Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches Volume Iv Part 10

Now, Sir, if I make out these two propositions, it will follow that it is the const.i.tutional right and duty of the representatives of the nation to interfere; and I conceive that my n.o.ble friend, by moving for a Committee of the whole House, has proposed a mode of interference which is both parliamentary and convenient.

My first proposition, Sir, will scarcely be disputed. Both sides of the House are fully agreed in thinking that the condition of Ireland may well excite great anxiety and apprehension. That island, in extent about one fourth of the United Kingdom, in population more than one-fourth, superior probably in natural fertility to any area of equal size in Europe, possessed of natural facilities for trade such as can nowhere else be found in an equal extent of coast, an inexhaustible nursery of gallant soldiers, a country far more important to the prosperity, the strength, the dignity of this great empire than all our distant dependencies together, than the Canadas and the West Indies added to Southern Africa, to Australasia, to Ceylon, and to the vast dominions of the Moguls, that island, Sir, is acknowledged by all to be so ill affected and so turbulent that it must, in any estimate of our power, be not added but deducted. You admit that you govern that island, not as you govern England and Scotland, but as you govern your new conquests in Scinde; not by means of the respect which the people feel for the laws, but by means of bayonets, of artillery, of entrenched camps.

My first proposition, then, I take to be conceded. Ireland is in a dangerous state. The question which remains to be considered is, whether for the state in which Ireland is Her Majesty's Ministers are to be held accountable.

Now, Sir, I at once admit that the distempers of Ireland must in part be attributed to causes for which neither Her Majesty's present Ministers nor any public men now living can justly be held accountable. I will not trouble the House with a long dissertation on those causes. But it is necessary, I think, to take at least a rapid glance at them: and in order to do so, Sir, we must go back to a period not only anterior to the birth of the statesmen who are now arrayed against each other on the right and left of your chair, but anterior to the birth even of the great parties of which those statesmen are the leaders; anterior to the days when the names of Tory and Whig, of court party and country party, of cavalier and roundhead, came into use; anterior to the existence of those Puritans to whom the honourable Member for Shrewsbury (Mr Disraeli.), in a very ingenious speech, ascribed all the calamities of Ireland.

The primary cause is, no doubt, the manner in which Ireland became subject to the English crown. The annexation was effected by conquest, and by conquest of a peculiar kind. It was not a conquest such as we have been accustomed to see in modern Europe. It was not a conquest like that which united Artois and Franche Comte to France, or Silesia to Prussia. It was the conquest of a race by a race, such a conquest as that which established the dominion of the Spaniard over the American Indian, or of the Mahratta over the peasant of Guzerat or Tanjore. Of all forms of tyranny, I believe that the worst is that of a nation over a nation. Populations separated by seas and mountain ridges may call each other natural enemies, may wage long wars with each other, may recount with pride the victories which they have gained over each other, and point to the flags, the guns, the s.h.i.+ps which they have won from each other. But no enmity that ever existed between such populations approaches in bitterness the mutual enmity felt by populations which are locally intermingled, but which have never morally and politically amalgamated; and such were the Englishry and the Irishry. Yet it might have been hoped that the lapse of time and the progress of civilisation would have effaced the distinction between the oppressors and the oppressed. Our island had suffered cruelly from the same evil. Here the Saxon had trampled on the Celt, the Dane on the Saxon, the Norman on Celt, Saxon, and Dane. Yet in the course of ages all the four races had been fused together to form the great English people. A similar fusion would probably have taken place in Ireland, but for the Reformation. The English settlers adopted the Protestant doctrines which were received in England. The Aborigines alone, among all the nations of the north of Europe, adhered to the ancient faith. Thus the line of demarcation between the two populations was deepened and widened. The old enmity was reinforced by a new enmity stronger still. Then came those events to which the honourable Member for Shrewsbury referred. The spirit of liberty in England was closely allied with the spirit of Puritanism, and was mortally hostile to the Papacy. Such men as Hampden, Vane, Milton, Locke, though zealous generally for civil and spiritual freedom, yet held that the Roman Catholic wors.h.i.+p had no claim to toleration. On the other hand, all the four kings of the House of Stuart showed far more favour to Roman Catholics than to any cla.s.s of Protestant nonconformists. James the First at one time had some hopes of effecting a reconciliation with the Vatican. Charles the First entered into secret engagements to grant an indulgence to Roman Catholics. Charles the Second was a concealed Roman Catholic. James the Second was an avowed Roman Catholic. Consequently, through the whole of the seventeenth century, the freedom of Ireland and the slavery of England meant the same thing. The watchwords, the badges, the names, the places, the days, which in the mind of an Englishman were a.s.sociated with deliverance, prosperity, national dignity, were in the mind of an Irishman a.s.sociated with bondage, ruin, and degradation. The memory of William the Third, the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, are instances. I was much struck by a circ.u.mstance which occurred on a day which I have every reason to remember with grat.i.tude and pride, the day on which I had the high honour of being declared one of the first two members for the great borough of Leeds. My chair was covered with orange ribands. The horses which drew it could hardly be seen for the profusion of orange-coloured finery with which they were adorned. Orange c.o.c.kades were in all the hats; orange favours at all the windows. And my supporters, I need not say, were men who had, like myself, been zealous for Catholic emanc.i.p.ation. I could not help remarking that the badge seemed rather incongruous. But I was told that the friends of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation in Yorks.h.i.+re had always rallied under the orange banner, that orange was the colour of Sir George Savile, who brought in that bill which caused the No Popery riots of 1780, and that the very chair in which I sate was the chair in which Lord Milton, now Earl Fitzwilliam, had triumphed after the great victory which he won in 1807 over the No Popery party, then headed by the house of Harewood. I thought how different an effect that procession would have produced at Limerick or Cork, with what howls of rage and hatred the Roman Catholic population of those cities would have pursued that orange flag which, to every Roman Catholic in Yorks.h.i.+re, was the memorial of contests maintained in favour of his own dearest rights. This circ.u.mstance, however slight, well ill.u.s.trates the singular contrast between the history of England and the history of Ireland.

Well, Sir, twice during the seventeenth century the Irish rose up against the English colony. Twice they were completely put down; and twice they were severely chastised. The first rebellion was crushed by Oliver Cromwell; the second by William the Third. Those great men did not use their victory exactly in the same way. The policy of Cromwell was wise, and strong, and straightforward, and cruel. It was comprised in one word, which, as Clarendon tells us, was often in the mouths of the Englishry of that time. That word was extirpation. The object of Cromwell was to make Ireland thoroughly Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. If he had lived twenty years longer he might perhaps have accomplished that work: but he died while it was incomplete; and it died with him.

