The Political History of England – Vol XI

The enforced acceptance of this enactment was equivalent to a decisive reverse, and could not but injure the prestige of the government, but it did not actually cause a schism in the cabinet. It was otherwise when the duke proposed a corn bill in lieu of that rejected at his instance in the previous year. The difference between these measures was not very material, but the duke insisted upon certain regulations of detail, which Huskisson persistently opposed. Peel suggested a compromise which, after long altercation and some threats of resignation, was adopted. But the effect was to weaken the government still further in the eyes of the public, inasmuch as the principle of duties on a graduated scale had prevailed at last against the declared opinions of the duke. The inevitable rupture was only deferred for a few weeks, and arose out of motions for disfranchising East Retford and Penryn – a premonitory symptom of the great reform bill. These were among the most corrupt of the old "rotten boroughs," and the scandalous practices which flourished in both of them had more than once shocked even the unreformed parliament. In 1827 a bill for disfranchising Penryn had actually been carried by the house of commons in spite of Canning's dissent, and one for disfranchising East Retford would probably have been carried, but that it was introduced too late.

The motions now introduced by Lord John Russell and Charles Tennyson respectively could scarcely have been thrown out by the same house, but squabbles arose in the cabinet, partly on the comparative guiltiness of the two venal constituencies, but chiefly on the disposal of the seats to be vacated. It was agreed at last that Penryn should be merged in the adjacent hundred, and the majority of the cabinet, represented by Peel, were for dealing in like manner with East Retford. The liberal section, however, represented by Huskisson, was bent on transferring its representation to Birmingham, and voted against Peel in the house of commons. Having thus vindicated his independence, Huskisson, somewhat too hastily, placed his resignation in the hands of the premier on May 20. The duke, having fairly lost patience with his insubordinate colleagues, was equally prompt in accepting it, and declined to receive the explanations offered. In the end, Palmerston, Dudley, Grant, and Lamb, followed the fortunes of Huskisson, and Wellington's government was completely purged of Canning's old supporters.

THE CLARE ELECTION.

Two military officers, without political experience, were now imported into the ministry. Sir George Murray succeeded Huskisson at the colonial office, and Sir Henry Hardinge replaced Palmerston as secretary at war, but was not admitted to the cabinet; Lord Aberdeen became foreign secretary, and Vesey Fitzgerald president of the board of trade, while Lord Francis Leveson Gower succeeded Lamb as chief secretary for Ireland. So purely tory an administration had not been formed since the days of Perceval. Looking back we can see that, for that very reason, it was doomed; but to politicians of 1828 Wellington's ascendency seemed assured, and it was not actually broken for above two years. By far the most important event of domestic history within that period was the crisis ending in the catholic emancipation act, and this crisis was immediately precipitated by the almost casual appointment of Vesey Fitzgerald. He was a popular Irish landlord, who had always supported catholic relief, and his re-election for the county of Clare was regarded as perfectly secure. The landlords were known to be entirely in his favour, and Irish tenants, miscalled "forty shilling freeholders," had been used to vote obsequiously for the candidate of their landlords. Indeed, these counterfeit freeholds had been manufactured recklessly throughout Ireland for the very purpose of extending landlord influence. Perhaps the recent defeat of a Beresford at Waterford by a nominee of Daniel O'Connell, who had made himself the leader of the movement for Catholic relief, ought to have undeceived the Irish tories, but no one could have foreseen so daring an act as the candidature of O'Connell himself, notwithstanding that, as a catholic, he was incapable of sitting in the house of commons.

The contest began on June 30 and lasted five days. All the gentry and electors of the higher class supported Fitzgerald, but all the poorer electors, headed by their priests, flocked to the poll and voted for O'Connell, who, on Fitzgerald's retirement, was triumphantly elected. The violence of O'Connell's language was unmeasured, and as was said by Sheil, "every altar became a tribune," but perfect order was maintained throughout. The terrorism which has since disgraced Irish elections and vitiated the whole representation of Ireland had no place in this startling victory, and the impression produced by it was thereby infinitely enhanced. Two conclusions were instantly drawn from it: the one, that electoral power in Ireland could not safely be left in the hands of the forty-shilling freeholders; the other, that, whether or not they were disfranchised, nothing short of political equality of the catholics of Ireland could avert the risk of civil war. It is seldom that momentous changes can be so clearly traced to a single cause as in the case of catholic emancipation. The whole interval between July, 1828, and April, 1829, was occupied by the discussion of this question, or circumstances arising out of it, and it may truly be said to have filled the whole horizon of domestic politics. The first and final recognition by a responsible government of emancipation as a political necessity dates immediately from the Clare election.

