A.D. 1829.] THE EMANCIPATION BILL RECEIVES THE ROYAL ASSENT. can I do? I have nothing to fall back upon;' and musing for some time, and then repeating the same expression." 141 and arrogance shown towards the king by the prime minister. For these stories his biographer assures us there was not a shadow of foundation. The duke saw the king more than once while the expediency of adopting a particular line of policy was still under consideration. They discussed the matter in all its bearings; and the king never concealed the reluctance with which he consented to follow the advice of his ministers. "But after the measure was arranged, the duke never saw the king, except on the morning of the 4th of March, till the bill had passed through both houses. All the stories told, therefore, of tears on the one side, and threats and rudeness on the other, were the mere inventions of malice or disappointed ambition.”* The number of catholics in Britain at the time of passing the relief bill was estimated by themselves at nearly 1,000,000, scattered, in various proportions, through England, Scotland, and Wales. Of these, 200,000 were resident in London. The most catholic counties in England are Lancashire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Cheshire, Northumberland, Durham, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Kent. In Ireland, the Roman catholics were estimated at five millions and a half; and the protestants, of all denominations, at one million and three-quarters. By the removal of the disabilities, eight English catholic peers were enabled to take their seats by England were then sixteen in number. In Ireland there were eight Roman catholic peers; in Scotland, two. The system of religious exclusion had lasted 271 years, from the passing of the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity in 1559. The oath of supremacy, however, was not at first tendered to the members of the upper house; and several peers continued Roman catholics till the reign of Charles II. In reference to a subsequent interview, lord Eldon remarks: "I was not sent for afterwards, but went on Thursday, the 9th April, with more addresses. In the second interview, which began a little before two o'clock, the king repeatedly-and with some minutes intervening between his repeated declarations, musing in silence in the interim-expressed his anguish, pain, and misery that the measure had ever been thought of, and as often declared that he had been most harshly and cruelly treated-that he had been treated as a man whose consent had been asked with a pistol pointed to his breast, or as obliged, if he did not give it, to leap down from a five pair of stairs window. What could he do? What had he to fall back upon?" After relating much more in the same strain, lord Eldon adds: "Little more passed, except occasional bursts of expression, 'What can I do? What can I now fall back upon? What can I fall back upon? I am miserable, wretched. My situation is dreadful; nobody about me to advise with. If I do give my consent I will go to the Baths after all, and from thence to Hanover. I'll return no more to England. I'll make no Roman catholic peers; I will not do what this bill will enable me to do. I'll return no more. Let them get a catholic king in Clarence! (I think he also mentioned Sussex.) The people will see that I did not wish this.' There were the strongest appear-right in the house of lords. The catholic baronets in ances, certainly, of misery. He more than once stopped my leaving him. When the time came that I was to go, he threw his arms round my neck, and expressed great misery. I left him at about twenty minutes or a quarter before five. I certainly thought when I left him that he would express great difficulty, when the bill was prepared for the royal assent, about giving it." The writer adds, sarcastically:"I fear that it seemed to be given as a matter of course." Next day, lord Eldon wrote to his daughter: "The fatal bill received the royal assent yesterday afternoon. After all I had heard in my visits, not a day's delay. God bless us and his church." At Windsor, on the 13th of April, the king pronounced over the bill he so hated the words-' Le roi le veut.' In his subsequent conduct he studiously evinced his displeasure towards the emancipationists, and his satisfaction with those who had opposed his government. To this manifestation of feeling lord Eldon refers in a letter to his daughter:"The universal tattle here is about the manner in which the king, at the levée, received the voters for the catholics -most uncivilly, markedly so towards the lords spiritual, the bishops, who so voted-and the civility with which he received the anti-catholic voters, particularly the bishops. It seems to be very general talk now that his ministers went much beyond what they should have said in parlia-tended as a blind to the protestant and high church party; ment as to his