numerous persons who held freeholds for life were deprived of their votes, and if the priests were made a little more comfortable, less danger would result from the presence of Roman Catholics in the two Houses of Parliament.

On the only occasion on which he broke silence in the session of 1825, Lord John supported this compromise.1 But the famous wings did not aid the passage of the measure; the Duke of York, the heir presumptive to the throne, made a strong speech against it. The Lords, stimulated by the Duke's example, mustered courage to reject it, and emancipation was again lost.

The general election of 1826 did not apparently advance the question; and Lord John's attention in 1827 was temporarily diverted from it to a side issue. By the Corporation Act no person could be appointed to any corporate office who had not in the preceding twelve months received the sacrament according to the rites of the English Church. By the Test Act no one could receive any office of profit who did not take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and receive the sacrament. These monstrous provisions, however, could not be enforced in a country where large numbers of pious and excellent persons refused to conform to the services of the Church; and, in consequence, Parliament was accustomed to sanction their evasion by passing annually an Act to indemnify those who had broken the law. In 1827, when the annual Indemnity Bill was before the Commons, Mr. Smith, the member for Norwich, and himself a Dissenter, drew attention to the 'hard, unjust, and unnecessary' law which disabled him from holding any office, 'however insignificant, under the Crown, or from sitting as a magistrate in any corporation, without violating his conscience.' As he sat down, Mr. Whittle Harvey, the member for Colchester, rose and twitted the Opposition with disregarding the substantial claims of the Dissenters, while those of the Catholics were supported year after year with the vehemence of party.

1 Lord John was not in the division on Sir F. Burdett's motion. He was probably in Italy, where he spent the winter of 1824-5.

Stung by Mr. Whittle Harvey's taunt, Lord John at once rose to express his conviction that 'the grievances of the Protestant Dissenters were not practically so great as those of the Catholics;' and to avow his readiness to move the repeal of these Acts whenever the Dissenters themselves thought that the time had arrived for doing so. In consequence of a request from some London Nonconformists, he deferred 'the Parliamentary discussion of the question' during the session of 1827.1 But in 1828 he brought forward the whole

matter.

...

Did

In 1745 many Nonconformists came in to assist in supporting the Government. They acted most gallantly in co-operation with the King's forces, and their exertions were crowned with success. What reward does the House suppose was bestowed upon the men who had defended the King, maintained the authority of Parliament, and vindicated the liberty of the country? Did the Crown shower orders and honours upon them? Parliament vote to them their thanks? Did the people express to them their gratitude? No such thing; the sovereign gave them no honours, the Parliament no thanks, and the people no gratitude; they received for their glorious services from the munificence of King, Parliament, and people-a full and free pardon. Is anything more wanting to show the absurdity of laws which brand the most loyal of the King's subjects, and inflict penalty on the best deeds of patriotism and courage they can perform? The Act of 1747, so far from being singular, however, has now for eighty-five years been the principle of your legislation on the subject. A pardon, such as it is, not like the Act of 1747, but conditional and incomplete, is passed yearly to forgive good men for doing good service to their country.

It is stated in historical works that it was the custom of

1 The expression is from a letter of Mr. Morell of Wymondley College, dated June 2, 1827, to Lord John. Mr. Morell deprecated the action of the London Dissenters, 'who had taken upon themselves to act as representatives of the whole body.' Lord John had serious doubts whether he ought not to resign his seat at Bandon on his patron's, the Duke of Devonshire's, appointment to be Lord Chamberlain. But the change of Government in 1828 virtually settled the question.

persons to be waiting in taverns and houses near the church, not going in until service was over. The ceremony used to be called 'qualifying for office;' and an appointed person called out, 'Those who want to be qualified will please to step up this way.' Persons then took the communion for the purpose of receiving office, and with no other intent whatever. Such are the consequences of mixing politics with religion. You embitter and aggravate political dissensions by the venom of theological disputes; you profane religion with the vices of political ambition, making it both hateful to man and offensive to God.

In proposing this motion Lord John had not much hope. of immediate success. He probably anticipated that, as in the Parliament of 1820 he had been engaged year after year in a struggle for Reform, so in the Parliament of 1826 he would labour session after session in the cause of religious freedom. But to his 'great surprise' he found himself at the close of the evening in a majority of 44.

