Termination of the Struggle for Roman Catholic Emancipation-The Roman Catholic Association-Failure of the attempt to suppress it-Rejection of a Relief Bill by the Lords-O'Connell's Election for the County of Clare-Its effectFeeling of the Cabinet on the question-Letter of Dr. Curtis-Recall of Lord Anglesey-Speech of Mr. Dawson-Change of opinion on the part of influential Orangemen--The Relief Bill-Mr. Peel's rejection by the University of Oxford-Vacillation of the King-Bill for the Suppression of the Roman Catholic Association-Introduction of Relief Bill into the House of Commons-Duel between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchelsea-The Relief Bill in the House of Lords-It is passed and receives the Royal Assent-Disfranchisement of the Irish Forty-Shilling Freeholders-Dismissal of the Attorney-General-O'Connell's admission to the House of Commons refused-His re-election for Clare.

THE Tory party regarded the reconstruction | a census of the population to be taken, and of the Cabinet and the expulsion of the appointed collectors in every parish for Canningites with unbounded delight. They receiving the Catholic Rent,' which it had at last obtained a government after expended at its own pleasure for the purtheir own heart; and at the Pitt dinner, at poses of law, bribery, or election. the end of May, they manifested their joy by the heartiness with which, at the bidding of Lord Eldon, they gave 'one cheer more' for the Protestant ascendancy. The shrewd old chancellor, however, saw clearly that the new administration would have great difficulties to struggle with.' 'The Whigs, the Canningites, and the Huskissonites,' he said, 'will join and be very strong. With the exception of Lord Lonsdale, the great Tory parliamentary lords are not propitiated by the new arrangements, and many of them will be either neuter or adverse.' Their most formidable difficulty, however, arose from another quarter.

The Roman Catholic Association had now attained to a height of power which rendered it very dangerous to any government that opposed their claims. It was founded in 1823 by Daniel O'Connell, an eminent Roman Catholic barrister, who by his great abilities and eloquence had now become the head of the party in Ireland, and it speedily became a rallying centre for all the Irish supporters of Roman Catholic emancipation. Its members held regular sessions in Dublin, engaged in debates, which were reported in the newspapers, and constituted themselves the medium between Ireland and the Parliament. They organized the entire country, ordered

A Mr. Kinnan, one of the Duke of Wellington's correspondents, gives a striking and interesting account of the methods employed by the agents of the association in the collection of the 'Rent.' 'The priests,' he says, 'appointed collectors in every townland, each of whom was supplied with a book containing a particular form of schedule, in which was inserted the number of the houses in the townland, and the names of every individual in each house-even of new-born infants, and of Protestants as well as Roman Catholics-with notes as to their means and circumstances, and their various dispositions towards the cause. book, being filled up, was returned to the priest, who referred to it for the purpose of discovering the defaulters; while no one entered in the book could have his children baptized into the Roman Catholic Church until he himself, the sponsors of his child, and the child, were enrolled as members of the association. The names of defaulters were published for the detestation of their neighbours.'

The

The Government regarded with great alarm the proceedings of this self-constituted legislature, which wielded such immense influence in every district of Ireland. They felt themselves powerless to stop its proceedings, but they made an attempt to

punish its founder and master-spirit for using words to the effect that 'if Parliament will not attend to the Roman Catholic claims, I hope some Bolivar will arise to vindicate their rights.' The grand jury, however, threw out the bill, and O'Connell's victory over the Government, of course, contributed not a little to strengthen the association.

ing the peace and good order of the country. After a debate which lasted four nights, Goulbourn's motion was agreed to by 278 votes to 123, and the second and third readings of the bill (February 21st and 25th) also were carried by large majorities. Its progress through the House of Lords was still more rapid, and on the 7th of March it was read a third time and passed.

