magnificence becoming a monarch, surrounded by his nobles, his prelates, and his counsellors, and by crowds of his loving subjects-receiving their united homage, and pledging himself to their protection and good government in return. It was celebrated in the presence of the representatives of Catholic as well as Protestant Europe. Imagine the ministers of foreign potentates collecting for their respective courts the details of this splendid and affecting consecration. Who is it that overtops the barons as they march? the Catholic lord Clifford. Who is it that does homage to the throne on behalf of the highest order of the peerage?-the Catholic duke of Norfolk. Whom has the king selected to return thanks to this assemblage of all that is most splendid and most worthy in

the realm, in acknowledgment of their libation to his majesty's health?-again the Catholic duke of Norfolk. Did it occur to the representatives of Europe, when contemplating this animating spectacle did it occur to the ambas sadors of Catholic Austria, of Catholic France, or of states more bigotted in matters of religion, that the moment this ceremony was over, the duke of Norfolk would become disseised of the exercise of his privileges among his fellow peers? That his robes of ceremony, were to be laid aside and hung up, until the distant (be it very distant!) day, when the coronation of a successor to his present most gracious sovereign might again call him forth to assist at a similar solemnization ?-that, after being thus exhibited to the eyes of the peers and people of England, and to the representatives of the princes and nations of the world, the duke of Norfolk, highest in rank among the peers, the lord Clifford, and others, like him, representing a long line of illustrious ancestry-as if called forth and furnished for the occasion, like the lustres and banners that flamed and glittered in the scene, were to be, like them, thrown by as useless and trumpery formalities?-That they might bend the knee and kiss the handthat they might bear the train or rear the canopy-might discharge the offices assigned by Roman pride to their barbarian ancestors

Purpurea tollant aulæa Britanni, but that with the pageantry of the hour, their importance faded away; that as their distinction vanished, their humiliation returned; and that he, who headed the procession of peers to day, could not sit

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