parliament to go on free from all interruption, until he said something disorderly. If he did any thing disorderly, he did it at his peril. His words might be taken down; and he would never utter in that House, or in any other place, any thing which he would have the least objection to be taken down. He spoke for the privileges of the House; but he also spoke for the consistency, credit, and character of the House. Had no man ever before heard of an allusion to another place? Scarcely a debate took place, in which some allusion was not made to it; sometimes under the flimsy shelter of the phrase, "another place which it is not allowed me to name.” If the members of that House habitually adverted to proceedings in the House of Peers; if he himself had heard the words of the lord chancellor canvassed in it not twentyfour hours after the noble lord had uttered them; if the lord chancellor himself had afterwards, in the House of Lords, repeated the same words, and coupled that repetition with a reply to the observations which they had called up; if all this had been done, was it not an unworthy course, which was now attempted to be taken against him? Was it not base for the House of Commons to say, "You may attack the bishops, the woolsack, the lords, collectively or individually, if you will; but, if you only glance at the heir presumptive of the crown, privilege shall rise up against you, even before the words, which are to constitute the offence, can be uttered"-an hon. and learned member (himself the most disorderly in all the world) shall get up and complain that you are out of order, not because any thing irregular has been said, but-quia timet-merely because he apprehends that something possibly may be. Mr. Wodehouse rose to order. He said that the hon. and learned gentleman was out of order still. If he was not, let him explain what those two words, quia timet, meant. Amidst the excessive laughter and cheering which Mr. Wodehouse's quarrel with quia timet produced, Mr. Peel put it to Mr. Brougham, whether, engaged as the House was, in the discussion of a measure of great importance, he would introduce a topic likely to unfit them for the immediate business before it? Would he not, upon cool reflection, feel that it would be better, at all events, to abstain from any such allusions? Mr. Brougham said, that any recommendation coming from the right hon. gentleman was entitled to his best attention; but he could not disguise from himself, that the fact, to which he had alluded, formed a most important feature in the question before the House. The cry of the advocates of the measure then before the House had been, 66 carry the disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders-not upon its own merits, but because it will carry with it the question of Catholic emancipation." This might have done well twenty-four hours ago twenty-four hours back gentlemen might have expected to carry Catholic emancipation with the help of the bill now under discussion; but who at the present moment would say, that he had any hope left of so carrying it? Would not the ominous news of the day in which he was speaking go forth through all England, and all Ireland, as the knell of despair, rung over the Catholic question, and those interested in it for ever? Ought not the knowledge of that news to operate upon the House? Fair, honest warning was given to the Catholics and to the country: they had reasonable and candid notice. But though this frankness was honest and conscientious, still the Catholics had not less a very honest and conscientious avowed obstinacy to deal with: for no monarch, who ever sat upon the English throne, had ever been prepared for such resistance to his people on behalf of the Catholics, as was now not only meditated, but openly avowed against them. Then he (Mr. Brougham) held up this warning, and repeated it, for the benefit of Ireland and of the Irish members; and what he said to them was, "Do not believe that any thing will ever carry the Catholic question but a powerful majority in the House of Commons." But if, instead of such majorities as 17 and 27, to save the whole empire from a convulsion, which the events of the last twenty-four hours led men still more anxiously to think of; if, to save at once England and Ireland, a large increase in the majority on the Catholic question might be hoped for, the present moment-the present reign was the time for its appearance. A little while, and it would be too late. A brief time, and the opportunity would be gone for ever. A little rest, a little slumbering, a little folding of the hands to sleep, a little more pausing in apathy, as we had gone on to do session after session, parliament after parliament, for twenty years a little more of this, and we should find despotism and intolerance coming upon us like an armed man; and the power of pacifying Ireland, and of saving England, would be gone for ever. He was no lover of discord [a laugh from the ministerial benches]. He repeated that he was no lover of discord; and those who would deem him such were themselves only not lovers of discord, because they preferred to what they called discord and commotion, the solitude and silence of passive obedience, and the bending before absolute and uncontrolled despotism. He respected the conscientious feeling of every man. Heaven forbid that he should not give to