The result may be stated in Lord John's own words :—

Peel, finding himself defeated after a vain attempt to avoid a total repeal, proposed a useless and feeble declaration, which the Bishops accepted in the House of Lords, after adding a mischievous barrier against the admission of the Jews, in the words on the true faith of a Christian.' The whole of this declaration was repealed in 1868; it had kept out nobody, and its removal will admit nobody.1

In this contest the seeds of success had been sown by Lord John; the labour of gathering the harvest had also been his. The conduct of the movement had fallen into his hands, and the compromise which was rejected, and the compromise which was accepted, were refused and taken on his responsibility.

Congratulations flowed in upon him.

Mr. Moore wroteIn writing the other day to one of my Derby friends-one of the worthy and very dissenting Dissenters of that place-I said, 'I am still prouder than ever of having pitted my friend Lord John against the Jeremiads since his late memorable achievement.' Norwithstanding all this, however, I am a little anxious to know

1 Recollections and Suggestions, p. 58.

that your glory has done you no harm in the way of health, as I see you are a pretty constant attendant on the House; and there is nothing, I fear, worse for a man's own constitution than to trouble himself too much about the constitution of Church and State. pray let me have one line to say how you are.

Lord John replied from the House of Commons—

So

My constitution is not quite so much improved as the constitution of the country by late events; but the joy of it [sic] will soon revive me. It is really a gratifying thing to force the enemy to give up his first line, that none but Churchmen are worthy to serve the State; and I trust we shall soon make him give up the second, that none but Protestants are.

His father wrote to him about the same time

I send you the Journal des Débats, a review of the translation of your Establishment of the Turks,' &c. 'En France vous vous êtes acquis une belle réputation,' as the Frenchman would say. I say in universal language—

Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt.

Even Grey, who is not much given to panegyric, says you have done more than any man now living; persevere in your labours, without injury to your health, and it matters little whether it is under this or that Administration that they are brought to a successful issue.

Lady Spencer wrote as follows:

You must allow me, my dear and excellent friend, to tell you my delight at your success in the most important event of the present time. For assuredly the measure which you have been the means of carrying is the greatest demonstration of the power of liberal opinions and of the increasing good sense of the country that in my long life I have witnessed. This admirable effort is mainly owing to the steady, consistent, and manly line of conduct which you and a few—a very few of your particular associates have pursued through good report and through evil report.' And your reward, though long delayed, is beginning to appear. A magnificent one it will truly prove itself to be! The renovation of your country's strength, and the establishment of its power on a foundation which never can fail-the hearty concurrence and unanimity of all the intelligence, ingenuity, and

6

enterprise of its population; for such, I firmly believe, will be the result of fair and liberal dealings with the mass, composed, as it is, of the best materials of any now on the face of the world.

Lord John had now won the greatest victory which the friends of freedom had achieved during the nineteenth century. But his success only stimulated him to further efforts. At the general election of 1826, bribery had been extensively practised both at Penryn and East Retford. Penryn was an old offender. Its corrupt conduct had on two previous occasions been the subject of investigation, and it had been included among the boroughs whose franchises Lord John had himself desired to suspend in 1820. East Retford was a still more flagrant culprit. Each of its electors was almost openly rewarded by each of its two members with a fee of twenty guineas for his vote. In the course of the session of 1827 Bills were introduced by Mr. Legh Keck, the member for Leicestershire, and Mr. Tennyson, the member for Blechingley, to punish bribery at Penryn by transferring the franchise to the hundred, and to disfranchise East Retford and to transfer its two members to Birmingham. The East Retford Bill was not proceeded with beyond its second reading; but, in committee on the Penryn Bill, Lord John proposed and carried a provision for the disfranchisement of the borough, with a view to transferring its members to Manchester.1 In 1828 he himself took charge of this Bill; while Mr. Tennyson, who acted in conjunction with him, introduced a companion measure to disfranchise East Retford and to transfer its right of returning members to Birmingham. The Duke of Wellington's Administration was nearly broken up on these proposals. Some members of the Cabinet, adhering to the traditions of the Tory party, desired, instead of disfranchising the boroughs, to throw them into the adjacent hundreds; while other members of it, in closer harmony with the ideas of the age, preferred the proposals of Lord John and Mr. Tennyson. The Cabinet ultimately agreed to disfranchise Penryn and to

1 The amendment was carried by 124 votes to 69. Hansard, N.S. xvii. 1055.