The policy of William, or to speak more correctly, of those whose inclinations William was under the necessity of consulting, was less able, less energetic, and, though more humane in seeming, perhaps not more humane in reality. Extirpation was not attempted. The Irish Roman Catholics were permitted to live, to be fruitful, to replenish the earth: but they were doomed to be what the Helots were in Sparta, what the Greeks were under the Ottoman, what the blacks now are at New York.

Every man of the subject caste was strictly excluded from public trust.

Take what path he might in life, he was crossed at every step by some vexatious restriction. It was only by being obscure and inactive that he could, on his native soil, be safe. If he aspired to be powerful and honoured, he must begin by being an exile. If he pined for military glory, he might gain a cross or perhaps a Marshal's staff in the armies of France or Austria. If his vocation was to politics, he might distinguish himself in the diplomacy of Italy or Spain. But at home he was a mere Gibeonite, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. The statute book of Ireland was filled with enactments which furnish to the Roman Catholics but too good a ground for recriminating on us when we talk of the barbarities of Bonner and Gardiner; and the harshness of those odious laws was aggravated by a more odious administration. For, bad as the legislators were, the magistrates were worse still. In those evil times originated that most unhappy hostility between landlord and tenant, which is one of the peculiar curses of Ireland. Oppression and turbulence reciprocally generated each other. The combination of rustic tyrants was resisted by gangs of rustic banditti. Courts of law and juries existed only for the benefit of the dominant sect. Those priests who were revered by millions as their natural advisers and guardians, as the only authorised expositors of Christian truth, as the only authorised dispensers of the Christian sacraments, were treated by the squires and squireens of the ruling faction as no good-natured man would treat the vilest beggar. In this manner a century pa.s.sed away. Then came the French Revolution and the great awakening of the mind of Europe. It would have been wonderful indeed if, when the happiest and most tranquil nations were agitated by vague discontents and vague hopes, Ireland had remained at rest. Jacobinism, it is true, was not a very natural ally of the Roman Catholic religion. But common enmities produce strange coalitions; and a strange coalition was formed. There was a third great rising of the aboriginal population of the island against English and Protestant ascendency. That rising was put down by the sword; and it became the duty of those who were at the head of affairs to consider how the victory should be used.

I shall not be suspected of being partial to the memory of Mr Pitt. But I cannot refuse to him the praise both of wisdom and of humanity, when I compare the plan which he formed in that hour of triumph with the plans of those English rulers who had before him governed Ireland. Of Mr Pitt's plan the Union was a part, an excellent and an essential part indeed, but still only a part. We shall do great injustice both to his head and to his heart, if we forget that he was permitted to carry into effect only some unconnected portions of a comprehensive and well-concerted scheme. He wished to blend, not only the parliaments, but the nations, and to make the two islands one in interest and affection.

With that view the Roman Catholic disabilities were to be removed: the Roman Catholic priests were to be placed in a comfortable and honourable position; and measures were to be taken for the purpose of giving to Roman Catholics the benefits of liberal education. In truth, Mr Pitt's opinions on those subjects had, to a great extent, been derived from a mind even more powerful and capacious than his own, from the mind of Mr Burke. If the authority of these two great men had prevailed, I believe that the Union with Ireland would now have been as secure, and as much beyond the reach of agitation, as the Union with Scotland. The Parliament in College Green would have been remembered as what it was, the most tyrannical, the most venal, the most unprincipled a.s.sembly that ever sate on the face of this earth. I do not think that, by saying this, I can give offence to any gentleman from Ireland, however zealous for Repeal he may be: for I only repeat the language of Wolfe Tone.

Wolfe Tone said that he had seen more deliberative a.s.semblies than most men; that he had seen the English Parliament, the American Congress, the French Council of Elders and Council of Five Hundred, the Batavian Convention; but that he had nowhere found anything like the baseness and impudence of the scoundrels, as he called them, at Dublin. If Mr Pitt's whole plan had been carried into execution, that infamous parliament, that scandal to the name of parliament, would have perished unregretted; and the last day of its existence would have been remembered by the Roman Catholics of Ireland as the first day of their civil and religious liberty. The great boon which he would have conferred on them would have been gratefully received, because it could not have been ascribed to fear, because it would have been a boon bestowed by the powerful on the weak, by the victor on the vanquished. Unhappily, of all his projects for the benefit of Ireland the Union alone was carried into effect; and therefore that Union was an Union only in name. The Irish found that they had parted with at least the name and show of independence, and that for this sacrifice of national pride they were to receive no compensation. The Union, which ought to have been a.s.sociated in their minds with freedom and justice, was a.s.sociated only with disappointed hopes and forfeited pledges. Yet it was not even then too late. It was not too late in 1813. It was not too late in 1821. It was not too late in 1825. Yes: if, even in 1825, some men who then were, as they now are, high in the service of the crown, could have made up their minds to do what they were forced to do four years later, that great work of conciliation which Mr Pitt had meditated might have been accomplished.

The machinery of agitation was not yet fully organized: the Government was under no strong pressure; and therefore concession might still have been received with thankfulness. That opportunity was suffered to escape; and it never returned.

