tranquillity, and disheartens confidence for the future?-which, by setting neighbour against neighbour, and arousing the prejudices of one class of inhabitants against those of the other, diverts the minds of both from profitable occupations, and discourages advancement in all the arts of peace-in agriculture, in manufactures, in commerce-in every thing which civilizes and dignifies social life? The tide of English wealth has been lately setting in strongly towards Ireland. The alarm occasioned by this Association acts at present as an obstacle to turn that tide, and to frighten from the Irish shores the industry, enterprise, and capital of England. Is it not, then, the duty of parliament to endeavour to remove this obstacle -to restore things to the course which nature and opportunity were opening; and to encourage and improve in Ireland the capacity to receive that full measure of prosperity, which will raise her, by no slow degrees, to her proper rank in the scale of nations? Therefore, without saying one word of the Catholic religion, or of the religious composition of the Association, or of its character, whether imputed or assumed, of a representative of the Irish people, there is ground enough to apprehend so much mischief from the mere existence of this Association, as will justify the House in saying, that it shall exist no longer.

"When I speak," continued Mr. Canning, "of the representative character of the Catholic Association, I do not mean to assert that it has ever affirmed itself to be the representative of the people of Ireland. No such thing; it is too wise in its generation to hazard so impolitic a declaration. If it had VOL. LXVII.

done so, it would have been unnecessary to argue the present question; for no new act of parliament would, in that case, have been requisite to enable the law to deal with it. But, although the Catholic Association has not openly assumed this representative character, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact, that such a character has been attributed to it by others: and if notoriety be, as undoubtedly it is, a ground upon which legislation may be founded, the repeated statements which have been made in this House during the present debate, that this Association is, and is held to be, the virtual representative of the people of Ireland, call upon the House to consider whether such an Association can co-exist with the House of Commons. Can there, I ask, co-exist in this kingdom, without imminent hazard to its peace, an assembly constituted as the House of Commons is, and another assembly invested with a representative character, as complete as that of the House of Commons itself, though not conferred by the same process? Does not the very proposition that such is the character, and such the attributes of the Catholic Association, even if not actually true at the present time, warn us at least, what the Association, if unchecked, may become? And if the Catholic Association, with the full strength and maturity of the representative character, could not (as assuredly it could not) co-exist with the House of Commons; shall we not check the Association in time, before it has acquired that strength and maturity?"

Mr. Canning next expressed his strong conviction of the justice and expediency of removing the disqualifications of the Catholics; but [D]

stated his opinion that the Catholic question had retrograded in the minds of the people of England. This effect he attributed partly to the proceedings of the Association, and partly to the attacks which had been made in parliament upon the Protestant Establishment of Ireland.

Proceeding to the third division of his subject, Mr. Canning vindicated himself and the ministry from the reproach which had been thrown upon them on account of their being divided in opinion upon the Catholic question. "I ask the hon. gentlemen," said he, "who have made this charge, to be so good as to tell me, when that administration existed (since the Union with Ireland), in which there prevailed a common sentiment respecting the Catholic question? I challenge them to point out a single month for the last twenty-five years, when division of opinion on that question has not existed among the confidential servants of the Crown; and when the objection to sitting in a chequered cabinet has not been just as applicable as at the present moment. There have, indeed, been periods, when this conflict of opinions had no practical operation; because it was superseded by a general understanding, that all the members of the cabinet, whatever might be their personal opinions, were to concur in resisting for the time, all consideration of the Catholic claims: but of a cabinet concurring in opinion to grant the Catholic claims, I repeat, there is no example. Wherefore, then, is the present cabinet to be selected as an object of peculiar reprehension on this

account?

"When Mr. Pitt retired from office in 1801, on account of his inability to carry this question,

the administration under lord Sidmouth (then Mr. Addington) was formed on the basis of a determined resistance to it. Of that administration, lord Castlereagh subsequently became a member: but the cabinet was still avowedly and systematically hostile to the discussion of the Catholic claims. No attempt was made during its existence to bring those claims into discussion.

"To lord Sidmouth's administration succeeded, in 1804, that of Mr. Pitt. During Mr. Pitt's administration, individual differences of opinion upon this subject were kept in abeyance by one preponderating sentiment, in which there was a general agreement. There was, in the feelings of all the members of that cabinet, an insurmountable obstacle to the discussion of the Catholic claims: I mean that scruple of the royal mind, which Mr. Pitt determined to respect; and which was pleaded, in no obscure terms, as one main ground of his resistance in 1805 to the motion then brought forward by Mr. Fox for the consideration of a Roman Catholic petition.

"On the death of Mr. Pitt, in January, 1806, Mr. Fox, jointly with lord Grenville, succeeded to the management of affairs. Mr. Fox certainly did not hold in the same respect as Mr. Pitt professedly had done, the scruples of the king's conscience; for Mr. Fox's motion in 1805 was made and maintained in direct (I do not mean to say whether proper or improper) defiance of those scruples. That motion was not eight months old, when Mr. Fox seated himself as minister in Mr. Pitt's place in the House of Commons.

