take his seat, in consequence of his refusal to take the Oath of Supremacy, we shall enter into a brief exposition of the great triumph which Mr. O'Connell achieved in procuring for his countrymen their emancipation from their political disabilities, and wrested too from those very Ministers of the Crown, who had hitherto used the utmost of their power and influence to prevent any concession whatever being granted to the Catholics. In vain did those prototypes of moral virtue, those strict observers of all religious duties, the Dukes of York and Cumberland appear in the farcical theatre of hereditary wisdom, and sputter forth their anathemas against the reception of the Catholics into the body politic of the English people. In vain did the bigots and fanatics of the day blazon forth in letters of gold, the determination of the royal Dukes, "to die like demigods" in support of the Protestant religionall passed away unheeded, (ex nihilo nihil fit,) the people of the country had become enlightened. They looked not to the creed of the individual as the criterion of his political integrity or his loyalty; Catholic emancipation was the tenure by which Ministers could keep their places, and, the ultimate attainment of it has placed upon the records of the parliamentary history of this country, a specimen of political tergiversation, the parallel of which cannot be found.

The result of the parliamentary discussions of the Catholic question of 1828, did not in in itself contain anything calculated to excite among the Protestant part of the community apprehension of an approaching change, and still less of the King's Ministers being ready to propose and support such a change, as a cabinet measure. The majority of six, which had carried the resolutions in favour of the Catholics in the House of Commons, was smaller than that which had carried the third reading of Mr. Plunkett's Relief Bill in 1821, and Mr. Canning's Bill in 1822, and the second reading of Sir Francis Burdett's Bill in 1825; while the majority of forty-five which had rejected them in the House of Peers, was larger than the majorities on the first and second of these former occasions, and only three votes smaller than that of 1825.

The Catholic leaders themselves, indeed, pretended to know, that Government was inclined to lend a more willing ear to their demands; but on the one hand, they did not act, as f they believed their own statements, for they immediately proceeded to do their utmost, to rouse Ireland into open rebellion; and on the other, there was nothing in the state of the Cabinet, nothing in the expressed sentiments of its principal members, nothing in the complexion of public feeling, that seemed to justify such a prospect. The Ministry continued to be, as for years it had been, divided upon the question; but its head, the Duke of Wellington, and Mr. Peel, the most influential of his colleagues, were precisely the men who had distinguished themselves by their opposition to the Catholic demands, on every ground both of right and of expediency. During the discussion of 1828, both of them, along with the Lord Chancellor, had expressed no inclination to desert the principles, which they had uniformly defended, and which had gained for the former two, on this particular question, the unlimited confidence of that large majority of the community which regarded concession to the Catholics, as dangerous and unconstitutional. On the 10th of May, 1828, Mr. Peel, in his place in Parliament, had ranked himself among those "in whose minds no disposition to change existed, but who rather found their original belief strengthened by consideration." He had concluded a speech, in which he had proved the danger and unreasonableness of these demands in every point of view, with stating, that he had now gone over "the grounds on which he had acted, and on which he had avowed his intention of still acting." During the autumn, indeed, the Catholic leaders had produced alarm over Ireland, as they had often done before, and organized the disaffected into a body ready for confusion and rebellion, but the country had not yet learned that an aptitude to yield to clamour and intimidation was one of the qualities of a wise and energetic government; and the long tried opponents of the Catholic claims had just been repeating their settled con4 Q

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victions that for this, and other evils affecting that part of the empire concession would afford no remedy. The speech of Mr. Dawson at Londonderry, on the 12th of August was the first public symptom of the influence of the Association in terrifying its opponents, but although the sentiments of that gentleman derived additional importance from the relation in which he stood to the Home Secretary, and although they were, therefore eagerly caught by the friends of concession, as betokening a change of opinion in more powerful men, yet the vacillations of an Irish member trembling for his seat, under the remembrance of the Clare election, could lead no one to anticipate sudden defection among those, who had less reason to dread, and whose first duty it was to restrain the Catholic demagogues. Though Mr. Peel's brother-in-law had announced, at a public dinner, his change of opinion, Mr. Peel himself accepted, during the autumn, the public banquets of the gentry and manufacturers of Lancashire, as the champion of the Protestant cause, without allowing a syllable to escape from him, which could raise any suspicion that he was more inclined to surrender the Protestant constitution, than he had been three months before.