In 1829, at length, concessions were made, were made largely, were made without the conditions which Mr Pitt would undoubtedly have demanded, and to which, if demanded by Mr Pitt, the whole body of Roman Catholics would have eagerly a.s.sented. But those concessions were made reluctantly, made ungraciously, made under duress, made from the mere dread of civil war. How then was it possible that they should produce contentment and repose? What could be the effect of that sudden and profuse liberality following that long and obstinate resistance to the most reasonable demands, except to teach the Irishman that he could obtain redress only by turbulence? Could he forget that he had been, during eight and twenty years, supplicating Parliament for justice, urging those unanswerable arguments which prove that the rights of conscience ought to be held sacred, claiming the performance of promises made by ministers and princes, and that he had supplicated, argued, claimed the performance of promises in vain? Could he forget that two generations of the most profound thinkers, the most brilliant wits, the most eloquent orators, had written and spoken for him in vain? Could he forget that the greatest statesman who took his part had paid dear for their generosity? Mr Pitt endeavoured to redeem his pledge; and he was driven from office. Lord Grey and Lord Grenville endeavoured to do but a very small part of what Mr Pitt had thought right and expedient; and they were driven from office. Mr Canning took the same side; and his reward was to be worried to death by the party of which he was the brightest ornament. At length, when he was gone, the Roman Catholics began to look, not to cabinets and parliaments, but to themselves. They displayed a formidable array of physical force, and yet kept within, just within, the limits of the law. The consequence was that, in two years, more than any prudent friend had ventured to demand for them was granted to them by their enemies. Yes; within two years after Mr Canning had been laid in the transept near us, all that he would have done, and more than he could have done, was done by his persecutors. How was it possible that the whole Roman Catholic population of Ireland should not take up the notion that from England, or at least from the party which then governed and which now governs England, nothing is to be got by reason, by entreaty, by patient endurance, but everything by intimidation? That tardy repentance deserved no grat.i.tude, and obtained none. The whole machinery of agitation was complete and in perfect order. The leaders had tasted the pleasures of popularity; the mult.i.tude had tasted the pleasures of excitement. Both the demagogue and his audience felt a craving for the daily stimulant. Grievances enough remained, G.o.d knows, to serve as pretexts for agitation: and the whole conduct of the Government had led the sufferers to believe that by agitation alone could any grievance be removed.

Such, Sir, is the history of the rise and progress of the disorders of Ireland. Misgovernment, lasting without interruption from the reign of Henry the Second to the reign of William the Fourth, has left us an immense ma.s.s of discontent, which will, no doubt, in ordinary times, make the task of any statesman whom the Queen may call to power sufficiently difficult. But though this be true, it is not less true, that the immediate causes of the extraordinary agitation which alarms us at this moment is to be found in the misconduct of Her Majesty's present advisers. For, Sir, though Ireland is always combustible, Ireland is not always on fire. We must distinguish between the chronic complaints which are to be attributed to remote causes, and the acute attack which is brought on by recent imprudence. For though there is always a predisposition to disease in that unhappy society, the violent paroxysms come only at intervals. I must own that I am indebted for some of my imagery to the right honourable Baronet the First Lord of the Treasury.

When he sate on this bench, and was only a candidate for the great place which he now fills, he compared himself to a medical man at the bedside of a patient. Continuing his metaphor, I may say that his prognosis, his diagnosis, his treatment, have all been wrong. I do not deny that the case was difficult. The sufferer was of a very ill habit of body, and had formerly suffered many things of many physicians, and, among others, I must say, of the right honourable Baronet himself. Still the malady had, a very short time ago, been got under, and kept under by the judicious use of lenitives; and there was reason to hope that if that salutary regimen had been steadily followed, there would have been a speedy improvement in the general health. Unhappily, the new State hygeist chose to apply irritants which have produced a succession of convulsive fits, each more violent than that which preceded it. To drop the figure, it is impossible to doubt that Lord Melbourne's government was popular with the great body of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. It is impossible to doubt that the two Viceroys whom he sent to Ireland were more loved and honoured by the Irish people than any Viceroys before whom the sword of state has ever been borne. Under the late Government, no doubt, the empire was threatened by many dangers; but, to whatever quarter the Ministers might look with uneasy apprehension, to Ireland they could always look with confidence. When bad men raised disturbances here, when a Chartist rabble fired on the Queen's soldiers, numerous regiments could, without the smallest risk, be spared from Ireland. When a rebellion broke out in one of our colonies,--a rebellion too which it might have been expected that the Irish would regard with favour, for it was a rebellion of Roman Catholics against Protestant rulers,--even then Ireland was true to the general interests of the empire, and troops were sent from Munster and Connaught to put down insurrection in Canada. No person will deny that if, in 1840, we had unhappily been forced into war, and if a hostile army had landed in Bantry Bay, the whole population of Cork and Tipperary would have risen up to defend the throne of Her Majesty, and would have offered to the invaders a resistance as determined as would have been offered by the men of Kent or Norfolk. And by what means was this salutary effect produced? Not by great legislative reforms: for, unfortunately, that Government, though it had the will, had not the power to carry such reforms against the sense of a strong minority in this House, and of a decided majority of the Peers. No, Sir; this effect was produced merely by the wisdom, justice, and humanity with which the existing law, defective as it might be, was administered. The late Government, calumniated and thwarted at every turn, contending against the whole influence of the Established Church, and of the great body of the n.o.bility and landed gentry, yet did show a disposition to act kindly and fairly towards Ireland, and did, to the best of its power, treat Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. If we had been as strong as our successors in parliamentary support, if we had been able to induce the two Houses to follow in legislation the same principles by which we were guided in administration, the Union with Ireland would now have been as secure from the a.s.saults of agitators as the Union with Scotland. But this was not to be. During six years an opposition, formidable in numbers, formidable in ability, selected as the especial object of the fiercest and most pertinacious attacks those very acts of the Government which had, after centuries of mutual animosity, half reconciled the two islands. Those Lords Lieutenant who, in Ireland, were venerated as no preceding Lord Lieutenant had ever been venerated, were here reviled as no preceding Lord Lieutenant had ever been reviled. Every action, every word which was applauded by the nation committed to their care, was here imputed to them as a crime. Every bill framed by the advisers of the Crown for the benefit of Ireland was either rejected or mutilated. A few Roman Catholics of distinguished merit were appointed to situations which were indeed below their just claims, but which were higher than any member of their Church had filled during many generations. Two or three Roman Catholics were sworn of the Council; one took his seat at the Board of Treasury; another at the Board of Admiralty. There was great joy in Ireland; and no wonder.