"Now, if the necessity for making the Catholic question a cabinet

question is so very apparent,-how happened it not to strike Mr. Fox in that light, when he took office in 1806? It will not be said that Mr. Fox was so unimportant an element in any administration to be formed in this country, after the loss of Mr. Pitt, that he could not have dictated terms, which, it is always taken for granted, and made matter of charge, that I could have dictated if I pleased, in 1822. How, then, are we to account for it, that Mr. Fox, in forming his cabinet, not eight months after he had brought forward his motion (the first since the Union) for Catholic emancipation,-so far from having endeavoured to bring together a cabinet harmonious and consenting on the Catholic questionshould not even have been contented with the single dissent which he possessed-and could not, perhaps, get rid of-in his lord chancellor (lord Erskine), but should have gone out of his way to bring into the administration the two persons in public life, the most decidedly and notoriously opposed to that question? The first of these was lord Sidmouth, with whom neither Mr. Fox nor lord Grenville had ever had any political connexion, and to whom they could therefore have no political pledges: the other was sought for in a quarter in which I trust a member of a cabinet will never be sought for again, on the highest seat of justice, the chief criminal judge of the kingdom. Let it not be said that lord Sidmouth's and lord Ellenborough's sentiments on the subject of the Catholic question were unknown. By lord Ellenborough, I believe by lord Sidmouth, I am confident (for he has more than once declared it in his place in the House of Lords), a

formal and solemn claim to freedom of action upon the Catholic question was distinctly stipulated,— before they would accept the offices that were tendered to them. It was, therefore, knowingly and advisedly, that these discordant materials were incorporated into that government;-a government (be it observed, too), which did make the abolition of the Slave trade for the first time a cabinet question; and which had therefore the doctrine of cabinet questions full and clear before their eyes.

"I do not wish to press this point harshly or invidiously; but it does require, I think, some courage, some front, in those who were connected with Mr. Fox's administration of 1806, to catechise any man, or any set of men, as to their motives for framing or belonging to an administration divided in opinion upon the Catholic question. I say, Mr. Fox's administration,— not as presuming to apportion power between the eminent individuals of whom that administration was composed, but in order to mark particularly that period of the administration of 1806, during which Mr. Fox was alive. During Mr. Fox's life-time it is perfectly notorious that there was not a stir, not a whisper, towards the agitation of the Catholic question, or of any thing connected with it. In the interval between Mr. Fox's death, and the dissolution of lord Grenville's administration, an attempt to moot a part, and no unimportant part of the question, was made; and it is therefore that I address to the friends of Mr. Fox, not to those of lord Grenville, the interrogatories which I have taken the liberty to propose.

"To lord Grenville's administration succeeded, in 1807, that of the

duke of Portland; which, being formed in a great measure out of the materials which had been broken up by the death of Mr. Pitt, naturally inherited his principles, and walked in his steps. The obstacle, which had opposed itself to the favourable consideration of the Catholic question in Mr. Pitt's time, continued unchanged. I think it not necessary to make any other defence for myself for having adopted Mr. Pitt's principles, than that they were Mr. Pitt's. I continued to abide by them so long as the same obstacle existed. I followed the course which he had pursued, and I followed it equally in office and out of office. Under the influence of his example I resisted the question in 1808, when I was a minister. I resisted it again in 1810, after I had resigned my office; when I had no tie to control me; and when, my opinions being what they have been ever since and are now, I should naturally have taken a different course, if unrestrained by the motive which I have described.

"I resigned my office in 1809; and shortly after, by the death of the duke of Portland, the government devolved into the hands of Mr. Perceval.

away with it the obstacle which had so long impeded my free course on the Catholic question. I considered the unrestricted regency as tantamount to a new reign. On that occasion, therefore, I imagined that the ministers, my former colleagues, whose opinions I knew to agree with mine on the Catholic question, would feel themselves unfettered for the discussion of it, whenever it might come before the House. Such was my own feeling. Such I knew to be that of lord Wellesley; who about this time resigned his situation in Mr. Perceval's administration, and was succeeded by lord Castlereagh as secretary for foreign affairs.

"On the first occasion, however, on which the Catholic question was brought forward, both Mr. Perceval* and lord Castlereagh stated that, however differing in opinion on the Catholic question, the ministers were, for the present, united as one man to resist the consideration of it.

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Upon that occasion it was that I gave the first vote that I ever gave in favour of the Catholic question; and upon those statements of the

sentiments on the Catholic question are well known. His cabinet, however, contained members differing from him, and agreeing with me, upon that question; but they refrained, like me, from manifesting that difference of opinion, by the same obstacle which we alike respected.

"In 1812, as in the preceding years of 1811 and 1810, I was out of office. In the beginning of that year, the restrictions on the regency were removed. I considered that removal as carrying

*Extract from Mr. Perceval's speech, "At the same time, Sir, I must state that it is the unanimous opinion of all those with whom I am connected, that the present is not a moment in which any further concessions ought to be made to the Roman Catholics."

Extract from lord Castlereagh's speech the same night. "With respect to the vote I shall give to-night, my right hon. friend (Mr. Perceval) has truly stated that the cabinet are unanimous in this opinion, that the question of concession to the Catholics could not now be conveniently agitated, nor any inquiry gone into upon the subject of the legal disabilities of his majesty's Catholic subjects in Ireland, with the hope of coming to any ultimate and satisfactory arrangement."