the honest differences of opinion in other men the same degree of toleration which he claimed for his own. A want of conscientious frankness was the last charge that he would bring against any man. But it did happen, that the men sometimes, who had most of that frankness, unless at the same time they were men of enlightened understanding, were, of all others, the most irreclaimable; and that, in fact, all hope of recalling them from their errors so help them God [cheering and laughter!] was but visionary. Under these circumstances, then, it became the House to set itself in order, and to embrace the very earliest opportunity for to lose one might be fatal of going up to the other branch of the legislature with an overpowering majority upon the Catholic question. Nothing short of an immense majority could be successful. There was not an hour to be lost; for the time might come when even such a majority would be ineffectual; and when the unanimous vote of both Houses of parliament, joined to the expression of opinion from the whole country, would have no other consequence than to lead to an irreparable breach with the Crown. Many who did not concur with the vehemence of Mr. Brougham, disapproved of the conduct of the duke of York; not upon the ground that his sentiments and opinions were wrong, but because his avowed expression of them was imprudent. The bulk of the nation, however, were of a contrary opinion; and concurring in the principles to which his royal highness had declared his adherence, they naturally applauded his manly avowal. On the 10th of May, the third reading of the Catholic bill was moved; and, after a debate in which Mr. C. Grant, Mr. Horace Twiss, Mr. Huskisson, and Mr. Brougham took the principal part on the one side, and the Solicitorgeneral and Mr. Peel on the other, it was passed by a majority of 21, the Ayes being 248, and the Noes 2.27. On the 11th of May, the bill was carried up to the House of Lords, and read a first time. On the 17th of the same month, lord Donoughmore moved the second reading, and was supported by lord Camden, lord Darnley, the bishop of Norwich, lord Lansdowne, lord Harrowby, and lord Fitzwilliam. Lord Colchester, lord Longford, the bishop of Llandaff, the bishop of Chester, lord Liverpool, and the Lord Chancellor opposed the measure. The debate, though protracted till half-past five in the morning, presented little novelty. On the one side, the alleged right of the Catholics to political equality, the innoxiousness of their religious creed, the necessity of concession for the sake of the tranquillity of Ireland, were the topics insisted upon. On the other hand, it was contended (and particularly with great strength both of language and of argument, by the two learned prelates), that, with respect both to the nature of the religion in its political consequences, and to the inconsistency of admitting Catholic elements of power into a Protestant constitution, the reasons for excluding Catholics ought to be as operative now as they had been at any former period. The most remarkable circumstance in the debate was, the vehemence with which the prime minister expressed his and that vehemence, which in itdecided conviction on the subject: self formed a contrast to his habitu ally mild and gentle tone, excited the more observation in conseof a rumour that he was now inquence of the previous circulation clined to recede from the opinions which he had hitherto entertained. lord Liverpool, maintained, that The noble lords opposite, said it was fitting to grant the concessions demanded; because the Catholics of this country and Ireland, were entitled to enjoy equal civil rights and immunities with their Protestant brethren : and upon that broad principle he was at issue with them He admitted that all subjects in a free state were entitled to the enjoyment of equal rights upon equal conditions; but, then the qualification of that principle in the case of the Catholics was clear—the Catholics, who demanded these equal rights, did not afford equal conditions. The difference was this-the Protestant gave an entire allegiance to his sovereign; the Catholic a divided one. The service of the former was complete; that of the latter only qualified; and, unless it could be proved that the man who worked for half a day, was entitled to as much wages as the man who worked the whole day, or, in other words, that the half was equal to the whole, he could not admit that the Roman Catholic, whose allegiance was divided between a spiritual and a temporal master, was entitled to the enjoyment of the same civil rights and privileges as the Protestant, whose allegiance was undivided, and who acknowledged but one ruler. that bugbear of the noble lords opposite, the holy alliance, were now to recommend to the pope, who could say that he would not listen to their recommendation ? Would any one then affirm, that a people so circumstanced were entitled to a community of civil rights and privileges with the Protestants? He knew it had been said, that the progress of education, and the march of civilization, had wrought wonders amongst the Catholics; and, looking to the present aspect of the times, it might, perhaps, appear to superficial observers, that little danger was to be apprehended. But he would remind their lordships, that the horizon was often the clearest and most serene when the tempest