hurried them onward to a new contest and a certain defeat. The counter-prosecutions against the Chief Justice Downes might honourably and easily have been got rid of: a compromise extorted from the fears, or at least sanctioned with the approbation of the ruling powers, would have established the then-unquestioned privileges of the Catholic, and not rashly put at hazard by evil precedent the very highest privileges of the citizen. It was ruled otherwise :-the attack was pushed on with vigour: the existence of the party was involved in the safety of the individual: all constitutional considerations disappeared the point in struggle was the credit of a faction. What reasonable man, who measures life by living things, and reads facts and not theories, could for an instant doubt of the result? The case was tried a second time in the person of the Chief Justice: judgment was given against the Catholics :-the judgment was intended to be appealed against, but the Catholics lost spirits, and the demurrers were not even argued. Thus the victory which they had at first obtained was reversed. The Committee was scattered, delegation annihilated, and a common liberty sacrificed, by the indiscretion of individuals, to the chicane and corruption of an arrogant and offended party.

179

CHAP. VI.

Consequences of the proclamation, and dissolution of the Committee-New plan-Fourth General Committee, or Association, under the name of Board-Proceedings of the Catholics Continuance of the Veto question-Divisions -General secession of the aristocracy-Injurious effects -Gradual languor and apathy-Insignificance of their proceedings-Final dissolution of the Board.

THE disorganised state into which the body was immediately thrown by this arbitrary construction of a very dubious text, for a time affected the proceedings of the Catholics. They soon recovered their stupefaction: the General Committee had indeed separated, and delegation, even for the purposes of petition, been declared highly penal; but the spirit which orought that body originally together, and had given shape and form to these elements when there was much less affinity between them, still survived, and soon built up a new structure from the fragments of the old one. Out of a voluntary assemblage of the former members, deprecating however with the greatest caution every thing which could be construed into a represen

tative character, arose a new association under an altered title, the body remaining virtually the same the minister had accomplished nothing more than the changing of one appellation for another; the Catholic Committee had become the Catholic Board.

The Catholics had thus foiled the minister, and would have rapidly foiled, like the minister, all other enemies who opposed them, had it not been for their friends and for themselves. The only obstacles, really such, which they ever had to encounter in their course, proceeded exclusively from the same source: from their enemies they had drawn only strength and courage. But the dissensions, which had been so largely extended on the Veto question in despite of present depression and despondency, continued unsubdued. At a period when all ought to have been union and concord, the hostile political parties employed every means which lay within their reach to sustain the internal conflict. The English Vetoists kept up constant communications with their friends in Ireland. In 1810, a resolution strongly declaratory of their opinions (the joint suggestion of Lord Grenville and Lord Grey) was circulated amongst the body. It was replaced by a resosolution, since notorious in English and Irish

Catholic politics, under the name of the Fifth Resolution of the English Catholics. It was inserted in their petition to the legislature, and signed by the great mass of the English Catholic clergy and laity.* The Irish Catholics were extremely divided: the clergy unanimously, and much the majority of the laity, still retained their opposition to the measure; but the aristocracy for the most part were favourable. During the year 1811, these differences, with slight variations, continued. The dissensions of the body were seized and taken advantage of both by friends and opponents. Their friends in parliament eulogised the measure; their enemies made it the sine quá non of their emancipation. Grand juries, &c. petitioned in the same sense, and the question became complicated with innumerable difficulties. The situation in which the Pope stood was urged as an additional argument. He was then in the hands of the French Emperor, and presumed to be under the immediate control and direction of our arch enemy. In 1812 and

The wording of the resolution is very vague, and might appear perfectly innocuous to persons unacquainted with the animus which dictated it. The petition was signed by the four apostolic vicars and two coadjutors, eight peers, thirteen baronets, and eight thousand gentlemen, including three hundred clergymen.

1813 the same scene of unavailing discord prevailed. Application was finally made to the Pope, and in his absence and detention in France, Monsignor, afterwards Cardinal Quarantotti, addressed in 1814 his celebrated letter to Dr. Poynter, which, instead of calming, added only new fuel to their dissensions. Every bearing of the measure continued to be argued by Protestants and Catholics, both in and out of parliament, with an acerbity scarcely known in the earliest discussions of the question.

The Anti-vetoists denounced, and the Vetoists seceded; base motives assumed on either side the badges of their respective parties, and personal ambition and individual selfishness, fought under the banners, to which revenge, interest, or the circumstances of the moment had compelled them. The moderate man shrunk into a craven and a slave, and the independent man became a factious and turbulent partisan. The very suspicion of Vetoism was enough to blot the fairest actions, and to render dubious the purest intentions. No compromise-no half measure;an abjuration total and absolute of the obnoxious principle was alone accepted. The people became intolerant and despotic reasoning was discarded flattery was the sure means of wielding them at will: their favourites first conjured