consent to the measure. Consent, however, he certainly did, but with a language of reluctance, pain, and misery which, if it had been represented, would have prevented much of that ratting which carried the measure." The general talk to which lord Eldon refers very naturally arose out of the king's complaints. There were stories circulated at the time, on what appeared to be good authority, of repeated conferences, and extreme harshness During the excitement that followed the passing of the Emancipation Act, incessant attacks were made upon the character of the duke of Wellington. Perhaps the most violent of these was published in the Standard by the earl of Winchelsea, one of the most ardent of the anticatholic peers, who charged the premier with disgraceful conduct. The offence was contained in a letter addressed by lord Winchilsea to Mr. Coleridge, secretary to the committee for establishing the King's College, London. He said he felt rather doubtful as to the sincerity of the motives which had actuated some of the prime movers in that under taking, "when he considered that the noble duke at the head of his majesty's government had been induced on this occasion to assume a new character, and to step forward himself as the public advocate of religion and morality." He then proceeded:-"Late political events have convinced me that the whole transaction was in that the noble duke, who had, for some time previous to that period, determined upon breaking in upon the constitution of 1688, might the more effectually, under the cloak of some outward show of zeal for the protestant religion, carry on his insidious designs for the infringement of our liberties, and the introduction of popery into "Life of Wellington," p. 460. every department of the state." The duke having obtained from lord Winchilsea an avowal of the authorship, demanded a retractation or apology, which was refused. The matter was then referred to friends, and a hostile meeting was agreed upon. "It is," says Mr. Gleig, "a curious feature in this somewhat unfortunate occurrence, that when the moment for action arrived, it was found that the duke did not possess a pair of duelling pistols. Considering the length of time he had spent in the army, and the habits of military society towards the close of the last century, that fact bore incontestable evidence to the conciliatory temper and great discretion of the duke. Sir Henry Hardinge, therefore, who acted as his friend, was forced to look for pistols elsewhere, and borrowed them at last―he himself being as unprovided as his principalfrom Dr. Hume, the medical man who accompanied them to the ground. The combatants met in Battersea Fields, now Battersea Park. Lord Winchilsea, attended by the earl of Falmouth, having received the duke's fire, discharged his pistol in the air. A written explanation was then produced, which the duke declined to receive unless the word 'apology' was inserted; and this point being yielded, they separated as they had met, with cold civility." Long after these events had ceased to occupy public attention, the Rev. Mr. Gleig took occasion to refer to them in one of those confidential conversations with which he was occasionally honoured by the duke. "You speak as a moralist,' he observed, smiling; and I assure you that I am no advocate of duelling under ordinary circumstances; but my difference with lord Winchilsea, considering the cause in which it originated, and the critical position of affairs at the moment, can scarcely be regarded as a private quarrel. He refused to me, being the king's minister, what every man, in or out of office, may fairly claim the right to change his views, under a change of circumstances, on a great public question. He did his best to establish the principle that a man in my situation must be a traitor unless he adhere, through thick and thin, to a policy once advocated. His attack upon me was part of a plan to render the conduct of public affairs impossible to the king's servants. I did my best to make him understand the nature of his mistake, and showed him how he might escape from it. He rejected my advice, and there remained for me only one means of extorting from him an acknowledgment that he was wrong.' But, observed Mr. Gleig, he behaved well on the ground, at all events. He refused to fire at you.' 'Certainly,' replied the duke, he did not fire at me; and seeing that such was his intention, I turned my pistol aside, and fired wide of him; but that did not make amends for the outrageous charge brought against me in his letter. It was only the admission that the charge was outrageous that at all atoned for that; but it would have been more creditable to him to have made it when first requested to do so, than at last. He behaved, however, with great coolness; and was, and I am sure continues to be, very sorry that he allowed his temper to run away with him.'"