613 for its contents. refused, and there appeared to be no open- Lord Erskine said, that if the subject be- quent interruptions that had occurred, Lord Mountjoy could contemplate the 2 On the subject of order, he was sure he should not be interrupted by the noble lord on the woolsack for saying how happy he should have been, and ever should be, to manifest his attachment to the Prince, as the Lord Chancellor had frequently with great feeling expressed his attachment to the King. Lord Erskine said, he stood in a relation to the Prince which belonged to few others in the House. Ho had been in his service for thirty years, and had received many marks of kindness and confidence from his Royal Highness, and as he considered steadiness in friendship and attachment to be the source of all honour and usefulness, public and private, he was anxious to explain why it was not in his power, consistently with the attachment he must ever retain for the Prince, nor with his duty to his country, to give the smallest support to the present administration. The Letter pointed to an union with administration-France had become a githose now in office, whilst they differed in gantic monarchy aiming at universal doall the points which vitally affected the minion, and no difference could exist any state. Now, notwithstanding all that had longer upon the principles which ought to been said and written against coalitions, govern propositions of peace, and accordno such union had ever taken place as had ingly no cabinet was ever more united on lately been rejected. The union between that and all other subjects. But if a cabiMr. Fox and lord North was of an entirely net were now to be formed by the prodifferent character. The grand political posed union, like plus and minus in equadifference between these statesmen, and tions, they would destroy one anothertheir supporters in Parliament, was on the one half determined upon a perpetual exsubject of America, before and during the clusion of the Catholics, the other half continuance of the fatal war of separation. convinced that to refuse their claims was Mr. Fox contended for a system of conci- to dissolve the empire. On the subject liation-Lord North for a system of coer- of America one half resolved to keep up cion. And surely it was a dreadful consi- the Orders in Council, the other half conderation, that Mr. Burke's immortal ora- vinced that, putting the objections of tions were made to empty benches; and America out of the question, their contigreat majorities of both Houses then voted nuance was ruinous to our commerce and propositions, which a man would now be manufactures. Who was right or wrong consigned to Bedlam for supporting. on these subjects was nothing, whilst difWhilst such a difference prevailed, wouldferences so irreconcilable and so vital in it have been possible to have formed a their consequences existed. union between lord North and Mr. Fox? -No it never was even proposed until the administration was dissolved, and it was not until the act of American independence, when every question concerning our policy towards that country was at an end, that the union took place. Mr. Fox then thought that he owed it to the country to use the only means which were then practicable to give effect and influence to his principles and opinionsbut this union produced great jealousy and suspicion in the minds of many, and that impression on the public mind ought to inspire the greatest caution in public men on the subject of such unions. No united government could become strong, however pure and upright the principle of union, if suspected by the people. Without public confidence, no government could serve the country with advantage. The noble lord said, that, for his own part, he had the most decided opinion on both these differences. He thought that the state was unsafe whilst so vast a portion of the empire as the Irish Catholics were discontented, and the church not safe whilst disabilities on the score of religion increased the multitude, and affected the temper of those who dissented from the establishment. He always reprobated popery, but its period was come, and even with regard to the Catholic religion, the question was not, whether it was to be encouraged, but how we were to deal with four millions of subjects professing it. The question, as Mr. Burke well expressed it on a different subject, was, not whether the thing deserved praise or blame? What, in the name of God, were we to do with it? Could we man or victual our fleets withThe union with Mr. Fox and lord Gren-out Ireland? Could we, in short, be a naville, which formed the late administra- tion, if a separation were the consequence tion, was of the same character. It was, of our obstinate refusal to consider these utterly impracticable, and never thought of whilst the war waging with revolutionary France was on foot. How could a cabinet have been formed if one half had been deprecating the war with France, and the other half inflaming the contest; if one half had been passing severe laws to repress sedition, whilst the other half were for repressing it by giving to the people full contentment, by the blessings of our free constitution? All these differences were at an end before the union took place which formed the late Petitions? Lord E. said he considered it to be tyranny to keep up those distinctions, when the cause of enacting them was at an end.-The archbishop of Canterbury, on the debate upon the Petition of the dissenters, had given more advantage to the church than it had ever re ceived from any prelate since these laws existed. After supporting, as became him, the establishment of the church, he said, that the Bible was not the gift of God to a nation for the exposition of a government, but the universal gift of God to his creatures for their consolation and happiness, to be construed, by every individual, according to the dictates of his understanding and conscience.