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 Ca tholic advice, the three Secretaries of State ought to be added to the excepted offices.

The amendment was lost; as were other amendments for extend ing 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he should see fit; and if such foreign Jesuit or other person did not depart within twenty days after the license had been revoked, or within twenty days after the expiration of the license, he should be guilty of a misdemeanour, and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 li censes 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 con tained, 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.

HITHERTO the stance the ITHERTO the most steady

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 represent atives, placed their last hope in the steadiness which had so often distinguished the House of Lords. It was not to be expected, how ever, 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 des VOL. LXXI.

The aristocracy obeyed the word pendent on popular sentiment.

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 aggravation 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