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devices being resorted to, in order to keep within the letter, while the spirit of them was infringed. Measures of that House had been defeated, and the intention to defeat them had been signified, even before they were passed. It was much better that they should do nothing, and he would rather they did nothing, than that what they did should be evaded. By the act of 1825, it had been intended to suppress the Catholic Association, and other assemblies of a similar character, by an express enactment. The provisions of that act, however, were so wide, that they would have interdicted almost any meeting, and it was therefore necessary that some meetings should be excepted from the operations of it. These exceptions consisted for the most part of meetings for the purposes of education, agriculture, commerce, religious worship, &c. It was perfectly notorious how many advantages had been taken of these exceptions,-how many meetings for political purposes were assembled under the pretence of objects quite foreign from those the persons assembled had in view, how repeatedly the technical enactments of that measure had been complied with, while the spirit of it was violated. It was clear, then, that they must enact a law more complete and more binding than the act to which he had referred. The exceptions in the proposed measure must be much less numerous than they were in the last. He was not insensible to the difficulties of framing such an act, as, in the present state of Ireland, could not be evaded, unless, indeed, they were to pass a law, which there would be no difficulty in framing, that should effectually and at once suppress the danger of illegal

meetings; but he very much doubted the propriety of such a measure, for it must declare that every political meeting was illegal; and if such a law were passed, and every body left to enforce the provisions of it, he confessed that, as Ireland now was, he could not say that they would not be improperly enforced that they would not be enforced for purposes, to say the least of them, very unjustifiable. In his opinion, the more they departed, in legislating on a subject like this, from the general principles of law, the more they stood in danger of having their enactments evaded. He proposed to meet this danger by the most effectual means that occurred to him, while at the same time he opposed the strongest barrier to individual abuse. It was his intention to commit the enforcement of the law to one person only; to intrust to him, who was fully cognizant of the state of affairs in Ireland, and who was also responsible for the tranquillity of that country, the new powers with which the House were now asked to invest the executive government. He proposed to give to the lord lieutenant, and to him alone, the power of suppressing any association or meeting, which he might think dangerous to the public peace, or inconsistent with the due administration of the law; together with power to interdict the assembly of any meeting, of which previous notice should have been given, and which he should think likely to endanger the public peace, or to prove inconsistent with the due administration of the law. In case it should be necessary to enforce the provisions of the law by which these powers would be conferred, it was proposed that the lord lieutenant should be farther empowered to select two magistrates for the purpose of suppressing the meeting, and requiring the people immediately to disperse. It was proposed, moreover, to prohibit any meeting or association, which might be interdicted from assembling, or which might be suppressed under this act, from receiving and placing at their control any monies by the name of rent, or by any other name. This was the general outline of the measure. He thought that moderate penalties would be sufficient for the infringement of this law; and he considered that it would be by no means necessary to propose any measures of a penal nature. He was decidedly of opinion, too, that the measure ought to be limited. He was perfectly sure that parliament would not only continue these powers, but that they would increase them, if a case of necessity were made out. The late act had been limited to two years; he proposed to limit the present act to one year, and the end of the then next session of parliament.

The bill passed both Houses without opposition; for, although its provisions were necessarily somewhat arbitrary in their nature, the friends of the Catholics voted in its favour as part of a system which was immediately to terminate in emancipation. They all declared, however, that, if it had been introduced as a substantive measure, they would have resisted it; and that they now consented to suppress the Association only on the understanding, that those claims, for the furtherance of which the Association had been created, were to be immediately conceded. In truth, to grant emancipation

would put an end to the Association without any statute; to remove the disabilities would be the only effectual act of suppression. It was not a corporeal being, capable of being grasped by the law. It was the people of Ireland. Its spirit was caused by the grievances of the nation, and its seat was the bosom of seven millions of its population. It was impossible to deny that the present flourishing prospects of the Catholic cause were mainly owing to the labours of the Association: in forwarding that cause, it had done good to both parts of the empire, however foolishly individual members might have indulged in absurd proposals, and extravagant, and irritating language; and its suppression by enactments, which involved even the temporary exercise of arbitrary powers, could be justified only by regarding it as the price to be paid for the final and complete triumph of that object for which alone it had existed.