What had been done was not much; but the ban had been taken off; the Emanc.i.p.ation Act, which had been little more than a dead letter, was at length a reality. But in England all the underlings of the great Tory party set up a howl of rage and hatred worthy of Lord George Gordon's No Popery mob. The right honourable Baronet now at the head of the Treasury, with his usual prudence, abstained from joining in the cry, and was content to listen to it, to enjoy it, and to profit by it. But some of those who ranked next to him among the chiefs of the opposition, did not imitate his politic reserve. One great man denounced the Irish as aliens. Another called them minions of Popery. Those teachers of religion to whom millions looked up with affection and reverence were called by the Protestant press demon priests and surpliced ruffians, and were denounced from the Protestant pulpit as pontiffs of Baal, as false prophets who were to be slain with the sword. We were reminded that a Queen of the chosen people had in the old time patronised the ministers of idolatry, and that her blood had been given to the dogs. Not content with throwing out or frittering down every law beneficial to Ireland, not content with censuring in severe terms every act of the executive government which gave satisfaction in Ireland, you, yes you, who now fill the great offices of state, a.s.sumed the offensive. From obstruction you proceeded to aggression. You brought in a bill which you called a Bill for the Registration of Electors in Ireland. We then told you that it was a bill for the wholesale disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the electors of Ireland. We then proved incontrovertibly that, under pretence of reforming the law of procedure, you were really altering the substantive law; that, by making it impossible for any man to vindicate his right to vote without trouble, expense, and loss of time, you were really taking away the votes of tens of thousands. You denied all this then. You very coolly admit it all now. Am I to believe that you did know it as well in 1841 as in 1844? Has one new fact been brought to light? Has one argument been discovered which was not, three or four years ago, urged twenty, thirty, forty times in this House? Why is it that you have, when in power, abstained from proposing that change in the mode of registration which, when you were out of power, you represented as indispensable? You excuse yourselves by saying that now the responsibilities of office are upon you. In plain words, your trick has served its purpose. Your object,--for I will do justice to your patriotism,--your object was not to ruin your country, but to get in; and you are in. Such public virtue deserved such a reward, a reward which has turned out a punishment, a reward which ought to be, while the world lasts, a warning to unscrupulous ambition. Many causes contributed to place you in your present situation. But the chief cause was, beyond all doubt, the prejudice which you excited amongst the English against the just and humane manner in which the late Ministers governed Ireland.

In your impatience for office, you called up the devil of religious intolerance, a devil more easily evoked than dismissed. He did your work; and he holds your bond. You once found him an useful slave: but you have since found him a hard master. It was pleasant, no doubt, to be applauded by high churchmen and low churchmen, by the Sheldonian Theatre and by Exeter Hall. It was pleasant to be described as the champions of the Protestant faith, as the men who stood up for the Gospel against that spurious liberality which made no distinction between truth and falsehood. It was pleasant to hear your opponents called by every nickname that is to be found in the foul vocabulary of the Reverend Hugh Mcneill. It was pleasant to hear that they were the allies of Antichrist, that they were the servants of the man of sin, that they were branded with the mark of the Beast. But when all this slander and scurrility had raised you to power, when you found that you had to manage millions of those who had been, year after year, constantly insulted and defamed by yourselves and your lacqueys, your hearts began to fail you. Now you tell us that you have none but kind and respectful feelings towards the Irish Roman Catholics, that you wish to conciliate them, that you wish to carry the Emanc.i.p.ation Act into full effect, that nothing would give you more pleasure than to place on the bench of justice a Roman Catholic lawyer of conservative politics, that nothing would give you more pleasure than to place at the Board of Treasury, or at the Board of Admiralty, some Roman Catholic gentleman of conservative politics, distinguished by his talents for business or debate. Your only reason, you a.s.sure us, for not promoting Roman Catholics is that all the Roman Catholics are your enemies; and you ask whether any Minister can be expected to promote his enemies. For my part I do not doubt that you would willingly promote Roman Catholics: for, as I have said, I give you full credit for not wis.h.i.+ng to do your country more harm than is necessary for the purpose of turning out and keeping out the Whigs.

I also fully admit that you cannot be blamed for not promoting your enemies. But what I want to know is, how it happens that all the Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom are your enemies. Was such a thing ever heard of before? Here are six or seven millions of people of all professions, of all trades, of all grades of rank, fortune, intellect, education. Begin with the premier Peer, the Earl Marshal of the realm, the chief of the Howards, the heir of the Mowbrays and Fitzalans, and go down through earls, barons, baronets, lawyers, and merchants, to the very poorest peasant that eats his potatoes without salt in Mayo; and all these millions to a man are arrayed against the Government. How do you explain this? Is there any natural connection between the Roman Catholic theology and the political theories held by Whigs and by reformers more democratical than the Whigs? Not only is there no natural connection, but there is a natural opposition. Of all Christian sects the Roman Catholic Church holds highest the authority of antiquity, of tradition, of immemorial usage. Her spirit is eminently conservative, nay, in the opinion of all Protestants, conservative to an unreasonable and pernicious extent. A man who has been taught from childhood to regard with horror all innovation in religion is surely less likely than another man to be a bold innovator in politics. It is probable that a zealous Roman Catholic, if there were no disturbing cause, would be a Tory; and the Roman Catholics were all Tories till you persecuted them into Whiggism and Radicalism. In the civil war, how many Roman Catholics were there in Fairfax's army? I believe, not one. They were all under the banner of Charles the First. When a reward of five thousand pounds was offered for Charles the Second alive or dead, when to conceal him was to run a most serious risk of the gallows, it was among Roman Catholics that he found shelter. It has been the same in other countries. When everything else in France was prostrate before the Jacobins, the Roman Catholic peasantry of Brittany and Poitou still stood up for the House of Bourbon. Against the gigantic power of Napoleon, the Roman Catholic peasantry of the Tyrol maintained unaided the cause of the House of Hapsburg. It would be easy to multiply examples. And can we believe, in defiance of all reason and of all history, that, if the Roman Catholics of the United Kingdom had been tolerably well governed, they would not have been attached to the Government? In my opinion the Tories never committed so great an error as when they scourged away and spurned away the Roman Catholics. Mr Burke understood this well. The sentiment which, towards the close of his life, held the entire possession of his mind, was a horror,--a morbid horror it at last became,--of Jacobinism, and of everything that seemed to him to tend towards Jacobinism, and, like a great statesman and philosopher,--for such he was even in his errors,--he perceived, and he taught Mr Pitt to perceive, that, in the war against Jacobinism, the Roman Catholics were the natural allies of royalty and aristocracy.

