CHAP. and at last the peasant was lost in the murderer and incendiary." XX. 1824. 25. working of Composi tion Bill. One evil much complained of in Ireland was sensibly Beneficial abated in this year, in consequence of the Act passed in the Tithe the preceding. The Tithe -Composition Bill had been extensively carried into operation, and produced very beneficial effects. Within a few months after its enactment no less than ten hundred and three applications had been made from different parishes to carry its enactments into effect. Mr Hume made a motion for an inquiry into the condition of the Irish Church, with a view to a reduction of its establishment, which elicited from Mr Leslie Foster some very valuable statistical details as to the relative numbers of the two rival churches in the different provinces of the country. From them it appeared that, taking the whole country into view, the proportion of Catholics to Protestants was four to one; the great majority in Ulster being Protestant, in the three other provinces Catholic.* It is remarkable that, while so much attention was drawn to the affairs of Ireland, and so much ability exerted on both sides regarding it, it never occurred to either party that the real causes of distress were entirely different from what either contended for, and that, as long as the inhabitants continued wholly agricultural, and the price of their produce was reduced by the contraction of the currency to a half of its former amount, 1824, 31, 1 Ann. Reg. While the country was swarming with two millions of persons almost, if not entirely, without either employment or the means of emigration,1 which Government refused to 36. The annual rental, £10,000,000; tithes, 1-17th of that sum.-Ann. Reg., 1824, 5,610,000 pp. 32, 33. afford, it was utterly impossible to expect that any legis- CHAP. lative measures could afford effectual relief. XX. 1824. The extraordinary agricultural distress which pre- 26. Catholic vailed in Ireland from the end of 1819 to the end of Rise of the 1823 produced, however, one usual result of suffering Association. among a people neglected by the Legislature. Association is the natural resource of mankind in such circumstances; and it is only the more widespread that it arises from real evils, and dangerous that it falls under the lash of the law. The CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION arose at this disastrous period; and so naturally did it spring from the sufferings of the people, and so skilful was the direction given to its proceedings by the able and experienced leaders who guided them, that it eluded all attempts at suppression by Act of Parliament, and continued to exercise a paramount influence on the fortunes of the country till the great change brought about by Providence in the middle of the century. The objects of the Association, as publicly divulged, could not be said to contain anything illegal, and yet the Association itself was perverted ere long to most illegal purposes. The declared objects of the Association were 1st, To forward petitions to Parliament; 2d, To afford relief to Catholics assailed by Orange lodges; 3d, To encourage and support a liberal and independent press, as well in Dublin as in London-such a press as might report faithfully the arguments of their friends, and refute the calumnies of their enemies; 4th, To procure cheap publications for the various schools in the country; 5th, To afford aid to Irish Catholics in America; and, 6th, To afford aid to the English Catholics. Most praiseworthy and meritorious objects; but these, though the ostensible, were not the real objects of the Association, nor the which gave it either its great celebrity or its important effects.1 ones The real objects of the Association were very different, and were, beyond all doubt, to accomplish, in the 1 Ann. Reg. 1825, 23. 1824, 42; XX. 1824. 27. of the Asso CHAP. first instance, Catholic emancipation, and to acquire for the Catholics the command of the elections both in boroughs and counties; and next, to achieve by legislaReal objects tive means, or, if necessary, by force, the repeal of the ciation. Union, the resumption of the Church property to the Roman Catholic clergy, and the restoration of their faith as the dominant religion of the land. These were their ultimate objects, as they now stand fully proved by their own subsequent conduct and words; but in the mean. time they proceeded cautiously, and their immediate measures were directed to the following ends: 1st, To collect a large sum of money annually, in name of Catholic Rent, from all the parishes in the kingdom, and to employ for this purpose the spiritual power of the priests, who were directed to use it with the utmost vigour towards obtaining contributions from their flocks, and furthering the objects of the Association; 2d, To appoint Committees of Finance, Grievances, and Education-the Grievance Committee was in an especial manner to take the trials in courts of law under their cognisance, and endeavour by every possible means to obtain the conviction of Orangemen and acquittal of Roman