* Gleig's "Life of Wellington," p. 464. A third bill yet remained to be carried, in order to complete the ministerial scheme of emancipation, and supply the security necessary for its satisfactory working. This was the bill for disfranchising the forty shilling freeholders, by whose instrumentality, it may be said, emancipation was effected. It was they that returned Mr. O'Connell for Clare; it was they that would have returned the members for twenty-three other counties, pledged to support his policy. It is true that this class of voters was generally dependent upon the landlords, unless under the influence of violent excitement, when they were wrested like weapons from their hands by the priests, and used with a vengeance for the punishment of those by whom they had been created. In neither case did they exercise the franchise in fulfilment of the purpose for which it was given. In both cases those voters were the instruments of a power which availed itself of the forms of the constitution, but was directly opposed to its spirit. Disfranchisement, however, under any circumstances, was distasteful to both conservative and liberal statesmen. Mr. Brougham said he consented to it in this case as the price-almost the extravagant price"of emancipation; and Sir James Macintosh remarked that it was one of those "tough morsels" which he had been scarcely able to swallow. The measure was opposed by Mr. Huskisson, lord Palmerston, and lord Duncannon, as not requisite, and not calculated to accomplish its object. But although Mr. O'Connell had repeatedly declared that he would not accept emancipation if the faithful "forties" were to be sacrificed, that he would rather die on the scaffold than submit to any such measure, though Mr. Sheil had denounced it in language the most vehement, yet the measure was allowed to pass through both houses of parliament without any opposition worth naming; only seventeen members voting against the second reading in the commons, and there being no division against it in the lords. Ireland beheld the sacrifice in silence. Mr. O'Connell forgot his solemn vows, so recently registered, and, what was more strange, the priests did not remind him of his obligation. Perhaps they were not sorry to witness the annihilation of a power which landlords might use against them, and which agitators might wield in a way that they could not at all times control. There had been always an uneasy feeling among the prelates and the higher clergy at the influence which Mr. O'Connell and the other lay-agitators had acquired, because it tended to raise in the people a spirit of independence which rendered them sometimes refractory as members of the church, and suggested the idea of combination against their own pastors, if they declined to become their leaders in any popular movement. The popular leaders in Ireland, however, consoling themselves with the assurance that many of the class of "bold peasantry" which they had glorified would stil enjoy the franchise as ten-pound freeholders, consented, reluctantly of course, to the extinction of 300,000 “forties." They considered the danger of delay, and the probability that if this opportunity were missed, another might not occur for years of striking off the shackles which the upper classes of Roman catholics especially felt to be so galling. When emancipation was carried, they did not forget the claims of Mr. O'Connell, who had laboured so hard for A.D. 1829.] REFUSAL OF O'CONNELL TO TAKE THE OATHS. a quarter of a century for its accomplishment. A testimonial was soon after got up to reward him for his long services. Mr. C. O'Laughlin, of Dublin, subscribed £500; the earl of Shrewsbury 1,000 guineas, and the less grateful lake of Norfolk the sum of £100. The collection of the testimonial was organised in every district throughout Ireland, and a sum of £50,000 sterling was collected. Mr. O'Connell did not love money for its own sake. The Immense sums that were poured into the coffers of the Catholic Association were spent freely in carrying on the agitation, and the large annuity which he himself received was mainly devoted to the same object. One means, which had no small effect in accomplishing the object, was the extremely liberal hospitality which was kept up, not only at Derrynane Abbey, but at his town residence in Merrion Square; and he had, besides, a host of retainers more or less dependent upon his bounty. 