By this Act, which was to continue in force for three years, it was declared unlawful for all political associations to continue their sittings by adjournment or otherwise, or whether in full sittings, or

In these circumstances the Government resolved to take measures for the suppression of this formidable association. When the Parliament met on the 3rd of February, 1825, they introduced into the king's speech an expression of regret that 'associations by committee or officers, for more than should exist in Ireland which have adopted proceedings irreconcilable with the spirit of the constitution, and calculated, by exciting alarm and exasperating animosities, to endanger the peace of society and retard the course of national improvement.' 'His Majesty,' it was added, 'relies upon your wisdom to consider without delay the means of applying a remedy to this evil.' This reference to the Roman Catholic Association excited a good deal of keen discussion. Brougham denounced the insincerity that lurked under the plural 'associations.' 'It was merely a juggling attempt,' he said, 'to assume the appearance of dealing equal justice to the Orangemen and the members of the association. The Catholic Association will be strongly put down with one hand, while the Orange Association will only receive a gentle tap with the other.' In the Upper House the Marquis of Lansdowne cautioned ministers not to be hasty in repressing open complaint, and not to beguile themselves with the idea of curing a malady merely by removing a few of the outward symptoms.

Goulbourn, the Irish secretary, moved for leave to bring in the promised bill on the 10th of February, and described the association as composed mainly of priests, men of disappointed ambition, and the friends of Tone and Emmett, who levied an unauthorized tax by the agency of the priests, and employed their influence in endanger

fourteen days, or to levy contributions from His Majesty's subjects, or from any descriptions of them; or for any such societies to have different branches or to correspond with other societies, or to exclude members on the ground of religious faith, or to require oaths or declarations otherwise than as required by law. But the bill had scarcely become law when it was proved to be a mere dead letter. As soon as the session had closed, a new association was formed, 'which professed not to discuss the question of Catholic emancipation, but to be formed for the purposes of education and other charitable purposes.' It met once a week, and each meeting was regarded as a separate association, terminating on the day on which it had assembled. The collection of the rent went on, as before, in every parish; but it was professedly made for charitable purposes. These evasions of the Act were so effectual and so difficult to reach, that the Government made no attempt to enforce its provisions.

The only effect of this abortive attempt. to suppress the Roman Catholic Association was to stimulate the friends of emancipation. to increased efforts to remove the disabilities of the Romanists. On the 1st of March, 1825, Sir Francis Burdett brought the Roman Catholic question once more before the House of Commons, and carried his motion by a majority of thirteen. A bill

Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, one of the members representing that county, was appointed the successor of Mr. Charles Grant as President of the Board of Trade. He was a wealthy Irish landlord, popular among his tenantry, had gained great credit by the manner in which he had discharged at an earlier period of his political career the duty of Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, and had always supported the Roman Catholic claims; but he had now joined the Duke of Wellington's government, and was therefore deemed no longer

to give effect to his motion was introduced Protestants, and therefore legally qualified on the 23rd of March. Three of the Irish to sit in Parliament; but, on the reconmembers, representing Ulster constituencies, struction of the Wellington Cabinet, it sudwho had hitherto resisted the Roman denly occurred to O'Connell and the other Catholic claims, expressed their determina- leaders of the association that they might tion to support the bill, and it passed the show their electoral power in a still more Commons by a majority of 268 to 241. striking way by returning a Roman CathoIt was accompanied by two subsidiary lic candidate. The seat which they resolved measures termed its 'wings'-a bill to dis- to contest was that for the county of Clare. franchise the forty-shilling freeholders and to raise the qualification of a freehold elector to £10 per annum; and another making provision of £250,000 a year from the Treasury for the support of the Roman Catholic clergy. But the outcry from opposite sides against both of these proposals rather hindered than helped the repeal of the disabilities. In the end the bill was rejected by the Lords, as we have seen, mainly in consequence of the strong declaration made against it by the heir presumptive to the Crown. During Mr. Canning's short administra-worthy of the confidence of the association. tion, the Roman Catholics were quiet and hopeful. The Premier was their steady and powerful friend. He had given his cordial support to every proposal brought before Parliament for the removal of their disabilities, and had brought in a scheme of his own for the admission of Roman Catholic peers to the Upper House, which after passing the Commons had, like other measures of a similar kind, been rejected by the Peers. On the death of Canning the supporters of Roman Catholic emancipation still remained quiescent, knowing that his successor and most of his colleagues were friendly to their claims. But on the accession of the Duke of Wellington to the office of Prime Minister, and especially after the expulsion of the Canningites from the Cabinet, they became violent and aggressive. The election of 1826 had taught them their strength, and the priests and other agents of the association had successfully exerted their influence to induce the forty-shilling freeholders to vote against their landlords. The candidates whom they supported, however, were all