-How then could disabilities be maintained because the Catholics construed the Bible, however erroneously, according to their consciences, and as their fathers for ages had construed them? But it was said that penalties had ceased, and that full rights were only not conceded; but that was a palpable fallacy. All subjects had equal rights, unless disabled by dangerous misconduct; and therefore to refuse full rights to the Catholics, was disabling them only for enjoying this admitted gift of God to his creatures, and was tyranny, when the danger which suggested the system was at an end. very reason, devoted as he had always been to Mr. Fox, he never would vote against it, as he thought it removed the only bar to a complete system of harmony between the two countries. With regard to America, the difference was not less vital-Our policy regarding her ought to be distantly prospective: We should look to her at the distance of fifty years, or even of a century hence; the policy of individuals from our frail condition was very bounded; the laws would not even allow us to contemplate beyond a generation, but nations were immortal, and their governments should look far before them. He had always thought, that the only danger which could possibly assail England was, in the extreme difficulty of keeping this mutable world in its present state, so as to leave this island at the top of the He was far from condemning the laws regarding the Catholics in their origin-wheel-Our whole policy therefore should Had he lived in former days, he must as a Protestant have sanctioned them, if they were necessary for the security, perhaps for the very existence of a Protestant establishment, and they might have been so; but we had long since decided, that penal laws in restraint of the Catholic religion were no longer necessary, since we had repealed all of them. But still, undoubtedly, another great question remained after full toleration had been granted; viz. Whether Catholics should be excluded from the establishment? Religious toleration was one thing, and civil establishment another; and there might be very honest differences amongst the most enlightened men on such a subject. But this question also we had already decided, by consenting to their being established. They were already by consent of parliament members of the civil stateThey could be grand, and petty jurors; they could be corporators and magistrates; they could be barristers and attornies, and officers in the army and navy, and even the elective franchise was conceded; they being excluded only from some of the highest offices civil and military, and from seats in parliament; By these concessions we had unquestionably given judgment against the objections now urged. The boundary between toleration and establishment had been completely broken down and obliterated; establishment was an entire thing; and there was no longer any principle of exclusion remaining. Before the Union he admitted that there was a solid objection against their sitting in parliament, but for that (VOL. XXII.) be directed to keep her so; whereas our ministers had taken a directly contrary course. They had rapidly changed, and were still changing the face of the earth, and bringing up rival nations in hot-beds, ages before their periods of maturity, to weigh in the scale of manufactures and arts against us.-Surely, instead of quarrelling with America as we had formerly fatally done for two-pence upon tea, instead of a paper system of odious and impracticable monopoly, we ought to encourage by all possible means the prosperity of the United States; we ought to rejoice to see her rapid population keeping our looms constantly at work, not only to clothe her encreasing numbers, but through the most obvious communications springing out of a connection so natural, to spread our manufactures over the whole new world. Had our ministers looked besides to the interruption of our commerce even with our own settlements in the event of war with the United States? He had been stationed in the American seas, and knew the difficulty of our only path to Europe in heavy laden ships, if North America was a hostile coast. But nevertheless, the most positive declamation had been lately announced by government, of persevering in a system which he (lord E.) had over and over again reprobated; particularly when he submitted to their lordships resolutions against the Orders in Council, as not only inconsistent with sound policy, but as manifestly contrary to public law; and one might as well therefore invite a fish to come out of the channel and to roost with rooks upon an elm tree, as to ask him to (F) support such a system and its authors. He meant no personal disrespect to the noble lords opposite, or to their other colleagues, as his own conduct had always been the result of his opinions, he was ready to give them equal credit for sincerity; but good intention was nothing, when the interests of our country were fatally misunderstood. The noble lord said, he deeply lamented the present in auspicious state of things; but as there was no unmixed good in human affairs, so neither was there evil unmixed with good, and great advantage might spring out of the present conjuncture. It would furnish an unanswerable, and he hoped a final refutation, of one of the falsest and most dangerous opinions which could be propagated amongst the lower orders of the people, viz. that these superiors were all alike all equally corrupt-all looking only to office by the sacrifice of all principle. Upon the present occasion not one public man had abandoned his pledges to the country, by departing from opinions delivered in parliament, and the public therefore ought to be convinced, that what was too frequently and invidiously stigmatised as party, might be better described as an honourable and useful union of men of great talents, and great fortunes, and influence, esteeming one another in private life, and publicly pledged to their country and each other by similar principles of government. He was persuaded that a firm phalanx of such men who had acquired public estimation, and who could only hope to preserve it by attending to the interests of the people, was one of the greatest securities of the British constitu tion. The Earl of Harrowby had really hoped that the noble mover would have withdrawn his address immediately upon hearing the speech of the noble and learned lord who had just sat down; since the House were now told, that to form a broad and united administration was quite impossible at present. Had they not heard from the noble and learned lord, that there was no way of forming an administration which could include the present opposition, except by sweeping away the present administration, and that it was as impossible for him to coalesce with the existing ministry, as for a fish to come out of the channel and live on dry land? Upon what did the noble lord ground his motion?-He stated the situation of the country to be now hopeless-and why? Because it was reported that in another House, a certain member of the administration wished that the college of Maynooth had never existed. Could any thing be more futile than this statement? The next ground was the notice which had been given by a right hon. friend of his in another place, of a call of the House, when the Catholic petition was to be presented to the House of Commons.-Was this unprecedented or extraordinary?