missal from office. In this state of things, to accommodate a change in administration, a representation of the actual state of mat- This would be to consider parliament not ters, and of the whole circumstances at- as a controul on the conduct of government, tendant on them, became necessary to but as an appendage to it, to be dissolved clear the characters of the late ministers and changed to suit the different aspects from the obloquy with which they were thus which it might assume, The unjustifiable: unjustly loaded. In making this statement, measures which might be adopted, would, they had been accused of bringing their in such a view of the case, be objects of sovereign to the bar of both houses of par-little consideration to those by whom they liament. Such a charge, however, they were recommended. Having by the indisclainied. Their only wish was a vindi-fluence of the crown got a parliament to cation of their own character, and to bring their mind, they had only to begin their forward to the bar of both houses of parlia- career by an act of indemnity for any mea ment and of the country those persons who sure which they might have taken against had given evil advice to their sovereign. law, and without necessity. The arrival' As to the policy of their conduct towards of such a period, he must consider as one Ireland, it was not his intention to enquire, pregnant with danger. It might be very as that had been already so ably discussed well to talk of appealing to the sense of the by his noble friend (lord Grenville), But people what would the cominunity think, if that part of the population of these king-however, when informed that there were a doms really did possess the loyalty admit- number of Boroughs at the disposal of the ted by the noble lord (Hawkesbury), he very persons who advised this dissolution; could not help thinking that they by no and that there were others, the property of, means experienced a corresponding return. or influenced by, a number of individuals, He was convinced the time must and would who, again, were under the influence of the come when the immunities now denied crown? so that success was in such an apthem would be granted. At a season so peal next to certain. But, still farther, when perilous as the present, we should look to they saw the seal of indemnity ready prepaevery possible means of strengthening our red for those who advised the measure, must' exertions; but it was impossible that the they not be of opinion that the period was Catholics in Ireland could feel the same in-most dangerous? If any thing could add to terest in the concerns of the country till the peril of such a situation, it was the they participated in all the privileges of state of things at the present moment, so their fellow subjects. awful, so unprecedented as it must be adLord Erskine said, that it was a funda-mitted to be. The only way at such a momental principle of the constitution of this ment, to insure confidence and respect country, that no act could be done contra- from the public, was for the government to ry to law; and for which the persons advi- shew itself prudent, and for parliament to sing it were at the same time intitled to be shew itself independent. That house indemnified, unless such breach of law could do much to effect this object. No was occasioned by an act of imperious ne-person could dissolve them. They had cessity. If this was a case of the kind, it in their power by a single vote to check God forbid that it should be resisted for a such an evil. To protect at once the moment! No man could question the crown and the people, and to make them, right of the king to dismiss his servants, or selves beloved and esteemed. Their lordto dissolve the parliament. These were ships might, by a single vote, shew that undoubted prerogatives, but they were they held a balance between the king and granted for very distinct purposes. If his the people; and might say to the noble majesty saw reason to question the conduct lord, "You advised the king to dissolve of his servants, he might dismiss them; or, the parliament, and if you have since done an if he saw reason to doubt the parliament, illegal act, for which you had no necessity he might dissolve it, and take the sense of but the dissolution of parliament, we will their constituents as to their conduct. But not grant you an indemnity for an act, the the law never intended that both of these only necessity for which was of your own prerogatives should be exercised at one creation." As to the other part of the and the same time, and with reference to question, it had already been so fully and each other. It was never in the contem-so often argued, that he would not at preplation of the constitution of this country, sent detain their lordships any longer. that parliament should be dissolved simply The Lord Chancellor maintained that the

proper question now before the house was, mitted, was necessary for the country. He whether it was a right thing in ministers to had no hesitation in declaring it as his opi advise his majesty to pass the order in nion, that the present was as firm and vicouncil? Though ministers might be gorous as the late administration. It was blameable in advising the dissolution of his wish to render it as firm and vigorous parliament, still the house was bound to as possible; and with this view, he had no give them indemnity for the act now al- hesitation in acknowledging, that he was luded to, if it could be vindicated. It was probably one of the most strenuous adnot fair by a side-wind to come at a ques-visers of his majesty to the dissolution of tion which he, for one, was ready to discuss parliament. His lordship contended that and to vindicate openly and fairly. Let so far were the acts of parliament against the noble lord come forward with a special Roman Catholics, from being calculated to motion and charge on the subject of the exclude them from the pale of the British dissolution of parliament, and he should Constitution, the only way to secure that be ready to answer it. The noble and constitution both to them and to every learned lord, while he admitted the excel- other class of subjects in the country was lence of the British constitution, did not to maintain these acts. Toleration and seem inclined to trust either the electors power were very different.