In the course of the discussions, it was strongly pressed upon ministers, why the suppression of this Association had not been sooner accomplished? You justly describe this Association, it was said to them, as a body, whose existence is incompatible with the due operation of the powers of the regular government. You represent Ireland as being in a state of agitation which can be soothed only by granting all that the Catholics demand; and no man can doubt that the Catholic Association, which exists only for purposes of agitation, is the great fomenter of that dangerous and alarming spirit. You say that it must be put down; you ask extraordinary powers to put it down; by doing so, you grant that it may be put down. If so, why has it been allowed to go on prospering and unimpeded for years, till, having gained "a giant's stature and a tyrant's strength," it brings you crouching to its feet in trembling obedience to its mandates? In short, you acknowledge, that by a due use of power you might have prevented that state of things, in which, now that it has been allowed to grow up, you seek an apology for deserting the policy to which you have been so long pledged. Above all, you asked and obtained, in 1825, an Act for suppressing this very Association. Yet it is since that time that it has become so formidable. If the powers given by that act were sufficient, why was it not enforced? If they were insufficient, why were more effective powers not demanded? for who would have grudged any powers necessary to put down an usurpation of the regular government of the country?

The Solicitor-general for Ireland answered, that he had attended to the debates of the Association with the closest anxiety; but, after all his vigilance, and all his anxiety, it was the unanimous opinion of his colleagues on the other side of the Channel, that it would have been an useless task to have undertaken a prosecution against any individual for his conduct in the Catholic Association, and that an abortive attempt at prosecution would have been worse than useless, inasmuch as it would have irritated, without putting down, the members of that Association. He could not, upon the present occasion, enter into a detail of all the circumstances, which, in his opinion, rendered it impolitic to attack the Catholic Associationhe would confine himself to say

ing, that it was a matter of extreme difficulty to draw up a bill of indictment against 7,000,000 of people. He did believe, that baffled and hampered as the legal advisers of the crown were, the wisest plan, which they could pursue, was, to confess the real truth, that it was a matter of extreme difficulty to frame such an indictment. He had voted for the bill of 1825, but since that time there had been a new parliament, and it was by no means certain that the present parliament would repose the same confidence in, or intrust similar powers to a ministry, unless some hopes were held out that the coercive measure was to be immediately followed by one of concession. The Solicitor-general, however, forgot that this very House of Commons had refused, in 1827, to entertain sir Francis Burdett's motion for a committee.

Mr. Huskisson said, that it would have been impossible, in the way of definition and enactment, to have gone further than the act of 1825 went, without interfering improperly with the rights and privileges of the subject generally; and from the period in which that act was passed, down to the period in which he ceased to have a share in his majesty's councils, the government had been most anxious to give full efficacy, as far as was consistent with the liberty of the subject, to such provisions of it as were intended to guard against the mischief of the Catholic Association. When he first saw the mode in which that act was evaded in Ireland, his mind was made up to this conclusion-that there was no mode of terminating the danger arising from that Association without vesting in the government a considerable portion of arbitrary

power-indeed such a portion as it was now proposed to vest for a time in the government of Ireland. Now he would ask, whether the House was prepared to place such power in the Irish government permanently? He was not at liberty to state to the House what passed in his majesty's councils, during the period in which he had the honour of enjoying a seat at the council board, - neither was it necessary that he should do so: he was at liberty, however, to state this, that, having come to the conclusion which he had just declared to the House, he could not help coming to another conclusion also; and that was, that, consistently with his public duty, he could not grant to the government that arbitrary power which was necessary to put down the Catholic Association, without putting an end, at the same time, to the cruel system of exclusion which called that Association into existence. Either in or out of office, he never would have agreed to such a measure of coercion, if assured it was to be a permanent measure, unless it had been accompanied at the same time by an assurance, that the evil system, which the Association sought to remedy, was going to be abandoned.

