merated a number of measures which had been introduced for the benefit of Ireland, more particularly those which regarded her agriculture, local taxation, fisheries, and the administration of justice; and then asked, was it fair to represent parliament as only employed in devising measures of coercion ? It was very true, that as the coercive measures were always confined to a limited period, it was frequently necessary to renew them; but the measures for the benefit of Ireland were at once rendered permanent, and were acting at this moment silently and beneficially for her advantage. One of the evils which had been complained of, was the absence of gentlemen from their estates; and this government had attempted to remedy by repealing the assessed He concluded by stating, that, as he was unwilling to meet the motion which had been submitted to their lordships with a direct negative, he would move the previous question. Lords Darnley, King, Holland, and Lansdown spoke in support of the resolutions; Lords Caledon, Limerick, and Liverpool against them. The de

taxes.

bate terminated by a division, the result of which was, that there were 59 votes for the original motion, and 135 against it.

The alleged misconduct of the chief baron, O'Grady, was the subject of repeated discussion during the present session. The accusation was, that he had exacted illegal fees on proceedings in his court. It appeared that he had done so in some instances; but it was also evident, that he fell into the error from negligence rather than from any corrupt motive. The more the matter was discussed, the slighter became the character of his supposed offence; and ultimately, so satisfied were all parties that the matters of imputation against him were merely trivial and accidental irregularities, that no further proceeding or inquiry with respect to them was instituted.

In the end of summer and the earlier part of autumn, the outrages in the south of Ireland increased in number, and assumed a character of extreme ferociousness. As winter approached they again subsided; and, by the end of the year, the country enjoyed rather more tranquillity than was usual.

rhetoric? or had he endeavoured to catch a breath of the fleeting gale of popularity, by affecting, in this solitary instance, to be the advocate of liberal principles ? Some motive of this kind must have influenced the right hon. gentleman; because he well knew, at the very moment he was vapouring in the cause of the Catholics, that his exertions must be utterly fruitless of all benefit, and become the fertile source of irritation and discontent. Notwithstanding this obvious truthobvious by the event the House had been repeatedly called upon to waste its time in useless discussion. The people of Ireland had again and again been excited to the utmost pitch of expectation; and again and again had they learned, that their feelings had only been trifled with and insulted. Their rights had been enforced by the right hon. secretary in the strongest terms; their wrongs had been painted in the most vivid colours; but to their rights and to their wrongs, that quarter, which it was most important to propitiate, had been equally deaf. That the people of Ireland, with their feelings so called forth-with their grievances painted in such vivid hues-with their wrongs so held up in the eloquent language of the right hon. gentleman, in addition to their own sense of intolerable injustice, should not be tranquil, was matter of any thing but wonder. It was a little too much to trifle with the feelings of the people and with the tranquillity of Ireland, by uselessly continuing so painful an excitement. Far better was it at once to put an end to all hope of bettering their condition, and to proclaim, that the system of Protes

He

tant ascendancy would never be relaxed from, than that the Catholics should be led to struggle, without a chance of success. Under such circumstances, he conceived that he should best discharge his duty by withdrawing from an useless discussion. concluded with reading an extract from a speech delivered by Mr. Plunkett on the 25th of February 1813. That extract was received with loud cheering by the House : it was in the following words: "But how can any honest mind be reconciled to the ambiguity, in which the cabinet has concealed itself from public view on this great national question; or with what justice can they complain of the madness, which grows out of this fever of their own creating? This is no subject of compromise. Either the claim is forbidden by some imperious principle, too sacred to be tampered with, or it is enjoined by a law of reason and justice, which it is oppression to resist. In ordinary cases, it sounds well, to say, that a question is left to the unbiassed sense of parliament and people; but that a measure of vital importance, and which has been again and again discussed by all his majesty's ministers, should be left to work its own course, and suffered to drift along the tide of parliamentary or popular opinion, seems difficult to understand; that government should be mere spectators of such a process is novel; but when it is known, that they have all considered deeply, and formed their opinions decidedly, in direct opposition to each other; that after this they should consult in the same cabinet, and sit on the same bench, professing a decided opinion in point of theory, and a strict neutrality in point of prac◄

tice; that on this most angry of all questions they should suffer the population of the country to be committed in mutual hostility, and convulsed with mutual rancour aggravated by the uncertainty of the event, producing on the one side all the fury of disappointed hopes, and on the other side malignity and hatred, from the apprehension that the measure may be carried, and insolence from every circumstance, public or private, which tends to disappoint or postpone it; one half of the king's ministers encouraging them to seek, without enabling them to obtain; the other half subdivided; some holding out an ambiguous hope, others announcing a never-ending despair. I ask, is this a state, in which the government of the country has a right to leave it? Some master-piece of imperial policy must be unfolded, some deep and sacred principle of empire, something far removed from the suspicion of unworthy compromise of principle for power, to reconcile the feelings of the intelligent public, or to uphold a rational confidence in the honesty or seriousness of the government. The consequences of such conduct are disastrous, not merely in the tumult and discord which they are calculated to excite, but in their effect upon the character of the government and the times."