But the help of these allies was contumeliously rejected by those politicians who make themselves ridiculous by carousing on Mr Pitt's birthday, while they abjure all Mr Pitt's principles. The consequence is, as you are forced to own, that there is not in the whole kingdom a Roman Catholic of note who is your friend. Therefore, whatever your inclinations may be, you must intrust power in Ireland to Protestants, to Ultra-Protestants, to men who, whether they belong to Orange lodges or not, are in spirit Orangemen. Every appointment which you make increases the discontent of the Roman Catholics. The more discontented they are, the less you can venture to employ them. The way in which you treated them while you were in opposition has raised in them such a dislike and distrust of you that you cannot carry the Emanc.i.p.ation Act into effect, though, as you tell us, and as I believe, you sincerely desire to do so. As respects the offices of which you dispose, that Act is null and void. Of all the boons which that Act purports to bestow on Roman Catholics they really enjoy only one, admission to Parliament: and that they would not enjoy if you had been able three years ago to carry your Irish Registration Bill. You have wounded national feeling: you have wounded religious feeling: and the animosity which you have roused shows itself in a hundred ways, some of which I abhor, some of which I lament, but at none of which I can wonder. They are the natural effects of insult and injury on quick and ill regulated sensibility. You, for your own purposes, inflamed the public mind of England against Ireland; and you have no right to be surprised by finding that the public mind of Ireland is inflamed against England. You called a fourth part of the people of the United Kingdom aliens: and you must not blame them for feeling and acting like aliens. You have filled every public department with their enemies. What then could you expect but that they would set up against your Lord Lieutenant and your official hierarchy a more powerful chief and a more powerful organization of their own? They remember, and it would be strange indeed if they had forgotten, what under the same chief, and by a similar organization, they extorted from you in 1829; and they are determined to try whether you are bolder and more obstinate now than then.

Such are the difficulties of this crisis. To a great extent they are of your own making. And what have you done in order to get out of them?

Great statesmen have sometimes committed great mistakes, and yet have by wisdom and firmness extricated themselves from the embarra.s.sments which those mistakes had caused. Let us see whether you are ent.i.tled to rank among such statesmen. And first, what,--commanding, as you do, a great majority in this and in the other House of Parliament,--what have you done in the way of legislation? The answer is very short and simple. The beginning and end of all your legislation for Ireland will be found in the Arms Act of last session. You will hardly call that conciliation; and I shall not call it coercion. It was mere petty annoyance. It satisfied n.o.body. We called on you to redress the wrongs of Ireland.

Many of your own friends called on you to stifle her complaints. One n.o.ble and learned person was so much disgusted by your remissness that he employed his own great abilities and his own valuable time in framing a new coercion bill for you. You were deaf alike to us and to him.

The whole fruit of your legislative wisdom was this one paltry teasing police regulation.

Your executive administration through the whole recess has been one long blunder. The way in which your Lord Lieutenant and his advisers acted about the Clontarf meeting would alone justify a severe vote of censure.

The n.o.ble lord, the Secretary for the Colonies (Lord Stanley.), has told us that the Government did all that was possible to caution the people against attending that meeting, and that it would be unreasonable to censure men for not performing impossibilities. Now, Sir, the ministers themselves acknowledge that, as early as the morning of the Friday which preceded the day fixed for the meeting, the Lord Lieutenant determined to put forth a proclamation against the meeting. Yet the proclamation was not published in Dublin and the suburbs till after nightfall on Sat.u.r.day. The meeting was fixed for the Sunday morning. Will any person have the hardihood to a.s.sert that it was impossible to have a proclamation drawn up, printed and circulated, in twenty-four hours, nay in six hours? It is idle to talk of the necessity of weighing well the words of such a doc.u.ment. The Lord Lieutenant should have weighed well the value of the lives of his royal mistress's subjects. Had he done so, there can be no doubt that the proclamation might have been placarded on every wall in and near Dublin early in the forenoon of the Sat.u.r.day. The negligence of the Government would probably have caused the loss of many lives but for the interposition of the man whom you are persecuting.

Fortune stood your friend; and he stood your friend; and thus a slaughter more terrible than that which took place twenty-five years ago at Manchester was averted.

But you were incorrigible. No sooner had you, by strange good luck, got out of one sc.r.a.pe, than you made haste to get into another, out of which, as far as I can see, you have no chance of escape. You inst.i.tuted the most unwise, the most unfortunate of all state prosecutions. You seem not to have at all known what you were doing. It appears never to have occurred to you that there was any difference between a criminal proceeding which was certain to fix the attention of the whole civilised world and an ordinary qui tam action for a penalty. The evidence was such and the law such that you were likely to get a verdict and a judgment; and that was enough for you. Now, Sir, in such a case as this, the probability of getting the verdict and the judgment is only a part, and a very small part, of what a statesman ought to consider. Before you determined to bring the most able, the most powerful, the most popular of your opponents to the bar as a criminal, on account of the manner in which he had opposed you, you ought to have asked yourselves whether the decision which you expected to obtain from the tribunals would be ratified by the voice of your own country, of foreign countries, of posterity; whether the general opinion of mankind might not be that, though you were legally in the right, you were morally in the wrong. It was no common person that you were bent on punis.h.i.+ng. About that person I feel, I own, considerable difficulty in saying anything. He is placed in a situation which would prevent generous enemies, which has prevented all the members of this House, with one ignominious exception, from a.s.sailing him acrimoniously. I will try, in speaking of him, to pay the respect due to eminence and to misfortune without violating the respect due to truth. I am convinced that the end which he is pursuing is not only mischievous but unattainable: and some of the means which he has stooped to use for the purpose of attaining that end I regard with deep disapprobation. But it is impossible for me not to see that the place which he holds in the estimation of his countrymen is such as no popular leader in our history, I might perhaps say in the history of the world, has ever attained. Nor is the interest which he inspires confined to Ireland or to the United Kingdom. Go where you will on the Continent: visit any coffee house: dine at any public table: embark on board of any steamboat: enter any diligence, any railway carriage: from the moment that your accent shows you to be an Englishman, the very first question asked by your companions, be they what they may, physicians, advocates, merchants, manufacturers, or what we should call yeomen, is certain to be "What will be done with Mr O'Connell?" Look over any file of French journals; and you will see what a s.p.a.ce he occupies in the eyes of the French people. It is most unfortunate, but it is a truth, and a truth which we ought always to bear in mind, that there is among our neighbours a feeling about the connection between England and Ireland not very much unlike the feeling which exists here about the connection between Russia and Poland. All the sympathies of all continental politicians are with the Irish. We are regarded as the oppressors, and the Irish as the oppressed. An insurrection in Ireland would have the good wishes of a great majority of the people of Europe. And, Sir, it is natural that it should be so. For the cause of the Irish repealers has two different aspects, a democratic aspect, and a Roman Catholic aspect, and is therefore regarded with favour by foreigners of almost every shade of opinion. The extreme left,--to use the French nomenclature,--wishes success to a great popular movement against the throne and the aristocracy. The extreme right wishes success to a movement headed by the bishops and priests of the true Church against a heretical government and a heretical hierarchy. The consequence is that, in a contest with Ireland, you will not have, out of this island, a single well-wisher in the world. I do not say this in order to intimidate you. But I do say that, on an occasion on which all Christendom was watching your conduct with an unfriendly and suspicious eye, you should have carefully avoided everything that looked like foul play. Unhappily you were too much bent on gaining the victory; and you have gained a victory more disgraceful and disastrous than any defeat.