was He cared not for the speculative dogmas of the Roman Catholic church, such as the doctrine of transubstantiation, or the invocation of saints: but he could not be indifferent to the power which the pope still held over the great body of the Roman Catholics. It had indeed been the policy of the advocates of the Catholics to maintain that this power was nearest. At what period did the extinct; but the very evidence before their lordships proved the extraordinary influence which was even at that day exercised by the pope of Rome. The presentation to vacant sees in the Roman Catholic church in Ireland was vested in the pope at that moment-he exercised an absolute and uncontrolled power of appointing whom he pleased to vacant bishopricks. He might yield occasionally to the recommendation of others, but the strict right of nomination he reserved to himself. That he had occasionally yielded to the representation of others had been fully proved by the evidence of Dr. Doyle, who had stated before their lordships' committee, that James the 2nd, his son, and grandson, had, for a succession of years, recommended to the vacant Irish established church appear to be in a more flourishing condition, than at the Restoration of Charles 2nd? And yet, within twenty years afterwards, the greatest revolution took place in the condition of that church, and it was next to a miracle that it was not overwhelmed, by the machinations of a popish prince, in one common ruin with the state and constitution of this country. It was not to the pope, as pope, that he objected; it was to the principle of the existence of such a power as that in the pope, and to the temporal and practical power of the Catholic priesthood, extending over all the relations of private life, and penetrating into every domestic scene. Their lordships held-the bill held that a Protestant succession was the foundation of our constitutional system: but if this measure should pass, the Protestant succession would not be worth a Much had been said of indefeasible and natural bishopricks, and that the pope had [F] rights. The state was Protestant essentially, the Crown was to be Protestant, and the successors to the throne must adhere to the same faith. But, were they to be the only persons so limited? He would speak of a king's rights here in the same sense, and no other, as that in which he would argue concerning the rights of a peasant. Was it not hard upon the king and the heir to the throne, that they must be bound to the Protestant faith, while the chief justice, the ministers, and the secretaries of state, might be Roman Catholics? Why was this? Where was the danger in having a popish king or a popish chancellor; if all the other executive officers might acknowledge the pope? There was less danger in a popish chancellor, who might be removed at pleasure, than in a popish chief justice, who would hold the administration of the criminal law in his control, and could be removed only by a peculiar process of law in case of his dereliction of duty. It was said that the privy council might be increased by the admission of Roman Catholics, and that it was unjust and cruel to exclude Catholics from such an appointment of trust and honour; in short, that a Catholic might be prime minister, and have the whole patronage of the church and state at his disposal. As long, however, as the system of the constitution was Protestant, it was essential to maintain a Protestant throne, and a Protestant administration of the public affairs; but if the bill were to pass, Great Britain would be no longer a Protestant state. The evil he apprehended from the passing of such a bill would not be immediate; but it would be inevitable, and would come upon the country in a man ner little expected. Neither could he bring himself to view it as a measure of peace and conciliation. Whatever it might do in this respect in the first instance, its natural and final tendency would be to increase dissensions, and to create discord, even where discord did not previously exist. He intreated their lordships to consider the aspect of the times in which they lived. It was their fate to hear doctrines openly promulgated, which were as novel as they were mischievous. The people were now taught in publications to consider queen Mary as having been a wise and virtuous queen, and that the world had gained nothing whatever by the Reformation. Nay, more than this-it was now promulgated, that James 2nd was a wise and virtuous prince; and that he fell in the glorious cause of religious toleration. Could the House be aware of these facts, and not see that a great and powerful engine was at work to effect the object of re-establishing the Catholic religion throughout these kingdoms ? And, if once established, should we not revert to a state of ignorance, with all its barbarous and direful consequences? Let the House consider what had been the result of those laws, what had been the effects of that fundamental principle of the British constitution, which they were now called upon to alter with such an unsparing hand. For the last hundred and thirty years, the country had enjoyed a state of religious peace, a blessing that had arisen out of the wisdom of our laws. But, what had been the state of the country for the hundred and thirty years immediately preceding that period? England had been the scene of the most san |