The question of catholic emancipation had been the only reason for the resignation of Pitt in 1801, but we have seen that he resumed office in 1804 under a pledge not to re-open it. It is certain that he never contemplated a complete emancipation of the catholics without safeguards for the interests of the established church. Such a safeguard (though ineffective against a future attack through disestablishment) was provided by the act of union,84 which inviolably united the Irish and English churches. The catholic leaders, on their part, were profuse in their disavowals of hostility to that establishment and to the protestant government in Ireland. In their first solemn memorial, presented by Grenville on March 25, 1805, they expressly declared that "they do not seek or wish, in the remotest degree, to injure or encroach upon the rights, privileges, immunities, possessions, and revenues appertaining to the bishops and clergy of the protestant religion, or to the churches committed to their charge". They further volunteered an expression of their belief that no evil act could be justified by the good of the Church, and that papal infallibility was no article of the catholic faith. Thenceforward, frequent motions in support of the "catholic claims" were made in both houses of parliament. In 1810 such a motion was proposed in a very eloquent speech by Grattan, but Castlereagh, though a staunch friend of the cause, deprecated it as inopportune, since the catholics had injured themselves by imprudent conduct, and fresh declarations inconsistent with their former assurances. The motion was therefore rejected, and a similar fate befell motions of the same kind in the two following years, especially in the house of lords, where Eldon inflexibly resisted any concession, and always commanded a majority.

CATHOLIC RELIEF.

When Liverpool replaced Perceval as prime minister in 1812, catholic emancipation became an open question in the cabinet. In that year Canning succeeded in carrying triumphantly a resolution pledging the house of commons to consider the question seriously in the next session, and a like resolution was only lost by one vote in the house of lords. Accordingly, in 1813, Grattan's motion for a committee of the whole house on catholic disabilities was accepted, and a bill for their removal passed its second reading. But it was loaded with vexatious securities in committee and wrecked by the vigorous opposition of the speaker, Abbot, who on May 24 carried by a majority of four an amendment withholding the right to sit and vote in parliament. After this, the bill was of course abandoned, but another was unanimously passed exempting from penalties Roman catholics holding certain military and civil offices, to which, by a harsh construction of law, they were not eligible. In 1817 the question was debated at great length in the house of commons, and several leading men took part in it, but the motion for catholic relief was again defeated by a majority of twenty-four. It was revived in 1819 by Grattan, who delivered on this occasion one of his greatest speeches, and succeeded in reducing the majority to two only. In 1821 a further advance was made by Plunket's success in obtaining a committee to consider the claims of the catholics. This was carried by a majority of six, and followed up by two bills, removing all catholic disabilities with very slight exceptions, but subject to stringent and somewhat illusory securities for the loyalty of the priesthood. Ultimately on April 2 a comprehensive measure of catholic relief passed the house of commons by a majority of nineteen. All the most influential members of the lower house now voted in its favour, but the attitude of the upper house remained unchanged. The spirit of Eldon still ruled the peers, and his speech against Plunket's relief bill contains a complete armoury of protestant arguments. But the catholics had a still more doughty opponent in the Duke of York, who delivered on this occasion the first of his famous declarations, binding himself to life-long hostility. As Eldon said, "he did more to quiet this matter than everything else put together".85

The year 1821 marks a turning point in the history of the catholic question, since the protestant cause, no longer safe in the house of commons, was felt by its champions to depend on the crown and the house of lords. But it would be an error to suppose that catholic relief was ever a popular cry in this country, like retrenchment and reform. On the contrary, the feelings of the masses in Great Britain were never roused in regard to it, and, if roused at all, would probably have been enlisted on the other side. It would be too much to say that the controversy was merely academical, for it was keen enough to split up parties and produce dualism in cabinets. But it was never a hustings question. It filled a much larger space in the minds of statesmen than in the minds of the people, and even among statesmen it was so far secondary that it could be treated as an open question in Liverpool's ministry for a period of fifteen years. No doubt the disturbed state of Ireland, which ultimately supplied the motive power for carrying the emancipation act, contributed at an earlier stage to damp the zeal of its advocates. Whatever the merits of the union, it had failed to pacify the country, thereby verifying the warning of Cornwallis, that, although Ireland could not be saved without the union, "you must not take it for granted that it will be saved by it".