The British

thing rendered it necessary that that power, should be vested where it was most calculated to produce and to preserve the good of the whole. If persons who by refusing to qualify themselves for offices of power and trust, had still complete tole ration allowed them, they had the benefits of the British constitution. With what consistency, however, he would ask, could the noble lord stop with the officers of the army and navy? why should not the immunity extend to the lawyer also, and to every officer in the civil government of the country? Granting all that the most zealous friends to Catholic emancipation could desire, he was convinced would not produce unanimity in the country. At all. events, little would be gained if, in conciliating the Catholics, government should lose the veneration of the Protestants.

or the elected. It was to that house, constitution gave toleration to every class which could not be affected by the dis-of its subjects; but the very nature of the solution, that he seemed to look. They could not be dissolved, and from them his lordship seemed to expect a redress of all the evils be supposed to exist. He desired of the noble and learned lord to look to the year 1806, when parliament had been formerly dissolved; there had then been no embarrassing circumstances to render the dissolution necessary; there had been no votes of either house, which indicated a wish to impede the measures of government; yet that ministry, of which the noble and learned lord formed a part, had chosen to advise a dissolution of parliament. He wished to know in what respect the present ministers were more to blame for having recourse to such a measure, than the late ministers had been. The enquiry into which the late ministers had forced the two houses of parliament, he considered the most unconstitutional proceeding in which Lord Carysfort contended, that the order. that house had ever been engaged, The of council was a violation of the law and permission of his majesty to bring forward the constitution, springing out of an act as this statement, so far from meuding the ill judged as it was unnecessary, meaning matter, made it infinitely worse. It was that exercise of the prerogative in the disusing his majesty's own permission to drag solution of the late parliament, which mihim to the bar of parliament. Such per-nisters so unfortunately, in his opinion, admission ought never to have been asked, vised. It was a dangerous doctrine, his and never to have been acted on. His ma- lordship observed, to hold up the plea of jesty's conduct, however, had in con- necessity for that dissolution: he was exsequence been made a subject of enquiry in ceedingly apprehensive that the precedent both houses of parliament, in a manner which had never formerly been witnessed; and nothing, he presumed, could be more natural than, after such a discussion, to submit the subject to the sense of the country, while the circumstances were fresh in the recollection of the people. A firm and vigorous administration, it was ad

might lead hereafter to results destructive of the people's rights; and in such a way too, that even the authors of it might not be able to avert the consequences. It was giving such an enormous addition to the power of the crown, already too much increased, as might eventually bring this country into as complete subjection to the

minister of the day, as any of the Barbary to understand from him that the wordy States. Taking a view of the causes which contest was now over, and that the memgave rise to the late change, his lordship bers of that house were at length to think observed, that lord Bacon had said that to of something besides debating. Noble lords lead on men from hope to hope, and still talked of tour millions of Catholics, whose to keep them from despair, was the sign of clainis were to be granted: but did they a great statesman. How very different recollect, that there were other inhabitants were the ideas of the present ministers. of Ireland, to whon the proposed measures The noble and learned lord would employ might be disagreeable and disgusting? He Roman Catholics neither in civil nor mili-spoke as an Irishman and as a Protestant. It tary affairs; he would exclude them from would be an act of the greatest baseness to the service of the state either by council or desert the Protestants of Ireland. With arms. The noble and learned lord seemed respect to the late dissolution, what was the also to forget that we passed acts annually cause of the previous one? Was there no dispensing with those very statutes which trick, no arrangement, no influence in the the noble and learned lord reckoned so ma-elections then? He would name Hampterial a part of our constitution. Patriotic shire; but he could speak more particularly zeal, not bigoted prejudices, had pro-to the county of Wexford. At this moment duced the Revolution, and our ancestors of public danger, public men ought to sussent down to their posterity a great exam-pend their bickerings, to unite their efforts to ple of giving liberty of conscience upon con- save the country-and not be,like the Greeks, stitutional expediency; and all that had ever disputing on matters of faith, with the been conceded to the Catholics of Ireland, enemy at their gates. had been well deserved; for, to the present Lord Holland considered the present hour, no part nor portion of his majesty's crisis as pregnant with the greatest dangers; subjects so magnanimously opposed the in- but he did not express himself so from fear, roads of a foreign enemy. The noble lord but from a conscientiousness of our having vindicated the wisdom and policy of the in-great exertions to make. He spoke not as a tended measure that was to have permitted person having any particular local feeling them to enjoy promotion to the state, and or interest, but as feeling an equivalent inhe deplored its failure. He shewed the terest for every part of the kingdom. The interest that the Catholics of Ireland had imputation of personal or factious motives, in a political union with the empire at at such a crisis, was beneath any senator in large, and he thought it hard that four mil- that house to answer, or to attempt to vinlions of loyal persons should be deprived dicate himself from. Such grovelling senof that common interest with the rest of timents he disdained to notice. The noble their fellow subjects, which in common secretary of state had admitted the with them they were entitled to. When he dissolution as entering into the quesreflected on the late dissolution, and on the principle that actuated it, namely, to add vigour to the new administration, he deprecated it, not merely for making the most unjust sacrifices, but because it attacked the very vitals of the constitution.