Mr O'Connell has been convicted: but you cannot deny that he has been wronged: you cannot deny that irregularities have been committed, or that the effect of those irregularities has been to put you in a better situation and him in a worse situation than the law contemplated. It is admitted that names which ought to have been in the jury-list were not there. It is admitted that all, or almost all, the names which were wrongfully excluded were the names of Roman Catholics. As to the number of those who were wrongfully excluded there is some dispute. An affidavit has been produced which puts the number at twenty-seven. The right honourable gentleman, the Recorder of Dublin, who of course puts the number as low as he conscientiously can, admits twenty-four.

But some gentlemen maintain that this irregularity, though doubtless blamable, cannot have had any effect on the event of the trial. What, they ask, are twenty or twenty-seven names in seven hundred and twenty?

Why, Sir, a very simple arithmetical calculation will show that the irregularity was of grave importance. Of the seven hundred and twenty, forty-eight were to be selected by lot, and then reduced by alternate striking to twelve. The forty-eighth part of seven hundred and twenty is fifteen. If, therefore, there had been fifteen more Roman Catholics in the jury-list, it would have been an even chance that there would have been one Roman Catholic more among the forty-eight. If there had been twenty-seven more Roman Catholics in the list, it would have been almost an even chance that there would have been two Roman Catholics more among the forty-eight. Is it impossible, is it improbable that, but for this trick or this blunder,--I will not now inquire which,--the result of the trial might have been different? For, remember the power which the law gives to a single juror. He can, if his mind is fully made up, prevent a conviction. I heard murmurs when I used the word trick. Am I not justified in feeling a doubt which it is quite evident that Mr Justice Perrin feels? He is reported to have said,--and I take the report of newspapers favourable to the Government,--he is reported to have said that there had been great carelessness, great neglect of duty, that there were circ.u.mstances which raised grave suspicion, and that he was not prepared to say that the irregularity was accidental. The n.o.ble lord the Secretary for the Colonies has admonished us to pay respect to the judges. I am sure that I pay the greatest respect to everything that falls from Mr Justice Perrin. He must know much better than I, much better than any Englishman, what artifices are likely to be employed by Irish functionaries for the purpose of packing a jury; and he tells us that he is not satisfied that this irregularity was the effect of mere inadvertence. But, says the right honourable Baronet, the Secretary for the Home Department, "I am not responsible for this irregularity." Most true: and n.o.body holds the right honourable Baronet responsible for it.

But he goes on to say, "I lament this irregularity most sincerely: for I believe that it has raised a prejudice against the administration of justice." Exactly so. That is just what I say. I say that a prejudice has been created against the administration of justice. I say that a taint of suspicion has been thrown on the verdict which you have obtained. And I ask whether it is right and decent in you to avail yourselves of a verdict on which such a taint has been thrown? The only wise, the only honourable course open to you was to say, "A mistake has been committed: that mistake has given us an unfair advantage; and of that advantage we will not make use." Unhappily, the time when you might have taken this course, and might thus to a great extent have repaired your former errors, has been suffered to elapse.

Well, you had forty-eight names taken by lot from this mutilated jury-list: and then came the striking. You struck out all the Roman Catholic names: and you give us your reasons for striking out these names, reasons which I do not think it worth while to examine. The real question which you should have considered was this: Can a great issue between two hostile religions,--for such the issue was,--be tried in a manner above all suspicion by a jury composed exclusively of men of one of those religions? I know that in striking out the Roman Catholics you did nothing that was not according to technical rules. But my great charge against you is that you have looked on this whole case in a technical point of view, that you have been attorneys when you should have been statesmen. The letter of the law was doubtless with you; but not the n.o.ble spirit of the law. The jury de medietate linguae is of immemorial antiquity among us. Suppose that a Dutch sailor at Wapping is accused of stabbing an Englishman in a brawl. The fate of the culprit is decided by a mixed body, by six Englishmen and six Dutchmen. Such were the securities which the wisdom and justice of our ancestors gave to aliens. You are ready enough to call Mr O'Connell an alien when it serves your purposes to do so. You are ready enough to inflict on the Irish Roman Catholic all the evils of alienage. But the one privilege, the one advantage of alienage, you deny him. In a case which of all cases most require a jury de medietate, in a case which sprang out of the mutual hostility of races and sects, you pack a jury all of one race and all of one sect. Why, if you were determined to go on with this unhappy prosecution, not have a common jury? There was no difficulty in having such a jury; and among the jurors might have been some respectable Roman Catholics who were not members of the Repeal a.s.sociation. A verdict of Not Guilty from such a jury would have done you infinitely less harm than the verdict of Guilty which you have succeeded in obtaining. Yes, you have obtained a verdict of Guilty; but you have obtained that verdict from twelve men brought together by illegal means, and selected in such a manner that their decision can inspire no confidence. You have obtained that verdict by the help of a Chief Justice of whose charge I can hardly trust myself to speak. To do him right, however, I will say that his charge was not, as it has been called, unprecedented; for it bears a very close resemblance to some charges which may be found in the state trials of the reign of Charles the Second. However, with this jury-list, with this jury, with this judge, you have a verdict. And what have you gained by it? Have you pacified Ireland? No doubt there is just at the present moment an apparent tranquillity; but it is a tranquillity more alarming than turbulence. The Irish will be quiet till you begin to put the sentence of imprisonment into execution, because, feeling the deepest interest in the fate of their persecuted Tribune, they will do nothing that can be prejudicial to him. But will they be quiet when the door of a gaol has been closed on him? Is it possible to believe that an agitator, whom they adored while his agitation was a source of profit to him, will lose his hold on their affections by being a martyr in what they consider as their cause? If I, who am strongly attached to the Union, who believe that the Repeal of the Union would be fatal to the empire, and who think Mr O'Connell's conduct highly reprehensible, cannot conscientiously say that he has had a fair trial, if the prosecutors themselves are forced to own that things have happened which have excited a prejudice against the verdict and the judgment, what must be the feelings of the people of Ireland, who believe not merely that he is guiltless, but that he is the best friend that they ever had? He will no longer be able to harangue them: but his wrongs will stir their blood more than his eloquence ever did; nor will he in confinement be able to exercise that influence which has so often restrained them, even in their most excited mood, from proceeding to acts of violence.