The influence which he possessed in the county of Clare from property, station, and past services to his constituents, it was supposed, must insure his triumphant return. It was clearly seen if, with these signal advantages in his favour, Mr. Fitzgerald were rejected, no other Protestant candidate had any chance of success in an Irish county. Mr. O'Connell, who was started against him, was an entire stranger in Clare, and was incapacitated by law from sitting in Parliament, so that the electors were aware that in voting for him their suffrages were thrown away. But though the law would prevent him from taking his seat in the House of Commons, it did not forbid his being returned to serve, and his return in such circumstances would, it was supposed, afford the Government and the country a signal proof of the absolute sway which the association exercised over the tenantry of Ireland. O'Connell accordingly took the field, and was formally proposed as a candidate for the county of Clare in opposition to Mr. Fitzgerald. Emissaries of the association

Mr.

were despatched to every parish and barony | tion, he added, supplied the 'manifest proof of the county. 'Every altar,' said Shiel, that the sense of a common grievance and 'was a tribune.' The priests, with only the sympathies of a common interest were one exception, supported O'Connell, and beginning to loosen the ties which connect earnestly exhorted their congregations to different classes of men in friendly relations vote for the advocate of their rights. So to each other-to weaken the force of local did many respectable Roman Catholics and personal attachments, and to unite the who never before interfered in the politics scattered elements of society into a homoof the association. The contest, Fitzgerald geneous and disciplined mass, yielding willsaid, was 'tremendous:' 'the county is mad.' ing obedience to the assumed authority of O'Connell, on his way to the scene of the superior intelligence hostile to the law and struggle, was met at Nenagh after mass, to the Government which administered it.' and escorted thence to the borders of Clare Even Lord Eldon, hostile as he was to the by a numerous body of horsemen and all Roman Catholic claims, was too shrewd not the traders of the city of Limerick. On to perceive the importance of this election. the day of election the forty-shilling free- This business,' he wrote, must bring the holders marched into Ennis, the county Roman Catholic question, which has been town, under the leadership of their parish so often discussed, to a crisis and a conclupriests, with the watchword, 'For God and sion;' and he had for some time foreseen O'Connell.' Mr. Fitzgerald, in a letter to and predicted that the repeal of the CorpoPeel, said, 'I have polled all the gentry ration and Test Acts would be followed at and all the fifty-pound freeholders-the no distant day by the abolition of the Roman gentry to a man. All the great interests Catholic disabilities. broke down, and the desertion has been universal. Such a scene as we have had! Such a tremendous prospect as it opens to us!' After carrying on this unequal contest for five days, Mr. Fitzgerald retired from the field, and O'Connell was declared duly elected. The sheriff made a special return, calling attention to the facts that O'Connell had declared before him that he was a Roman Catholic, and intended to continue a Roman Catholic, and that a protest had been made by the electors against his return. The election, however, was quite valid, though O'Connell's assertion that he could sit in Parliament and vote without taking the oaths was, as he must have known, quite untrue.

It was impossible for any politician, however wedded to his own convictions, to close his eyes to the lesson which the Clare election was fitted to teach. The Irish Romanists had learned their power, and there was no reason to suppose that they would refrain from exercising it. The prospect was indeed tremendous, as Peel said, re-echoing the words of Vesey Fitzgerald. The Clare elec

VOL. I.