Above all, the correspondence between the Duke of Wellington and Dr. Curtis, which was given to the public in December, justified the most entire confidence on the part of the country, that his Grace and his Grace's Ministry entertained no purpose of yielding. The Duke had written, in express words, that he "saw no prospect of a settlement of the question:" that, in the existing state of excitation, "it was impossible to expect to prevail upon men to consider it dispassionately;" and that, if an ultimate satisfactory arrangement of the question were wishea for, it would be desirable for a time "to bury it in oblivion." When the Duke of Wellington thus declared, on the 11th of December, that he saw no prospect of a settlement of the question, what man could imagine, that he had already resolved forthwith to force it to a settlement? Who thus represented the excited state of

public feeling, as opposing an insuperable obstacle to the consideration of concession, who could believe that he and his cabinet had already determined to push concession, in defiance, of that very feeling, and amidst excitation a thousand times more violent? When he expressed his opinion that the question ought to be "buried in oblivion," would it not have been deemed an insult to the understanding or to the honesty. of his Grace, to have said, that by these words, he meant the instant agitation of the question in Parliament and the agitation of it, too, as a government measure? When the year concluded with the recall of the Lord Lieutenant, because he had used language, and pursued a line of conduct, favourable to the hopes of the Catholics, what man could dream that the next year was to begin with granting all that the Catholics had ever demanded?

Yet so it was; while the country was thus reposing in secure confidence, that the leading members of the Government were still faithful to their trust; these very men had determined to go over to the Catholics, and in secresy, and silence, were arranging their plans, to overwhelm every attempt at resistance, by the power of ministerial influence. The consent of the King was the first thing to be obtained, and it was likewise the most difficult. His Majesty's opinion against the justice and expediency of concession were deeply rooted; the subject itself was one, on the consideration of which, he did not willingly enter. What were the arguments employed for his Majesty's conversion can be learned only from the argument by which Ministers subsequently attempted to justify in Parliament their own change of policy; but while the operations of the Minister upon the royal mind were going on, no whisper was allowed to go abroad regarding the measure that was in contemplation. There was skilful management in this, if there was not much fairness. Had the people, instead of being lulled into the confidence that those whom they had trusted before, would be trust-worthy still, been made aware of the counsels which these very men were pouring into the royal ear, the public voice would have been

heard at the foot of the throne, strengthening the deep-rooted convictions of the Monarch himself, and the reluctant consent, which was ultimately wrung from him, in all probability, would never have been obtained. When his consent was once obtained, the public voice might be allowed to raise itself without danger, for he then stood pledged to his Ministers, if those Ministers, by whatever means could only command a majority in Parliament. It was not till after this consent had been granted, that it began to be whispered abroad in the end of January, and only a few days before the meeting of Parliament that his Majesty's Minister's intended to recommend to Parliament, some concessions to the Catholics.

The surprise, which this announcement excited was only equalled by the indignation and contempt roused by so sudden an abandonment of principle. The Protestant party found that up to the very moment of the assembling of Parliament, they had been allowed to rest in the belief, that the question would not be stirred, the influence of the leading Members of the Cabinet would still stand in its way, while in truth their most tried friends had been plotting and planning, how they might most successfully secure a triumph to the enemy, and were concealing at the same time their intended defection up to the instant, when the contest was to begin. It seems impossible to acquit the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel, of having acted in this part of the affair with a disingenuousness which might be perfectly in its place in a miserable political intrigue, but which tainted their character as public men in relation to a question of such vast and vital importance. They knew they were trusted by the Protestant party as the champions who were to be ready armed, whenever the Catholics should advance against the constitution. If they had grown weary of the service, and were resolved to abandon it for the adverse side, there would have been more manliness and fairness, though less craft in announcing from the first, their own change of sentiment, and their determination to act with instant vigour against their former friends. Thus matters stood, when Parliament met on the 5th of February, and in the

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