Turn where we will, the prospect is gloomy; and that which of all things most disturbs me is this, that your experience, sharp as it has been, does not seem to have made you wiser. All that I have been able to collect from your declarations leads me to apprehend that, while you continue to hold power, the future will be of a piece with the past. As to your executive administration, you hold out no hope that it will be other than it has been. If we look back, your only remedies for the disorders of Ireland have been an impolitic state prosecution, an unfair state trial, barracks and soldiers. If we look forward, you promise us no remedies but an unjust sentence, the harsh execution of that sentence, more barracks and more soldiers.

You do indeed try to hold out hopes of one or two legislative reforms beneficial to Ireland; but these hopes, I am afraid, will prove delusive. You hint that you have prepared a Registration bill, of which the effect will be to extend the elective franchise. What the provisions of that bill may be we do not know. But this we know, that the matter is one about which it is utterly impossible for you to do anything that shall be at once honourable to yourselves and useful to the country.

Before we see your plan, we can say with perfect confidence that it must either destroy the last remnant of the representative system in Ireland, or the last remnant of your own character for consistency.

About the much agitated question of land tenure you acknowledge that you have at present nothing to propose. We are to have a report, but you cannot tell us when.

The Irish Church, as at present const.i.tuted and endowed, you are fully determined to uphold. On some future occasion, I hope to be able to explain at large my views on that subject. To-night I have exhausted my own strength, and I have exhausted also, I am afraid, the kind indulgence of the House. I will therefore only advert very briefly to some things which have been said about the Church in the course of the present debate.

Several gentlemen opposite have spoken of the religious discord which is the curse of Ireland in language which does them honour; and I am only sorry that we are not to have their votes as well as their speeches.

But from the Treasury bench we have heard nothing but this, that the Established Church is there, and that there it must and shall remain. As to the speech of the n.o.ble lord the Secretary for the Colonies, really when we hear such a pitiable defence of a great inst.i.tution from a man of such eminent abilities, what inference can we draw but that the inst.i.tution is altogether indefensible? The n.o.ble lord tells us that the Roman Catholics, in 1757, when they were asking to be relieved from the penal laws, and in 1792, when they were asking to be relieved from civil disabilities, professed to be quite willing that the Established Church should retain its endowments. What is it to us, Sir, whether they did or not? If you can prove this Church to be a good inst.i.tution, of course it ought to be maintained. But do you mean to say that a bad inst.i.tution ought to be maintained because some people who have been many years in their graves said that they did not complain of it? What if the Roman Catholics of the present generation hold a different language on this subject from the Roman Catholics of the last generation? Is this inconsistency, which appears to shock the n.o.ble lord, anything but the natural and inevitable progress of all reform? People who are oppressed, and who have no hope of obtaining entire justice, beg to be relieved from the most galling part of what they suffer. They a.s.sure the oppressor that if he will only relax a little of his severity they shall be quite content; and perhaps, at the time, they believe that they shall be content. But are expressions of this sort, are mere supplications uttered under duress, to estop every person who utters them, and all his posterity to the end of time, from asking for entire justice? Am I debarred from trying to recover property of which I have been robbed, because, when the robber's pistol was at my breast, I begged him to take everything that I had and to spare my life? The n.o.ble lord knows well that, while the slave trade existed, the great men who exerted themselves to put an end to that trade disclaimed all thought of emanc.i.p.ating the negroes. In those days, Mr Pitt, Mr Fox, Lord Grenville, Lord Grey, and even my dear and honoured friend of whom I can never speak without emotion, Mr Wilberforce, always said that it was a calumny to accuse them of intending to liberate the black population of the sugar islands. In 1807 the present Duke of Northumberland, then Lord Percy, in the generous enthusiasm of youth, rose to propose in this House the abolition of slavery. Mr Wilberforce interposed, nay, I believe, almost pulled Lord Percy down. Nevertheless in 1833 the n.o.ble lord the Secretary for the Colonies brought in a bill to abolish slavery. Suppose that when he resumed his seat, after making that most eloquent speech in which he explained his plan to us, some West Indian planter had risen, and had said that in 1792, in 1796, in 1807, all the leading philanthropists had solemnly declared that they had no intention of emanc.i.p.ating the negroes; would not the n.o.ble lord have answered that nothing that had been said by anybody in 1792 or 1807 could bind us not to do what was right in 1833?

This is not the only point on which the n.o.ble lord's speech is quite at variance with his own conduct. He appeals to the fifth article of the Treaty of Union. He says that, if we touch the revenues and privileges of the Established Church, we shall violate that article; and to violate an article of the Treaty of Union is, it seems, a breach of public faith of which he cannot bear to think. But, Sir, why is the fifth article to be held more sacred than the fourth, which fixes the number of Irish members who are to sit in this House? The fourth article, we all know, has been altered. And who brought in the bill which altered that article? The n.o.ble lord himself.

Then the n.o.ble lord adverts to the oath taken by Roman Catholic members of this House. They bind themselves, he says, not to use their power for the purpose of injuring the Established Church. I am sorry that the n.o.ble lord is not at this moment in the House. Had he been here I should have made some remarks which I now refrain from making on one or two expressions which fell from him. But, Sir, let us allow to his argument all the weight which he can himself claim for it. What does it prove?

Not that the Established Church of Ireland is a good inst.i.tution; not that it ought to be maintained; but merely this, that, when we are about to divide on the question whether it shall be maintained, the Roman Catholic members ought to walk away to the library. The oath which they have taken is nothing to me and to the other Protestant members who have not taken it. Suppose then our Roman Catholic friends withdrawn. Suppose that we, the six hundred and twenty or thirty Protestant members remain in the House. Then there is an end of this argument about the oath. Will the n.o.ble lord then be able to give us any reason for maintaining the Church of Ireland on the present footing?

