Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

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 " agitate" 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,

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.

CHAP. IV.

The Catholic Relief Bill moved in the House of Lords-Debate on the Second Reading-Speech of the Duke of Wellington-Amendment, to throw out the Bill moved by the Archbishop of CanterburyDebate during three Days-Speech of the Bishop of Oxford in favour of the Bill-Opposed by the Archbishop of Armagh, and the Bishops of London and Durham Speeches of the Lord Chancellor, Earl of Westmoreland, Lord Tenterden, Earl Grey, Lord Eldon-Lord Plunkett-Second Reading carried by a Majority of 105-The Bill is read a Third Time and passed, and receives the Royal Assent-Unwillingness of the King to consent to the Measure.

-

HITHERTO resistant The aristocracy obeyed the word

TITHERTO the most steady pendent on popular sentiment.

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 betrayed 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.

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]

Holland justified him by referring to the haste with which the statutes about to be repealed had been originally passed; and the motion was carried without a division.

On the 2nd of April, the duke of Wellington introduced the motion for the second reading, 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. From the moment his majesty had intrusted him with the high office which he now held, the disturbed state of Ireland had forced itself upon his notice as a public evil, which those, to whom the powers of government had been confided, were bound to remove, if it were practicable. It was quite true that Ireland had been disturbed for many years; but circumstances of peculiar aggrayation had occurred within the last year or two. Government knew, although not possessed of legal evidence of the fact, that there existed a general organization of the people for purposes of mischief-shewing itself by simultaneous meetings in different quarters-attending the footsteps of gentlemen sent from the Catholic Association-and manifesting the influence of a superior source of authority. That organization had produced a state of society, which aggravated the previously existing evils of Ireland. In two instances towns had been attacked during the night by armed bodies of men. The Catholic Association had deliberated on the propriety of putting an end to all dealings with Protestants; and who doubted but that, if they had adopted that resolution, they would have been able to carry it through, and even to dissuade

the people from fulfilling contracts into which they might have entered with Protestants? In such a state of society the best parts of the constitution became inoperative. Trial by jury could no longer be used in the administration of the law. The king's prerogative, too, was touched. He could not create a peer, for such an act would have produced an election; while an election, in the state of the country, was almost sure to end in bloodshed; might occasion a civil war, and, at the best, could only be a new triumph to the Catholic Association. It was not fair to say, that all this arose in consequence of the laws not being executed. There was no tangible violation of the law; there was no resistance. No troops were employed except on the occasion of processions in the north of Ireland, because no instance occurred, in which the laws could not be enforced in the usual manner. In a case which extended over the whole country it was impossible to have magistrates at every spot, and ready at every hour, to put an end to proceedings so outrageous and disgraceful. It appeared clearly that neither the form of the power, nor the means possessed by government, were sufficient to extirpate such a state of things; that they must come to Parliament, and that, without concession, nothing could be effected. This state of things, bordering upon civil war, attended by all the evils of civil war (and which had continued for the last year and a half,) might have continued much longer to disgrace the country and the government; and those, who were at the head of, and directed those proceedings, would have taken good care not to offer. such resistance as would have given

to the government such force as might be necessary to put an end to them. Those persons knew too well that they could not offer effective resistance to the king's government; that they themselves would be the first victims of any collision; and, being able, and sagacious, and well informed men, they were perfectly aware of what mischief might have resulted to themselves; and, therefore, would have taken very good care to avoid it. Consequently, this state of things might have continued for several years, without his majesty's government having an opportunity offered them of effectually putting it down. But even if such an opportunity had been presented, he would have thought it his duty to correct it 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 of its 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 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, what possible benefit could arise to any one class in the state, from pertinaciously persisting in an opposition which had already produced consequences so bad, and threatened worse. The first thing said was, that concession must be resisted, to secure the settlement of the constitution, as fixed in 1688. But a great mistake prevailed on this head regarding the permanent exclusion of the Catholics. In the Bill of Rights many things were permanently enacted, and properly so; and these were, that liberty should be permanent, and that the security for the Protestantism of the person who sits on the throne should be permanentthat is, that the king should be a Protestant, and should not marry a Papist. Then there was an Oath of Allegiance, which was also permanent; but there was no permanency given to the Oath of Supremacy, nor to the Declaration against Transubstantiation, for the Oath of Supremacy was altered before the end of the reign. With respect to the oaths to be taken by members of parliament, and the declaration to be made against transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass, these were not imposed by acts of William 3rd, but by acts of Charles 2nd.

« ПредишнаНапред »