143 The speaker's expression of countenance and manner towards the honourable gentleman were extremely courteous, and his declaration that he "must withdraw," firm and authoritative. Mr. O'Connell, for a moment, looked round as one who had reason to expect support, and this failing, he bowed most respectfully, and withdrew. The Globe, expressing the feelings of the English liberals on the transaction, said: "Mr. O'Connell has forced us to emancipate the catholics, he has brought us to that dreadful pass that we have all but lost our places-nay more, he has compelled us to separate from our old allies, the ultra tories; and we will, therefore, avenge our own embarrassments and the tears of John, lord Eldon, on his obnoxious person. Such are the sentiments which, should he, Mr. O'Connell, be sent back to be re-elected for Clare, will, we fear, be said by the more reflective portion of the public, to have influenced the conduct of government. There was one irritating circumstance connected with the On a technical point of law, they may, perhaps though Emancipation Act. The words, "thereafter to be elected," even this is doubtful-be defensible; but such technicality were introduced for the purpose of preventing O'Connell should not be suffered for an instant to interfere with or from taking his seat in virtue of the election of 1828. The cloud the glory of an act like that of catholic emancipation; Irish Roman catholics considered this legislating against by which, in after ages, it will be the chief boast of the an individual an act unworthy of the British senate-nineteenth century to have been distinguished." and, as against the great catholic advocate, a mean, vindictive, and discreditable deed. But it was admitted that Wellington and Peel were not to blame for it; that on their part it was a pacificatory concession to dogged bigotry in high places. Mr. Fagan states that Mr. O'Connell was willing to give up the county of Clare to Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, and to go into parliament himself for a borough, adding that he had absolutely offered 3,000 guineas to Sir Edward Denny for the borough of Tralee, which had always been regularly sold, and was, in point of fact assigned as a fortune under a marriage settlement. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, however, rather scornfully rejected the offer, and Mr. O'Connell himself appeared in the house of commons on the 15th of May, to try whether he would be permitted to take his seat. In the course of an hour, we are told, the heads of his speech were arranged, and written on a small card. The event was expected, and the house was crowded to excess. At five o'clock the speaker called on any new member desiring to be sworn to come to the table. O'Connell accordingly presented himself, introduced by lords Ebrington and Duncannon. He remained for some time standing at the table, pointing out the oaths Thus baffled, he returned to Dublin, where he met an he was willing to take, namely, those required by the new enthusiastic reception. A meeting was held the next day, act, and handing in the certificate of his return and quali- to make arrangements for insuring his return for Clare. fications. His refusal to take the oaths of supremacy and Sheil on that occasion delivered an eloquent speech. abjuration having been reported to the speaker, he was "Put Daniel O'Connell," he said, " and put men who will directed to withdraw, when Mr. Brougham moved that he sustain him and co-operate with him, into parliament, and should be heard at the bar, to account for his refusal. But you will soon see that the men who so powerfully acte ́t on the motion of Mr. Peel, after a long discussion, the upon public opinion out of parliament will not be wholly consideration of the question was deferred till the 18th. destitute of influence within it. With what strength of The Times of the next day stated that the narrative of the adjuration will Daniel O'Connell appeal to the feelings proceeding could convey but an imperfect idea of the silent, and magnanimity of Englishmen, and on behalf of the almost breathless attention with which he was received Ireland demand fair dealing with her! With his perfect in the house, advancing to and retiring from the table. The knowledge of detail, his vast and minute information upon benches were filled, in an unusual degree, with members, Ireland, his vehement eloquence, and, above all, the people and there was no recollection of so large a number of of Ireland at his back, what may he not effect for his peers brought by curiosity into the house of commons. country? Let us then, to a man, become his abettors in On Monday, the 18th of May, O'Connell took his seat under the gallery. Seldom, if ever before, were there in the house so many strangers, peers, or members. The adjourned debate was resumed, and it was resolved that he should be heard at the bar. To the bar he then advanced, accompanied by his solicitor, Mr. Pierce Mahony, who supplied him with the books and documents, which had been arranged and marked to facilitate reference. His speech on that occasion is said to have been one of the most remarkable for ability and argument he ever delivered. It should be observed that his claim to enter the house without taking the oaths was supported from the first by the opinion of Mr. Charles Butler, an eminent English barrister, and a Roman catholic; but law and precedent were against him, and he would