The Act for the suppression of political or secret societies in Ireland had proved a failure; but even the slight restraint which it imposed upon the Orange and Roman Catholic Associations was now removed. The law expired in the month of July, and the latter immediately reassembled in its original form, and resumed its former agitation.' Its organization was extended to the remotest districts of Ireland, and embraced persons of all classes of society. In order to improve the victory it had gained in Clare, it passed a resolution requiring of every person who should at any time come forward as a candidate for an Irish constituency, that he must pledge himself to oppose the Duke of Wellington's ministry on every question until emancipation was conceded to support civil and religious liberty, and to vote for reform in Parliament. It was declared that every candidate refusing to take these pledges should be opposed by the members, the influence, and the funds of the Catholic Association. The association found the machinery required to carry out these resolutions ready 43

made to their hand. The Irish landlords | nal government grown up which, gradually had used the Act of 1793, which gave the superseding the legitimate authority, has franchise to the forty-shilling freeholders to armed itself with a complete dominator? promote their own short-sighted and selfish Is it nothing that the whole body of the purposes, and had multiplied freeholds to clergy are alienated from the state, and that the utmost of their ability, in order to the Catholic gentry and peasantry and increase their influence and obtain offices priesthood are all combined in one vast and other favours from the Government. confederacy? So much for Catholic indigThe tenants of the petty farms into which nation while we are at peace; and when these estates were subdivided had hereto- England shall be involved in war-I pause; fore gone to the poll like a flock of sheep it is not necessary that I should discuss under the direction of their landlords; but that branch of the question, or point to the now, under a far more powerful influence, cloud which, charged with thunder, is hangthey were driven to vote for the candidates ing over our heads.' supported by the priests.

It was not foreign, but civil war, that the A club was instituted in every parish, Government had now to dread. The Orangeand the gentry, as well as the clergy and men, as well as the Roman Catholics, had the farmers, were enrolled among its mem- been freed from restrictions on the expiry bers. It was to hold monthly meetings, to of the suppression law in July; and when keep a register of all electors within its the leaders of the Roman Catholic party bounds to be in readiness for future elec- resumed their open and ostentatious agitations, and to promote good order, perfect tion, new Orange Associations were immediobedience to the laws, political knowledge, ately formed under the name of Brunswick and liberal feeling. These were no mere Clubs, which collected a Protestant rent, words, of course. Perhaps the most decisive and in various other operations imitated the proof of O'Connell's influence at this critical Roman Catholic organization. The great moment, when the members of the Roman body of the Irish people were thus gathered Catholic Association and the Brunswick into two hostile camps, and the war-cry of Clubs were ready to fly at each other's religious enmity rose louder and louder. throats, was his suppression for the time of In Munster and Connaught, where the party feuds among the peasantry, and turn- Protestants were few in number, there was ing them from scenes of riot and bloodshed little danger of collision; but in the other to the achievement of a great national districts of Ireland, where Protestants and privilege and his suspension of the meet- Roman Catholics were more equally balings of his party-thus showing that the anced, and especially in Ulster, the strongpeace of Ireland was at his bidding. Irish hold of the Orange party, a spark might crime seemed suddenly and unaccountably easily have kindled a flame. 'Jack Lawless,' to have disappeared. What has Govern- as he was called, one of the leaders of the ment to dread from our resentment or Catholic Association, a rash, headstrong, peace?' said Shiel. An answer is sup- foolish Irishman, declared his intention of plied by what we behold. Does not a tre- visiting all the strongholds of the Orangemendous organization extend over the whole men,' evidently for the purpose of exciting island? Have not all the natural bonds by a riot. Accompanied by many thousands which men are tied together been broken of the lowest order of Roman Catholics, he and burst asunder? Are not all the rela- set out on a tour of agitation in Ulster, tions of society which exist elsewhere gone? visiting town after town, and addressing Has not property lost its influence? Has inflammatory harangues to applauding mobs. not rank been stripped of the respect which The Orangemen, nothing loath, accepted should belong to it?-and has not an inter- his challenge, and assembled in arins to