Mr. Peel said, that to state the reasons why hedid not enforce the act of 1825, would make it necessary to go into the whole history of affairs in Ireland during the last four years, which would lead to the conclusion that, amid the divisions and contentions which prevailed, the real abatement of faction was impossible. Moreover, it should be borne in mind how the act of 1825 was

Catholic relief, which, though lost in the upper House, must yet have shown the people, that conciliation was intended to accompany coercion. The act, then, of 1825, was not the only measure, upon which the House of Commons depended for the tranquillity of Ireland, when they had recorded its accompaniment by the admission that Catholic disabilities ought to be removed. These were the causes, which had prevented the effectual operation of the law of 1825.

The act passed: but the Association rendered it unnecessary to make use of the powers which it bestowed. Their parliamentary friends had pointed out to them, that, as matters stood, with the government pledged to emancipation, their continuing together as a body could only do mischief; and the Association, even before the bill had completed its hasty progress, declared itself dissolved. It was plain, however, even from the explanations given by ministers themselves, that the Association had been allowed to bully the government into submission, and that the present act for its suppression was mere legislative mockery-the ridiculous assumption of a threatening gesture to cover and conceal their impotence. The Association had demanded emancipation, unqualified emancipation, and nothing else. It had said to the government, give us emancipation, and we exist no more; refuse us what we ask, and we defy your power either to restrain or to resist us. The question between it and the government had never been, whether it would be quiet, if the government gave all that it demanded-but whether or no the govern

followed up by the same parliament could compel it to be quiet,

ment which introduced it. It hud been followed up by a bill for

even though it should get nothing. In such circumstances, when one hand held a bill for suppressing the Association, while the other contained a bill granting all that the Association demanded, to speak of having suppressed the Association was an abuse of words. It was as if a man should boast of his victory over a highwayman, to whom he exclaims, when the pistol is at his breast, "down with your pistol, sir, for there are my purse and my watch." The robber would have the best of it, and so had the Association.

The bill, which commemorated this wretched triumph, received the royal assent on the 5th of March; and on the same day Mr. Peel moved in the House of Commons, that the House should go into a Committee on the laws which imposed disabilities on the Catholics. But he no longer rose as member for the University of Oxford. That honourable rank he had reached, and had retained, as the firm opponent of Catholic encroachments; the University had sent him forth to defend the civil and religious institutions to which she was attached, and hitherto he had done his part faithfully and well. A few short months had converted him into a leader of Catholic aggression, and found him zealously employed in creating every one of those dangers, which his life had been spent in detecting and resisting. If the change was justified by his duty as a statesman, he could not, in common decency or honesty, retain his seat as member for Oxford. On the 4th of February, the day before the meeting of parliament, he addressed a letter to the Vice-chancellor of the University, announcing the new views of policy by which he was about to be guided, acknowledging that his resistance to the Catholic

claims had been one main ground on which the University had made him its representative, and tendering his resignation. His resigna

The following is Mr. Peel's letter: -To the reverend the vice-chancellor of Oxford.

Whitehall, Feb. 4.

My dear Sir,-I take the very first opportunity of which I am at liberty to avail myself, to make a communication to you which is most distressing to my feelings.

I have considered it to be my duty, as one of the responsible advisers of the king, humbly to signify to his majesty the opinion which I have formed, in entire concurrence with all my colleagues in the government, that the period is arrived when his majesty's servants must take, in their collective capacity, some decisive line with regard to the state of Ireland, and to the various subjects affecting the tranquillity of that country, which are involved in what is called the Catholic question.

After maturely weighing the present position of affairs, and the prospects of the future-adverting to the opinions repeatedly expressed by majorities in the House of Commons-to the difficul

ties which must arise, in the present state of Ireland, from continued division in the councils of his majesty, and disunion between the two Houses of Parliament-it has appeared to his majesty's government that there is less of evil and less of danger, under the existing circumstances of the country, in the attempt to make some satisfactory adjustment of the Catholic question, than in any other course which we can suggest. In the offer of my advice to his majesty, as one of his confidential and responsible servants, I have been compelled to exclude every consideration but that of the interests and necessities of the country.

No sooner, however, had I fulfilled the obligations of my duty to his majesty, than I began maturely to reflect on the relation in which I stand to the University of Oxford.

I cannot doubt that the resistance which I have hitherto offered to the claims of the Roman Catholics has been have been entitled to the confidence and one of the main grounds upon which I support of a very large body of my con

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