tion of the propriety of the conduct of the ministers. He had stated, that the American vessels could not come but by indulgence. But, was not all the money so raised, raised contrary to law? The raising of this money under such circumstances, The Earl of Limerick wished to know foreseen by ministers when they projected what was that undescribed something so the dissolution, was, under all its conseoften alluded to, but not openly spoken quences, a very important consideration; out by the noble lord (Grenville)? Did he and such practices were among the chief mean that we should now go to the Catho- causes of the glorious battles fought for the lics in forma pauperis? should confess that country, in the reign of Charles I., in par what we had refused to them when our liament. It was not merely to rescue us enemy was in the east, we were then wrong from enormous taxation, that such practices in withholding, and were ready to grant were opposed, but it was to preserve the now he was returning to the west; and that constitution of king, lords, and commons: we were now ready to hug the Catholics to it was, in fact, to insure the sitting of parour bosoms, and to grant all that we had liament. He then proceeded to combat lately refused? Did the noble lord wish the arguments of the noble and learned this? Did he really think such a conduct | lord, in favour of the necessity of the dissowould do good? He was happy, however, lution, upon which he animadverted warmly.

That noble and learned lord, he believed why parliament should not grant ? It was from all he had heard, was, in the practice of asked whether we should beg the Catholics the law, very learned; but as a constitu- to help us? Certainly we ought not to go tional lawer, and a statesinan, there was no in formá pauperis to a foreign state; but there unlearned peer in that house whose opinion was no loss of our dignity in redressing he would not as soon take; no unlearned grievances at home; in making a few Englishman, or foreigner, whom he would sacrifices to millions of Catholic fellow-subnot as soon consult on the subject of our jects, by restoring them to their just rights. constitution. 8 ch perversion of facts, He reprobated and abhorred the intolerance such misrepresentation of statements, aud of saying that the gates of concession were of the whole constitutional history of the finally shut, or that the sense of parliament country, he had never heard, as from the was definitively pronounced. He certainly noble and learned lord. The inconvenience should not select Mr. Pitt's conduct conof outstepping the law of the land, in raising cerning this question as a chief topic on money, was one of the many inconvenien-which to enlarge in praise of that person. ces, and one of the charges consequent upon But it was certain he always seemed to look the recent dissolution. Did the noble at the subject as one respecting which a lords opposite mean to say, that what they favourable opportunity would arrive. It called the improper conduct of the minori- was not true, that noble lords on his side ties in both houses of parliament, was a the house had urged on this question. No: sufficient reason for that premature dissolu- the circumstances of the times had urged it, tion? Was it a sufficient reason that a the improved state of knowledge in Ireland strong minority disapproved of the maimer had urged it, the rapid successes of the of their coming into office? But he would French had urged it, on the house and on the tell these noble lords, who were no friends country. He had less means of knowing to a reform in the representation of the peo- the views of Mr. Pitt than many others; ple, of which reform the noble lord took but he had that respect for his memory and care to declare himself an enemy, but to his understanding, that he thought, were which he (Lord Holland) had been, and he now alive, he would be found among the still was, with certain qualifications, a supporters of it. He readily agreed, that, friend that such measures tended greatly in our circumstances, church and state to degrade parliament in the eyes of the should be united together: but he saw no country. He thought this consequence too reason to decline stating his opinion that the plain to be denied. It was impossible to constitution of England did not depend upon understand the king's speech but as an ap-any form of religion whatever. From what peal on the Catholic question, as it was sources did the great defenders of our concalled. The noble and learned lord had stitution draw their lights? Was there not gravely told the house that it was necessary a constitution in this country even before to carry the dissolution immediately. Why? the Reformation? Was there none before Because four or five days more might have the test and corporation acts! How, then, spoiled all the hopes of ministers from could these acts belong essentially to the the "recent events," and have destroyed constitution? No: they were not declaall the good effects of the garbled ex-ratory, but merely enacting statutes, which tracts from confidential papers. This was, truly, necessity; out it was necessity for the ministers, not for the country. If parliament did not speedily put an extinguisher upon the doctrines contained in the speeches of the noble lord respecting the impracticability of carrying a measure on which parliament had not pronounced, we should shortly come, after repelling the enemy, to the discussion of a danger second only to that. There never was a speech more calculated to heal wounds than that of his noble friend. Far from exciting agitations, he had stated that he should advise the Catholics not to press their claims. But if they did not press, was that a sufficient reason