— Was it not important that a question of such acknowledged magnitude should be considered in as full a House as possible? And as to the discourses of this or that clergyman on the subject of Popery, on which the noble lord laid so much stress, as indicating a wish to raise an outcry on the subject, there was surely nothing novel in that; as ever since the reformation, the clergy had been in the constant practice of discussing such topics. Then came the state of the press. Was that a reason that the noble lords should adopt such an Address as the present? When was there a period in this country that abuses of the press did not exist? He never recollected a period when much abuse was not conveyed through the medium of the press against those in high stations. Was it because the press was audacious enough to bid defiance to all decency that the Prince Regent should be called upon to change his ministers? If it was true that a part of the press was so audacious, he was afraid there was but one way of putting a stop to it, and that was to bring in the party to power with which that press was connected, and then no doubt it would be silenced. Such a strong measure as that proposed, had never been resorted to but on extraordinary emergencies. When such a measure was had recourse to in 1783, and in 1784, the occasions seemed to call for it: but in the present instance, the secession of one member of the administration was the only plausible reason given for its adoption. As to the arguments adduced in support of the Address by the noble and learned lord (Erskine), he would not attempt to follow him through them; but he would ask that noble and learned lord if he was a friend to the Catholic claims when he was in the cabinet? It was now counted tyranny to resist the Catholic claims. If any noble member thought so, he was certainly right in always agitating that question. But if it was tyranny not to do away the disabilities under which Catholics laboured, every other system of disability was also tyranny; and it was quite tyrannical to require a member of the House of Commons to be obliged to submit to the law of qualification. He defied the noble lords to say, that the administration did not possess the confidence of the country. If it was indeed so notoriously criminal, and so completely unfit for car rying on the affairs of the country with success, as was so decidedly asserted by the noble lords opposite, then it would be right to address the Prince Regent for its dismissal; but as the contrary was evidently the fact, there was no possible pretext for the motion. Lord Erskine in explanation said, that he considered a real change of opinions as no accusation, but he had not changed his opinions he would have approved of all that had been proposed by the late cabinet, and much more than from circumstances they could venture to propose, had he not thought that from the prejudices of the King it would dissolve the administration. (Hear, hear, hear, from the other side of the House!) Lord E. said he was glad to be so cheered, he had laid the trap for it, as it marked most strikingly how general a sensation it was, indiscriminately to impute to public men the love of office and station as the ruling principle of their conduct, which furnished a sound, but thank God, at present an unnecessary caution against being too eager in forming administrations, and placed the conduct of his two noble friends in the very light in which he wished it to be viewed. The Lord Chancellor, in allusion to what had just fallen from his noble and learned friend, begged leave to remind him, that in the year or two subsequent to 1807, the same obstacle continued to exist; and yet he voted in those years for emancipation. He did not mean to say, that his noble and learned friend had acted wrong in so voting, if he, from conviction, had changed his mind. If he himself could be satisfied that the opinions he now held were weak and foolish opinions, he should act as his noble and learned friend did; but then he must be convinced, before he could change his opinions, that the system of conduct adopted in this country since the Revolution, and the principles on which the Revolution was founded, were erroneous. If Catholic emancipation could be proved to him to be for the general benefit of the state, then it should have his vote; but at present he saw nothing but danger in concession. It was on this ground that his resistance to an extension of privileges and power to the Catholics rested; and, indeed, he was ready to confess, that whoever resisted it on any other grounds, must be an object of detestation. The noble lord who introduced the motion took great pains to persuade the House that it arose solely from his own individual impulse; who doubted that? The noble lord might have given himself very little trouble on that point; it was of much more importance to consider what was his proposition. He wished it might be read, that the contrast between its complimen tary professions, and the wish by which it concluded, might be fully apparent to the House. It began by using the most flattering language towards the Prince Regent. He was told in the beginning of it of his wisdom and prudence, and all his other good qualities and qualifications, and then it quarrelled with the only act which the Prince Regent had done since the cessation of the restrictions. The noble lord proposed, certainly, a most desirable object; that was the formation of an administration calculated to conciliate all his Majesty's subjects. Who disagreed with the noble lord on that point? But he also stated that such an object was impossible of attainment from the known principles of the present administration. He wished for a broad-bottomed administration, which, by the bye, was in general the most mischievous of all administrations. (A laugh.) He would assure the noble lords who seemed to feel this allusion, that he did not mean to speak ill-naturedly of them. Some how or other they had been for a long time out of humour with him; he was sorry for it, for he really wished them every happiness, and if he knew of any means whereby he could promote their comfort, he would be always ready to use them. But to return; the noble lord proposed a broad-bottomed-a more extended administration: what did this mean, after he had stated that the members of the present administration were, from principle, so obnoxious to the formation of any such administration? How would the noble lord extend the administration, if he himself and all his colleagues were to be excluded? As to the opinion in which the present administration was held by the public, he believed that the people of this good-natured country were weak and foolish enough to sanction it by their confidence. Good-natured people were |