not be admitted. When Mr. O'Connell retired to his place under the gallery, he found the benches filled by the suite of the French embassy. Room was made for him between two gentlemen, who entered into conversation with him, and who spoke English like natives. One of these was Louis Philippe, and the other his son, the duke of Orleans. this great struggle. We are all engaged, almost as much as himself, in this noble undertaking; and it will be proved to the minister, I trust, that there still is left a body of yeomanry in this country which, with the remnant of the elective franchise, like a broken sword, will be enabled to encounter the columns of the aristocracy, and give the rural despots battle. Yes! Daniel O'Connell will be thrown back upon the minister by the country! And what may we not expect that he may achieve? He that for so many years worked the great engine of public opinion, and wielded the wild democracy with such a gigantic arm, will exhibit the same efficiency. Rally, fellow citizens, round the man that, in public despair, never ceased to hope that was never weary when all others fainted-that never stopped when all others fell; that, by his indomitable spirit, his chivalrous intrepidity, and, above all, by his superior, heart-stirring eloquence, contributed more than any one that lives to disenthral his country from her bondage." On the 1st of June O'Connell started for Ennis. All the towns he passed through turned out to cheer him on, with green boughs and banners suspended from the windows. He arrived at Nenagh in the night, and the town was quickly illuminated. Maving travelled all night, he retired to rest at Limerick; and while he slept, the streets were thronged with people, anxious to get a glance at their "liberator." A large tree of liberty was planted before the hotel, with musicians perched on the branches, playing national airs. The Limerick trades accompanied him in his progress towards Ennis, where his arrival was hailed with boundless enthusiasm, and where a triumphal car was prepared for him. Thus terminated a progress, during which he made twenty speeches, to nearly a million of persons.. There were yet nearly two months to the election, and the constituency of ten-pound freeholders had yet to be formed under the new act. The landlords of the county were still, almost to a man, against him. with reference to the Beresford family. Towards the end of the year 1829, Mr. Villiers Stuart, who had been triumphantly returned against the Beresford interest in 1826, retired from the representation. The contest had cost him £30,000; and, notwithstanding this, he was continually beset by a host of people, claiming money from him under various pretences. As he would not satisfy their rapacious demands, they hooted him when passing through the streets of Waterford. This so disgusted him that he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds. Conciliation being now the order of the day between protestants and Roman catholics, Mr. Pierce Mahony, O'Connell's solicitor, agreed to become the conducting agent of the Beresford candidate, provided O'Connell and Sheil were engaged as counsel. To this those two gentlemen consented, O'Connell stipulating that the services to be rendered should be merely professional, and not political. He wrote to his solicitor, "If the offer of it, under these circumstances, shall be repeated-a matter of which I entertain some doubt, as out of term I made Villiers Stuart pay me £600-my professional remuneration I will leave to you and your brother." He added that he had always been exceedingly well treated by the Beresford family, when they employed him as a professional man. The candidate selected was lord George Beresford; and, in addition to the twenty guineas "retainer," Mr. Mahony was authorised to say that O'Connell should receive £300 for his fee, whether there should be a contest or not; and £600 if there should be a contest. Sheil, in addition to his retainer, was to have £200 if no contest, and £400 if there should be one. On second thoughts, however, Mr. O'Connell was convinced of the impolicy of the transaction; or, as his biographer puts it, "on consultation with his friends in Dublin, he saw at once the danger of trusting the professions of the Beresfords;" and he resolved forthwith to put an end to the negotiations, alleging, as Amongst the most determined of his opponents was an excuse, that he might be called upon, as a member of Sir Edward O'Brien, father of Mr. Smith O'Brien. The parliament, to act as a judge of transactions in which he latter published an address to the electors of Clare, against had been engaged as counsel. The affair, however, got O'Connell's pretensions. He stated in his address that the abroad, and the Times commented strongly on the fact people had been led away from their landlords by false pre- that O'Connell had consented to become counsel for the tences. This