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.

O

N the 17th of March, Mr. 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

over and over again as a reason 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

like these that had produced change; it was the determination to change that had rendered arguments like these convenient. The best answer, therefore, to the new supporters of the present measure was to be found in their former convictions. The resistance of the people of this country was not to the personal character of the Catholics, but to the principles and influence of their religion. They were convinced, that Popery and Protestantism could not exist together upon an equal footing. "Of these two religions, one or other must have the ascendancy," were grave and true words; and whose were they? These had been, not long ago, the words of Mr. Peel himself, when combating, on that very ground, the measures which he was now defending, and defending without even attempting to assert that the elements of a struggle for ascendancy had been weakened or annihilated. The measure was bad in itself,-better for the Catholics than they had ever dared to hope, and worse for the Protestants than they had ever dreaded; giving up the constitution to the one, and amusing the other with paltry things, called securities, which were utterly impotent for any useful purpose; and it was doubly bad as being enforced by unaccountable changes of conduct, which destroyed all belief in public principle. The character of public men was of the highest importance to the state; but from the course which many had lately pursued, public men would henceforward be viewed with a jealous and suspicious eye by the nation at large. In vain would the home secretary attempt to explain conduct, inconsistent with his whole former political life. The confidence, which

had been hitherto accorded to public men, had received a blow from which it never would recover: nusquam tuta fides.

The chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goulburn) admitted he was one of those who had adopted new opinions on this subject; but he had done so, because it was impossible that any other thing could wisely be done. That impossibility arose from the state of Ireland. It was true, that crimes and outrage did not prevail now so generally as they had done at some former periods; but the whole country was the prey of an increased exasperation of party feelings and prejudices. The whole frame of society had been disturbed by the political differences of contending parties; each man was arrayed in hostility against the other, and it required the interposition of a military force to preserve the peace, and tranquillity of that country. But, even admitting that there was nothing new in the state of Ireland, was there no danger in an evil which was continually increasing? no increase of the danger in the continued progress of the disease during a series of years, no additional danger in the prospects which presented themselves from the progression of that disorder, until it had reached every individual in the country, and had well nigh broken up the very foundations upon which society rested? The question, it was said, was a religious question; one or other of the two religions-the Catholic or the Protestant-must be the ascendant. On that point he entirely concurred with Mr. Peel; and that was his justification for the course which he had adopted in reference to this question. He would unhesitat

ingly assert, that the measure, which had been recommended from the throne to parliament, had mainly for its object to make the Protestant religion the ascendant. The church of Ireland occupied a peculiar situation. It was the religion of the minority of the people, while the great majority professed a different faith. Up to rather a recent period, harmony and good will prevailed amongst the professors of those different creeds. But there had lately arisen in that country a combination which extended itself throughout every class of the Catholic community, with an organization unexampled in other countries, or amongst other political societies, and whose principal hostility was directed against the Established Church. The support of that church mainly depended on the purity of its doctrines, as evinced in the character and conduct of its professors, and on the good will and affections of those from whose religious opinions it dissented; and it depended further upon the uniform and steady support of parliament, and of the Protestant government of the country. By whatever means it had been brought about, an important alteration had taken place in the feelings and opinions of the Catholic population in Ireland, in reference to the established church; and it was now certain, that their prejudices and their hostility had been actively excited against that establishment. It was only necessary, in proof of this, to draw the attention of the House to the productions which emanated from the daily press on the subject of the church and its revenues, -to the laborious efforts which were made to excite

were

a hostile disposition against that church amongst the Catholic population,-and to the effects which a continual agitation, carried on upon such a system, produced upon the minds of the Catholic people of Ireland. His attention had been directed to this subject for some time back, and allusions made to the altered state of feeling amongst the Catholic population, in various letters which had reached him from different parts of Ireland, all complaining that the Protestant clergy were not now viewed with the same respect by the people as heretofore, that the people had regularly combined against the payment of the church dues,-and that there existed no hope whatever of engaging their affections in future. Was not that a situation in which it was at least unfortunate for the country to be placed? It was to remedy such an unhappy state of things that his majesty's government had adopted the course which they were now pursuing. They conceived that the present measure was calculated to smooth away the asperities of party violence-to diminish the irritation, and in a great degree to remove the prejudices of the people; that they would be thus brought again to treat the ministers of the Protestant church with the respect and attention to which their character and virtues so eminently entitled them; and that it was only under such circumstances that the church could be employed as an important engine in the moral improvement of that people.

Mr. G. Bankes, on the other hand, ridiculed the chancellor of the Exchequer's scheme for giving permanent security to the church of Ireland by bestowing political