Mr. Canning denied that he had ever said, that he considered the success of the Catholic question as hopeless. What he had said was this-that he thought it hopeless, in the present state of the country, and of this, and the other House of Parliament, to form an administration which should agree upon this measure, and upon all other general measures, so as to be able

to carry on the business of the nation. If any persons imagined that such a declaration was equivalent to a declaration that he thought that this question could not be carried without its being made what was technically called a government question, all he wished to have recollected was, that it was not he who had promulgated such an opinion. He had always thought, and had repeatedly said, that this question would make its way under any government, which did not actually unite or openly set its countenance against it. He believed, that it had been making its way. It might, however, receive its deathblow from the secession which had been threatened that evening; but, if it did so fail, on the heads of the seceders alone let the blame of its failure be thrown! With respect to the observations which had been made upon his own conduct, he asserted, that, both in and out of office, but more especially whilst out of office, he had done every thing in his power to promote the success of this great cause.

Mr. G. Bennett expressed his approval of the sentiments uttered, as well as of the line of conduct announced, by sir Francis Burdett ; and called in question the sincerity of Mr. Plunkett, no less than that of Mr. Canning. Other members of the opposition, among whom was Mr. Tierney, though equally vehement with the honourable baronet in their condemnation of ministers, thought themselves bound, hopeless as the cause was, to support the claims of the Catholics by their votes. Mr. Peel then defended his conduct upon this subject. He was followed by Mr. Brougham, who, with more than usual ardour of manner, poured out a strain of

warm eulogy of Mr. Peel, and bitter invective against those members of the cabinet, who, pretending zeal for the Catholic question, abandoned it to its fate. If, said he, the other ministers had taken example by the single-hearted, plain, manly, and upright conduct of the right hon. secretary for the home department, who had always been on the same side of the question, never swerving from his opinions, but standing uniformly up and stating them; who had never taken office upon a secret understanding to abandon the question in substance, while he continued to sustain it in words; whose mouth, heart, and conduct had always been in unison upon the question if such had been the conduct followed by all the friends of emancipation, he should not have found himself in a state almost bordering on despair, with regard to the fate of the Catholic claims. Let the conduct of the attorney-general for Ireland have been what it might; let him have deviated from his former professions or not; still, if the right hon. secretary for foreign affairs had come forward at that critical moment for the question, and for his own character, when the point was, whether he should go to India, into honourable exile, or take office in England, and not submit to his sentence of transportation, but be condemned to hard labour in his own country-doomed to the disquiet of a divided council -sitting with his enemies, and pitied by his friends with his hands chained and tied down on all those lines of operation, which his own sentiments and wishes would have led him to adopt-at that critical moment, when his fate depended upon lord chancellor

Eldon, and his sentiments with respect to the Catholic cause-if, at that critical moment, he, who had said on the last night that he would not truckle to a noble lord (Folkestone), but who then had exhibited a specimen, the most incredible specimen, of monstrous truckling, for the purpose of obtaining office, that the whole history of political tergiversation could furnish

Mr. Secretary Canning-I rise to say, that that is false.

The Speaker, after a perfect silence in the House during some seconds, said in a low tone, that he hoped the right hon. secretary would retract the expression he had used. An individual of his high rank and station could not fail to be aware, that such an expression was a complete violation of the orders and customs of the House.

Mr. Canning said, he was sorry to have used any word which was a violation of the decorum of the House; but no consideration on earth should induce him to retract the sentiment.

The Speaker asked the House, whether they would not support him in requiring Mr. Canning to call back his words.

Mr. Canning said, he was ready to acknowledge, that, so far as the orders of the House were concerned, he was exceedingly sorry that any conduct or expression of his should have attracted their displeasure. But, if he was to be required to recall his declaration, by an admission that his impression was erroneous as to the expressions which had been applied to him, he could not in conscience do it.

The Chancellor of the Exche quer requested Mr. Brougham to consider for a moment the lan