British Premiers in Relation to British Catholics, Concluded [pp. 826-836]

Britisk Prcm iers ii~ P~e1ati~~ to Britisk Catholics. 827
sequence of his attachment to the perate; yet O'Connell was victoriCatholic cause, so it was Canning's ous, although lc6caily indigible. He
fate also to taste the bitter fruits of was declared duly returned; and he
befriending an oppressed and hated was the first Catholic elected by an
communion. The frowns of royalty, Irish constituency since the reign of
the fury of Tories, and the perfidy of James II.
Whigs, combined with the insidious That election was, in effect, the trigrowth of disease to bring him down umph of emancipation. It sunk deep
to the grave harassed and worn. into the minds of the chiefs of the op A rcccss govcrnrncnt followed. position. The greatest statesmen had
Lord Goderich had been a supporter long been wavering in secret. Lord
of the Catholic claims; but mediocri- Liverpool had been convinced some
ty such as his could not be expected time before his death that the time
to hold its place long at the head of for yielding the point was drawing
affairs, and still less to conduct a nigh, and that he would soon have to
momentous and vital question to a support the Catholic daims, if not as
happy issue. That question, like all a premier, at least as a peer. Sir Roothers of equal magnitude, had to be bert Peel had, in 1825, requested
settled out of parliament before it Lord Liverpool to relieve him of ofcould be carried wiflAn its walls. fice on the ground that emancipation
The monster meetings assembled in could no longer be deferred. Three
Ireland at the call of O'Connell years later, he announced to the Duke
brought the matter to a crisis, and of Wellington his resolution to supconvinced all reasonable men that port the claims he had so long resistconcession could not long be delay- Qd, and declared that, in pursuit of
ed. Yet the Duke of Wellington, who that "great object," he was ready to
succeeded Lord Goderich in 1828, sacrifice " consistency and friendship."
and Sir Robert Peel still ranged il~em - Little did the majority, either of his
selves on the side of the opponents friends or foes, imagine how deep a
of emancipation. The Lords, in the change his mind had really undermonth of June, rejected a motion gone.
pledging them to a favorable conside- It would hardly be too much to
ration of the measure. Vesey Fitz- say the same of the duke. He was
gerald, however, an Irish liberal, was the only man in England who could
made president of the Board of Trade, carry emancipation, and the only
and required, according to English man who did do it. He was that
law, to be ree~lected as member of par- power in the state which the circumliament before he could hold his of- stance required. He accomplished
fice in the government. It was a in England, though with far different
glorious opportunity for the Irish, and aims and feelings, what the lyre of
they embraced it manfully. At the sug- Thomas Moore effected in Irish
gestion of Sir David Roos, an Orange- homes, and the eloquence of O'Conman,* and of an b~timate friend nam- nell on the fields of Tarn and Cloned Fitzpatrick, O'Connell proposed tarf. The test and corporation act
himself as a candidate for Clare, in op- being repealed, his way was clearposition to the ~rote$~ of the govern- ed. Persons holding office under the
ment, Mr. Vesey F?tzgerald. In such crown were no longer obliged to
a conffict the odds were all but des- 4ualify themsdves by receiving the
* MacCabe, A~moir Lord's Supper in the Established
May, 1847. of O'Conac2i Ta6?c4 29th Church. He began, therefore, by