the wisdom and justice of parliament might repeal at pleasure. Was the test act any part of the reformation? Did the noble and learned lord know that it was a breach of the declaration of Breda ? of that proclamation promising complete liberty of conscience, which that profligate monarch, Charles II. violated? The test was not passed in Ireland till several years after the accession of king William, though repealed there for several years past, and the exclu sive clause against the Catholics of Ireland were directly against the treaty of Limerick ; but, to be told that these were tied to the act of union! let noble lords look to the facts, and see how grossly they were per

verted. The noble and learned lord had episcopacy there, and let there be but one talked of the union with Scotland securing religion, as well as but one parliament ? those laws. The Tories at that time did, in- He had never heard of the few bishops in deed, try to introduce a clause, for main-Scotland doing any harm to the establishtaining the test, into the articles, the earl of ment of the country. It had been asked, Nottingham making the motion; but it were the Protestants of Ireland to be diswas rejected by a great majority. These gusted? It was not a church-of-England, a were strange perversions of the doctrine of Protestant, nora Christian maxim, to be dischurch and state, which was so differently gusted at the acquisition of rights, by our felrepresented by different persons, but which low subjects. If it be safe to do it, it ought the learned lord thought so simple. He to gladden every Protestant heart. There had been told, when he first attentively were degrees of persecution, but these were turned his mind to this subject, to look at not to be estimated like the obtainable bishop Warburton, who was described as possession of freehold or other franchises, unanswerable. He had not a very high by any act of special pleading. This emi- ' veneration for bishop Warburton; but he nent country, which had produced such found that he laid down his principles in a great ornaments of the human race, ought much broader and more statesmanlike man-not to perpetuate a system that other na-` ner than the noble and learned lord. He tions had discarded from its narrowness. says, it is not the tenets, but the opinion of Was it no privation, no injury to a man, to' the great majority of the people that lays shut up to him the path of preferment, in the foundation of this alliance: and let the arts, in arms, and in councils? His lordlearned lord apply this to Ireland, and to ship here quoted the strong language of the Scotland. Would he revive in the last-men-house of lords in the conference of the 8th tioned country the horrors suffered there of January 1702, which stated, "that noin the attempt to force episcopacy on the thing but a crime should incapacitate an people? He could not think himself an Englishman from serving his country." enemy to the church of England in stating the result of his reflections on this subject, which were those of the revolutionists of 1688,and of that excellent prince William III. The learned lord's words were pretty nearly what was said formerly against the Scottish Presbyterians: "But there was no constitution before all this." What! none in Ed-the law had been infringed, and consequently ward the third's time, when the treason laws that a material inconvenience had been inwere passed? To be sure the learned lord curred. Was the order of council a measure had not appeared to like those laws very of political necessity, which it would have much. Lord Clarendon, who was a very been criminal in ministers not to advise eminent man, but not always enlightened, his majesty to adopt? He thought it was. At nor always just, had said that the church of the same time, it was perfectly fair in those England could never be safe, if the Pres- who disapproved of the dissolution, to tell byterian form was established in Scotland. ministers that they had put themselves into Accordingly, episcopacy must be established a situation, in which they were compelled in Scotland, and that was attempted by acts to break the law, and that therefore they as bad as any of those of the Inquisition. must abide by the consequences of their ill They had recourse for that purpose to tor- advice to his majesty to dissolve parliature. But did they succeed? Mark the ment. Every faculty and energy of the conclusion. Read the history of Scotland, country ought to be called forth in this and then suppose the union passed, esta- momentous crisis; but nothing could give blishing episcopacy in that country, and the him greater alarm than to see such concesking overruled by the sophisticated law of sions granted to the Catholics as seemed to my lord Clarendon. What would have be recommended by his noble friend who been the state of Scotland now? But then, had just sat down. He contended that it should we establish the Catholics in Ireland? was untrue to say we were a divided peoTo that he would say, that we might, if the ple. He had opposed the catholic meacase were similar to that of Scotland. Let sure, because he thought it pregnant with the learned lord state what he thinks of the the utmost danger to the constitution; case of Scotland, Why did he propose for, differing completely from his noble VOL. IX. 3 E

Lord Sidmouth observed, that the statement which had been made on this subject by his majesty's ministers, was so clear, that only one point remained to be explained, and that was, why the duties levied by the order of council were higher than those levied by the expired acts. He allowed that