In 1800, the very year of the union, the habeas corpus act had been suspended and another act passed for the suppression of rebellion. Though repealed in the following year, these coercive measures were renewed in 1803, after Emmet's abortive rising, and continued in 1804. In 1805, when they expired, special commissions were appointed for the repression of crime in the south and west of Ireland. In 1807 the habeas corpus act was again suspended and a rigorous insurrection act passed which continued in force until 1810. In that year a Catholic Committee was formed, anticipating the more notorious Catholic Association. An essential part of the scheme was the formation of a representative assembly in Dublin, to discuss and procure redress for the wrongs of catholics. This project was put down by the Irish government, which treated it as a breach of the convention act of 1793. The next ten years seem to have been somewhat quieter in Ireland, and the disturbances which followed the peace in Great Britain had no counterpart in that country. Still, it was thought necessary to suppress another catholic convention in 1814, and to renew the insurrection act, which remained in force with one interval till 1817. It can well be imagined that a population so lawless, and so prone to horrible outrages which shock Englishmen more than a thousand crimes against property, should have excited little general sympathy by their complaints of political grievances. These grievances were justly denounced by party leaders, but in the eyes of ordinary politicians, and still more of electors, coercion rather than concession was the appropriate remedy for the ills of Ireland.

CATHOLIC RELIEF.

Canning, however, though suspected of lukewarmness, did not let the question rest in 1822. On April 30, while still out of office, he introduced a bill which he could scarcely have expected to become law, for enabling Roman catholic peers to sit and vote in the house of lords. This bill was passed in the commons by a majority of five, but rejected in the lords by a majority of forty-four, in spite of somewhat transparent assertions that it was not intended to prejudice the main issue. On April 18, 1823, an angry protest from Burdett against the "annual farce" of motions leading to nothing was followed by a quarrel between Canning and Brougham, who accused Canning, then foreign secretary, of "monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office"; and when Plunket moved, as usual, for the relief of catholics, a temporary secession of radicals took place, which left him in a ridiculous minority. In spite of this discomfiture, Lord Nugent succeeded in carrying through the commons a bill, granting the parliamentary franchise to Roman catholics in Great Britain. The bill was lost in the lords, and the question remained dormant in 1824; but in 1825 it received a fresh impulse. This time it was Burdett who, at the instance of Lansdowne and Brougham, appeared as spokesman of the catholics. His action was in some respects inopportune, as the "Catholic Association," founded by O'Connell and Sheil in 1823, was now usurping the functions of a government, and regularly levying taxes under the name of "rent". The necessity of suppressing it, though not apparent to Lord Wellesley, the lord-lieutenant, was strongly felt on both sides of the house of commons. A bill for this purpose, but applicable to all similar associations, was rapidly carried by large majorities in both houses, and the opposition was fain to rely mainly on the declaration that it would be put in force against catholic associations only, and not against those of the Orangemen, as the more violent of the Irish protestants were called. It is needless to say that it was evaded by the former, but on March 1, while it was still before the house of lords, Burdett took courage to move another preliminary resolution in favour of the catholics, and obtained a majority of thirteen. A bill founded on this resolution was at once introduced.