was answered by Ir. Sheil, in a letter to the Beresfords in an electioneering contest against the liberal Globe-so strong, that parts of it were omitted. Sheil being party; and that he withdrew from the engagement, after applied to by Mr. Greig, as Smith O'Brien's friend, to huxtering for a higher fee. O'Connell defended himself supply the omitted parts, did so without hesitation, in an elaborate letter, and attacked the Times in return. observing that his suppressed statement was:-"The Mr. Pierce Mahony's active mind hit upon another assertion of Mr. William Smith O'Brien was a lie, and he conciliation project, which assumed the more respectable knew it to be so;" and that among the other words form of the "Wellington Testimonial." Soon after the suppressed were these:-" Blackguardism, gross nonsense, act of emancipation received the royal assent, Mr. personal impertinence, audacious falsehood, and political Mahony and a number of Irish friends were below the bar baseness and ingratitude." The consequence was an affair in the house of lords. The duke of Leinster came over to of honour, which, fortunately, had no serious result. The congratulate them on the event. After some conversation, quarrel is interesting, when considered in reference to it was agreed that a committee should be formed to set on Smith O'Brien's future connection with O'Connell in the foot a subscription for raising a testimonial to the duke. A repeal agitation. On the 30th of July O'Connell was a committee was formed the next day, its most active memsecond time returned for Clare without opposition, and bers being the duke of Leinster, Mr. Agar Ellis, afterthe event was celebrated with the usual demonstrations of wards lord Dover, the earl of Darlington, and Mr. O'Conjoy and triumph. nell, Mr. Mahony acting as secretary. It was arranged Pending this election, a very curious episode occurred that a public meeting should be held in the London A.D. 1829.] O'CONNELL'S CONTINUED AGITATION. Tavern to promote the object, the chair to be taken by lord Fitzwilliam. An hour before the meeting, when the resolutions drawn up by Mr. Mahony were in course of distribution to proposers and seconders, in the ante-room of the great hall, the knight of Kerry arrived with a message from the duke, requesting that the object should be abandoned. "It appeared that though the duke was exceedingly flattered by the proposed compliment, he was greatly embarrassed by it, because of the king's jealousy and irritation. George IV., it was said, absolutely fancied that it was he who won Wellington's battles; and, influenced by the same kind of delusion, he 145 The truth is, Mr. O'Connell had no idea of continuing the game of conciliation, except with a view to ulterior objects. He did not conceal, even in the hour of his triumph, that he regarded catholic emancipation as little more than a vantage ground, on which he was to plant his artillery for the abolition of the legislative union. After the passing of the Emancipation Act, he appealed as strongly as ever to the feelings of the people. "At Ennis," he said, "I promised you religious freedom, and I kept my word. The catholics are now free, and the Brunswickers are no longer their masters; and a paltry set they were to be our masters. They would turn up the white of their imagined that he alone ought to be honoured for the achievement of emancipation, notwithstanding his deepseated opposition to the measure. This feeling produced misunderstandings and bickerings at Windsor, and the duke endeavoured, by declining the proposed compliment, to terminate these feuds. However, after a good deal of discussion in the ante-room, and impatience on the part of those who attended, the meeting was held, resolutions were passed, speeches were made, including an eloquent one from Thomas Moore, the poet, whose Irish Melodies' contributed in no small measure to prepare the English mind for the changes which Wellington effected. This appears to have been the end of the Wellington testimonial." * Fagan's "Life of O'Connell," vol. i., p. 695. 117.-NEW SERIES. eyes to heaven, and at the same time slily put their hands into your pockets. . What good did any member ever before in parliament do for the county of Clare, except to get places for their nephews, cousins, &c.? What did I do? I procured for you emancipation." "The election for Clare," he said, "is admitted to have been the immediate and irresistible cause of producing the Catholic Relief Bill. You have achieved the religious liberty of Ireland. Another such victory in Clare, and we shall attain the political freedom of our beloved country. That victory is still necessary, to prevent catholic rights and liberties from being sapped and undermined by the insidious policy of those men who, false to their own party, can never be true to us, and who have yielded not to reason, but to necessity, in granting us freedom of conscience. A |