I hope, Sir, that the right honourable Baronet the first Lord of the Treasury will not deal with this subject as his colleagues have dealt with it. We have a right to expect that a man of his capacity, placed at the head of government, will attempt to defend the Irish Church in a manly and rational way. I would beg him to consider these questions:--For what ends do Established Churches exist? Does the Established Church of Ireland accomplish those ends or any one of those ends? Can an Established Church which has no hold on the hearts of the body of the people be otherwise than useless, or worse than useless? Has the Established Church of Ireland any hold on the hearts of the body of the people? Has it been successful in making proselytes? Has it been what the Established Church of England has been with justice called, what the Established Church of Scotland was once with at least equal justice called, the poor man's Church? Has it trained the great body of the people to virtue, consoled them in affliction, commanded their reverence, attached them to itself and to the State? Show that these questions can be answered in the affirmative; and you will have made, what I am sure has never yet been made, a good defence of the Established Church of Ireland. But it is mere mockery to bring us quotations from forgotten speeches, and from mouldy pet.i.tions presented to George the Second at a time when the penal laws were still in full force.

And now, Sir, I must stop. I have said enough to justify the vote which I shall give in favour of the motion of my n.o.ble friend. I have shown, unless I deceive myself, that the extraordinary disorders which now alarm us in Ireland have been produced by the fatal policy of the Government. I have shown that the mode in which the Government is now dealing with those disorders is far more likely to inflame than to allay them. While this system lasts, Ireland can never be tranquil; and till Ireland is tranquil, England can never hold her proper place among the nations of the world. To the dignity, to the strength, to the safety of this great country, internal peace is indispensably necessary. In every negotiation, whether with France on the right of search, or with America on the line of boundary, the fact that Ireland is discontented is uppermost in the minds of the diplomatists on both sides, making the representative of the British Crown timorous, and making his adversary bold. And no wonder. This is indeed a great and splendid empire, well provided with the means both of annoyance and of defence. England can do many things which are beyond the power of any other nation in the world.

She has dictated peace to China. She rules Caffraria and Australasia.

She could again sweep from the ocean all commerce but her own. She could again blockade every port from the Baltic to the Adriatic. She is able to guard her vast Indian dominions against all hostility by land or sea. But in this gigantic body there is one vulnerable spot near to the heart. At that spot forty-six years ago a blow was aimed which narrowly missed, and which, if it had not missed, might have been deadly. The government and the legislature, each in its own sphere, is deeply responsible for the continuance of a state of things which is fraught with danger to the State. From my share of that responsibility I shall clear myself by the vote which I am about to give; and I trust that the number and the respectability of those in whose company I shall go into the lobby will be such as to convince the Roman Catholics of Ireland that they need not yet relinquish all hope of obtaining relief from the wisdom and justice of an Imperial Parliament.

DISSENTERS' CHAPELS BILL. (JUNE 6, 1844) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 6TH OF JUNE 1844.

An attempt having been made to deprive certain dissenting congregations of property which they had long enjoyed, on the ground that they did not hold the same religious opinions that had been held by the purchasers from whom they derived their t.i.tle to that property, the Government of Sir Robert Peel brought in a bill fixing a time of limitation in such cases. The time fixed was twenty-five years.

The bill, having pa.s.sed the Lords, came down to the House of Commons.

On the sixth of June 1844, the second reading was moved by the Attorney General, Sir William Follett. Sir Robert Inglis, Member for the University of Oxford, moved that the bill should be read a second time that day six months: and the amendment was seconded by Mr Plumptre, Member for Kent. Early in the debate the following Speech was made.

The second reading was carried by 307 votes to 117.

If, Sir, I should unhappily fail in preserving that tone in which the question before us ought to be debated, it will a.s.suredly not be for want either of an example or of a warning. The honourable and learned Member who moved the second reading has furnished me with a model which I cannot too closely imitate; and from the honourable Member for Kent, if I can learn nothing else, I may at least learn what temper and what style I ought most carefully to avoid.

I was very desirous, Sir, to catch your eye, not because I was so presumptuous as to hope that I should be able to add much to the powerful and luminous argument of the honourable and learned gentleman who has, to our great joy, again appeared among us to-night; but because I thought it desirable that, at an early period in the debate, some person whose seat is on this side of the House, some person strongly opposed to the policy of the present Government, should say, what I now say with all my heart, that this is a bill highly honourable to the Government, a bill framed on the soundest principles, and evidently introduced from the best and purest motives. This praise is a tribute due to Her Majesty's Ministers; and I have great pleasure in paying it.

I have great pleasure also in bearing my testimony to the humanity, the moderation, and the decorum with which my honourable friend the Member for the University of Oxford has expressed his sentiments. I must particularly applaud the resolution which he announced, and to which he strictly adhered, of treating this question as a question of meum and tuum, and not as a question of orthodoxy and heterodoxy. With him it is possible to reason. But how am I to reason with the honourable Member for Kent, who has made a speech without one fact, one argument, one shadow of an argument, a speech made up of nothing but vituperation? I grieve to say that the same bitterness of theological animosity which characterised that speech may be discerned in too many of the pet.i.tions with which, as he boasts, our table has been heaped day after day. The honourable Member complains that those pet.i.tions have not been treated with proper respect. Sir, they have been treated with much more respect than they deserved. He asks why we are to suppose that the pet.i.tioners are not competent to form a judgment on this question? My answer is, that they have certified their incompetence under their own hands. They have, with scarcely one exception, treated this question as a question of divinity, though it is purely a question of property: and when I see men treat a question of property as if it were a question of divinity, I am certain that, however numerous they may be, their opinion is ent.i.tled to no consideration. If the persons whom this bill is meant to relieve are orthodox, that is no reason for our plundering anybody else in order to enrich them. If they are heretics, that is no reason for our plundering them in order to enrich others. I should not think myself justified in supporting this bill, if I could not with truth declare that, whatever sect had been in possession of these chapels, my conduct would have been precisely the same. I have no peculiar sympathy with Unitarians. If these people, instead of being Unitarians, had been Roman Catholics, or Wesleyan Methodists, or General Baptists, or Particular Baptists, or members of the Old Secession Church of Scotland, or members of the Free Church of Scotland, I should speak as I now speak, and vote as I now mean to vote.

Sir, the whole dispute is about the second clause of this bill. I can hardly conceive that any gentleman will vote against the bill on account of the error in the marginal note on the third clause. To the first clause my honourable friend the Member for the University of Oxford said, if I understood him rightly, that he had no objection; and indeed a man of his integrity and benevolence could hardly say less after listening to the lucid and pow