The debates on this bill were memorable in several respects and opened the last stage but one in the long history of catholic relief. In the first place, more than one opponent publicly avowed his conversion to it; in the second place, now that its "settlement" was actually within view, the necessity of providing a counterpoise became admitted. Accordingly, one independent member proposed a state grant of £250,000 a year for the endowment of the catholic clergy, who might thus be indirectly bound over to good behaviour, while another proposed the disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders. Both of these bills were read a second time, but held over until the fate of the main relief bill should be determined. That bill passed the house of commons on May 10, 1825, by a majority of twenty-one, and Peel tendered his resignation to Lord Liverpool.86 Two days later, the Duke of York, on presenting a petition against the bill in the house of lords, delivered another speech which fell like a thunder-clap on the country, and has been celebrated ever since as an audacious breach of constitutional usage. In this speech, he justified the inflexible attitude of his father, whose mental disorder he expressly attributed to the agitation of the catholic question. He concluded by declaring that his principles were the same, imbibed in early youth and confirmed by mature reflection, and that he would maintain them up to the latest moment of his existence, "whatever might be his situation in life". It is certain that, in thus pledging himself, he acted without having consulted the king, who somewhat resented so direct an allusion to his prospect of succession. Still, the sensation produced by the duke's utterance was prodigious, and he remained the favourite champion of the protestant cause until his death. Brougham attacked him with furious sarcasm in the commons, but the lords threw out Burdett's relief bill by a majority of forty-eight, and the No-popery cry influenced the general election of 1826. In that year no further effort was made by the friends of catholic claims, but O'Connell showed his growing power in Ireland by exciting a political revolt of the peasantry at Waterford, and procuring the defeat of Lord George Beresford.

CATHOLIC RELIEF.

In the session of 1827, before Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool, Burdett renewed his motion of 1825 on the catholic question, but found himself defeated by four votes. The division had taken place in a full house, after the fierce encounter, already mentioned, between Copley and Canning; but it cannot be regarded as a decisive token of contrast between the old and the new parliament, since relief was now claimed without any mention of "securities". The subject was in abeyance during the short administrations of Canning and Goderich, but was raised again by Burdett in May, 1828, after the repeal of the test and corporation acts. The number of votes on the catholic side, 272, was the same as in 1827, that on the protestant side, 266, was less by ten, the result being a majority of six for the motion. A similar resolution was lost in the house of lords, as a matter of course; but the language held by the new lord chancellor, Lyndhurst, and by Wellington himself, as prime minister, prepared observant men for an impending change of policy. Then followed the Clare election, which revealed nothing which might not have been foreseen, but which had the same effect in precipitating the removal of catholic disabilities as the Irish famine afterwards had in precipitating the repeal of the corn laws.

We now know that Peel had made up his mind to yield shortly after the Clare election,87 partly influenced by the alarming reports of Anglesey, the Irish lord-lieutenant, on the state of Ireland. We also know that Wellington himself was more than half convinced of the necessity of concession, and was preparing to strengthen his government for the coming struggle, in the event of Peel feeling bound to retire. Meanwhile a vacancy in the ministry had been created by the Duke of Clarence's resignation of his office of lord high admiral. In spite of the limitations imposed on his power, he had insisted on hoisting his flag, and assumed command. For this he was severely reprehended by the king and Wellington, and was virtually forced to resign office. Melville now became once more first lord of the admiralty, and was succeeded by Ellenborough at the board of control. Ellenborough retained his former office of lord privy seal, which Wellington was holding in reserve with a view to strengthening the government. But the public of those days remained in entire ignorance of their intentions until the meeting of parliament on February 5, 1829.

The speech of George Dawson, Peel's brother-in-law, at Derry, on August 12, had greatly startled protestants. As it was never publicly disavowed, Brunswick clubs were formed to repel the rising tide of sympathy with the catholics, but the only tangible indication of Wellington's personal sentiments favoured the belief that nothing would be done. The circumstances under which this indication was given were peculiar. The duke had written a letter to the Roman catholic archbishop of Dublin, an old correspondent, deprecating agitation on the catholic question, as likely to prejudice its future settlement, of which, however, the duke saw "no prospect".88 This letter was improperly sent by the archbishop to O'Connell as well as to Anglesey. O'Connell read it to the Catholic Association as a sign of conciliatory inclinations; Anglesey's reply suggested, at least, that agitation might continue. He was promptly recalled, and his recall was rendered the more significant by the appointment of the Duke of Northumberland, a known "protestant," as his successor. What the public could not then know was that behind all other difficulties, political or personal, lay the almost insuperable difficulty of inducing the king to allow the cabinet to be even consulted. Indolent and unprincipled as George IV. was, he was still capable of rousing and asserting himself. Probably no one but Wellington could have prevailed against his anti-catholic prejudices, shared, as they were, not only by most of the peers, both spiritual and temporal, but also by the mass of the English people. At this juncture Peel informed the duke that, rather than risk the success of the proposed measure, he would remain at his post. His example was followed by his "protestant" colleagues.