Catholics ;-and, 3d, To obtain the suppression of all inferior associations, as Whiteboys, Ribbonmen, and the like, and concentrate the whole energies of the Roman Catholic body and their entire hatred at the Orangemen, styled "their natural enemies," into one body, directed by a few heads, and steadily pursuing by every possible means the secret objects of the Association. So numerous were the evils, so pressing the sufferings of Ireland, and so little had been done by the Imperial Parliament for their relief, that it is not surprising that the patriots of that country, often warm and generous, though hasty and unreflecting men, should have thought that the time was come when they were called upon to take the redressing of their grievances into their own hands. But experience has now abundantly proved that the means they took to XX. 1824. effect that redress were the ones most calculated to per- CHAP. petuate the wretchedness under which they suffered, and that it was from the very reverse of the policy which their representatives pursued that effectual relief to the country was alone to be expected. 28. tholic tion in refe rence to The Roman Catholic question was not brought forward in reference to Ireland in this session of Parliament (1824); Roman Cabut two bills were introduced by Lord Lansdowne into the questhe Upper House, evidently intended to prepare the way England. for it in the next. The first of these conferred the privilege of voting for members of Parliament on the English Catholics, a boon which had been conferred upon the Irish so far back as 1793; and the second declared them eligible for various offices in the magistracy, and removed the disabilities on the Duke of Norfolk exercising the office of Earl Marshal of England. Both bills were rejected; not so much on the ground of any danger which they themselves threatened, as of the consequences to which they might lead with reference to the future admission of Catholics into Parliament. A subordinate bill, however, was passed by both Houses, which enabled Roman Catholics to hold offices in the Revenue, without taking any other oaths but those de fidei and of allegiance,1 c. 79. and another removing the disabilities on the Duke of Norfolk exercising the functions of Earl Marshal of England.2 c.119. These debates were chiefly important as revealing the schism which existed on the subject in the Cabinet, and which, it was foreseen, would ere long lead to a break-up of the Government; for Lord Liverpool and the Earl of Westmoreland spoke in favour of both the bills which 3 Ann. Reg. were rejected, while the Lord Chancellor took the lead in 47. opposing them.3 The question of Parliamentary Reform was not agitated in this session of Parliament, for the general prosperity which prevailed rendered it an unfavourable time for bringing it forward; but a motion by Mr Abercromby to alter the representation of the city of Edinburgh, 15 Geo. IV. 25 Geo. IV. 1824, 44, XX. 1824. 29. ary Reform, and re versal of Scottish attainders. CHAP. which, according to the Scotch custom, was vested in the magistrates and town-council, not the citizens at large, was negatived by a majority of 24, the numbers being Parliament- 99 and 75. The increasing strength of the minority on Alien Bill,' a matter involving this vital question was ominous of change in future and no distant times. On the proposal by Mr Peel to renew the Alien Act, which gave the March 23. Government the right to send suspected aliens out of the country, an animated debate took place, in the course of which some important facts regarding the working of that much-contested Act were brought forward. It appeared that the total number of aliens residing in the country in 1824 was 26,500, having gradually increased to that number from 22,500 in 1822; that the total number of persons sent off under authority of the Alien Act, since its introduction in 1816, had been only seventeen, of whom eleven were partisans of Napoleon, and that for the last two years not a single person had been removed under it. Mr Canning announced, in the course of the debate on the question, amidst loud cheers from both sides of the House, that he trusted the bill would expire without another renewal, and the bill extending the Act for two years longer was carried by a majority of 120 to 67. In the same session of Parliament a bill was rejected, by 80 to 50, which proposed to extend to prisoners accused of felony the same privilege already enjoyed by those charged with misdemeanours, of being heard in their defence by counsel; a rejection which affords a curious instance of the tenacity with which lawyers adhere to old institutions, how repugnant soever to every principle of justice or expedience. A more worthy spirit was evinced by a bill which passed both Houses by acclamation, at the special request of the King, which restored the honours of the 1 Ann. Reg. families of Kenmure, Perth, and Nairn,1 attainted for 1824, 52, their accession to the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and Mar, the origin of the last of which, as was finely said by 61. |