THE INTRODUCTION OF THE RELIEF BILL.

During the winter of 1828-29 the strongest pressure was brought to bear on the king by his ministers to procure his consent to a measure of relief, accompanied by safeguards. Though he afterwards assured Eldon that he had never explicitly given such a consent, the old chancellor, on seeing the documents, felt obliged to express a contrary opinion. It is certain that he gave way most reluctantly, and probable that his scruples were as sincere as was consistent with his character; but he knew well that, if he dismissed his ministers, he would be left isolated, and he bowed to necessity. Indeed even the "protestant" members of the cabinet had urged him to yield. His assent was, in fact, only given by degrees; after each member of the cabinet, who had previously opposed catholic emancipation, had had a separate interview, the king consented on January 15 to the consideration of the subject by the cabinet, but reserved the right to reject its advice. After this no great difficulty was experienced in obtaining the royal assent to the introduction of a bill.89 Accordingly the king's speech, delivered by commission on February 5, 1829, distinctly recommended parliament to consider whether the civil disabilities of the catholics could not be removed "consistently with the full and permanent security of our establishments in Church and State". This recommendation, however, was preceded by a severe condemnation of the Catholic Association and the expression of a resolution to put down the disorders caused by it. The sensation produced by the king's speech was increased by the simultaneous resignation by Peel of his seat for the university of Oxford. Considering that he was originally preferred to Canning mainly on protestant grounds, he could not have honourably acted otherwise. Many of his old friends stood by him, in spite of differences on the catholic question, and Eldon's grandson, who had been proposed as a candidate, was set aside as too weak an opponent. Ultimately Sir Robert Inglis was put forward by the "protestants," and was returned by 755 votes against 609. Peel obtained a seat for the borough of Westbury,90 and moved a preliminary bill for suppressing the Catholic Association. This passed both houses in February, but was already ineffective when it became law, since the association had been shrewd enough to dissolve itself upon the advice of its English well-wishers. The catholic relief bill was therefore introduced under favourable auspices.

The motives which actuated Wellington and Peel in espousing the cause which they had so persistently opposed admit of no doubt whatever. In the memoir which Peel left as embodying his own defence, no less than in his speech introducing the emancipation bill, he affects no essential change of conviction. He rests his case entirely on the public danger of leaving the question "unsettled" after the disclosures of the Clare election, and argues calmly, as the agitators had been arguing for nearly thirty years, that no settlement was practicable short of complete, though not unconditional, surrender. There is no pretence of consistency. All the constitutional, political, and religious objections to civil equality between protestants and catholics in Ireland remained unanswered and unabated. Indeed the increasing power and defiant tone of the catholic demagogues might well have appeared a crowning reason for refusing them seats in parliament. Peel, however, had adopted, and pressed upon Wellington, the delusive opinion of Anglesey that by "taking them from the Association and placing them in the house of commons" they might be reduced to comparative impotence. He lamented, it is true, the premature announcement of a new policy by Dawson, and he had submitted his own resignation to the duke in the belief, apparently sincere, that he could render better service in an independent position. But he seems not to have felt the least scruple in urging the duke to break all his pledges to his protestant supporters, and conciliate the followers of O'Connell. Nor did his advice fall on unwilling ears. Trained in a vocation where private conscience is subordinate to military duty, where enemies must sometimes be welcomed as allies if it may further the plan of campaign, and where a masterly retreat is as honourable as a victory, Wellington did not shrink from undertaking the part of an opportunist minister. He had always regarded himself as a servant of the crown and the nation, rather than as a party leader, and he saw no personal difficulty in adopting any political measure as the less of two evils. Having once satisfied himself that civil war in Ireland was the only alternative to emancipation, he abandoned resistance to it as he would have abandoned a hopeless siege, and called upon his tory followers to change their front with him.