The dismissal of Lord Anglesey completed the perplexity of politicians; it dashed, for a season, the hopes of the Catholics, and it raised the courage of the Protestants; but before either had time to discuss its import, an announcement was made which consigned that and every other topic to temporary oblivion-it was declared to an astonished world that Wellington and Peel had resolved to propose Catholic Emancipation as a ministerial measure,

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENTS FOR CATHOLIC
EMANCIPATION.

WE have already stated that George IV. was as strongly opposed to the Catholic claims as his father; indeed, one reason for his anxiety to see the Duke of Wellington at the helm of affairs was the hope that he would prevent the question of Emancipation from being brought into discussion. Peel, however, had been for some time convinced, that it was necessary to put an end to an agitation which disturbed the country, and to discussions which divided the cabinet; and his anxiety on the subject was not a little increased by the king's known wish to put an end to the agitation in Ireland by severe measures of coercion. George IV. himself told Lord Eldon, that "he had frequently himself suggested to the ministers the absolute necessity of putting down the Catholic Association, and of suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, to destroy the powers of the most seditious and rebellious proceedings of the members of it, and particularly at the time that Lawless was on his march." Such a proposition would have been received as a declaration of war against the people of Ireland, and it is doubtful whether it would have received the sanction of the English parliament.

Moore's Melodies, as we have before observed, had created a strong Irish party in the drawing-rooms of fashion; every piano had become an instrument of agitation; the voice of the lady was raised against the vote of the lord; the "Young

England" of the day had been thoroughly liberalized; music and poetry had prevailed over musty law and controversial divinity. But the humorous and satirical poems of the lively bard were hardly less efficacious than his national songs. Among these productions there was none which produced a greater and more permanent influence on the public mind than his Petition of the Orangemen of Ireland, from which we shall extract four of the most striking stanzas :

To the people of England, the humble petition
Of Ireland's disconsolate Orangemen, showing-
That sad, very sad, is our present condition,

Our jobbing all gone, and our noble selves going;

That, forming one-seventh, within a few fractions,

Of Ireland's seven millions of hot heads and hearts,
We hold it the basest of all base transactions

To keep us from murdering the other six parts.

That relying on England, whose kindness already
So often has help'd us to play the game o'er,
We have got our red coats and our carabines ready,
And wait but the word to show sport as before.

That, as to the expense-the few millions or so,
Which for all such diversions John Bull has to pay-
'Tis at least a great comfort to John Bull to know
That to Orangemen's pockets 'twill all find its way,
For which your petitioners ever will pray,

&c., &c., &c.

In the laugh at the fun of this lively ode, there mingled the very grave and sober calculation of the cost to England. of a civil war in Ireland; and Peel, who was alive to the importance of finance, could not be induced to adopt a course which would have added largely to the national debt, and still more largely destroyed the resources from which the debt should be paid. Emancipation would cost nothing; the expense of civil war would amount to indefinite millions;— under such circumstances, there could be no difficulty in predicting the choice likely to be made by the monied interests

of England. The means of escape from the existing difficulties suggested by the king were, therefore, exposed to two fatal objections; they involved a certain, but incalculable, expenditure, while it was far from certain that after all they would prove successful.

We know not when the discussion was first mooted in the cabinet, but we do know that all the ministers concurred with Peel's views, that the time had come when the settlement of the Catholic question had become a national necessity. Early in 1829, probably in the first week of that year, the ministers as "a united cabinet" proposed to the king that he should open parliament with a recommendation of the immediate settlement of the Catholic question. He peremptorily refused, and they tendered their resignations. Without the aid of the Whigs, whom the king thoroughly detested, as abandoned friends only can be detested, it would have been impossible to form a new administration, and the Whigs were deeply pledged to the support of Emancipation. However passionate was his resistance, it was necessarily weak and feeble; he could not bear up against the iron resolution of the Duke of Wellington, and he shrunk from the fatigue which would necessarily have been imposed upon him by the formation of new political combinations. He consented, and retracted; he yielded, and refused;—he wept with discreditable weakness at one time, and he stormed with unusual excitement at another. To put an end to this painful and not very regal vacillation, the ministers resolved to require his written consent to their proceedings. This led to a discussion, which lasted several hours, and was a protracted scene of pitiable weakness and supplication on one side, and of unyielding firmness on the other. It is said that the king made several personal and rather reproachful appeals to Mr. Peel, which the latter answered more respectfully than affectionately. In the end, the king having, as he said, "nothing to fall back

upon," gave the required consent in writing, adding, however, to the document, very strong expressions of the pain and misery the proceedings gave him. It was generally believed at the time, that this reluctant consent was wrung from him chiefly by the influence of the Marchioness of Conyngham, just as his hostility to the Catholics was traced to the spells of the Marchioness of Hertford.

In Ireland, the leaders of the Brunswick clubs unconsciously gave new strength to the changed policy of the minister by an impolitic exhibition of their own weakness. They held a metropolitan meeting in Dublin, which was attended by no man of note or influence; the appearance on the platform of most of the lords who attended, was almost the first evidence that the public received of the existence of such names in the peerage. Such a display of noble nobodies was too tempting a theme for the satirical pen of Moore not to be eagerly grasped, and he bitterly exposed them in the following whimsical jeu d'esprit, professing to be a letter from "Belzebub" himself, declining to accept the profered presidency of their body :

Private-Lord Belzebub presents

To the Brunswick Club his compliments,
And much regrets to say that he
Cannot at present their patron be.

In stating this, Lord Belzebub

Assures on his honour the Brunswick Club,

That 'tis n't from any lukewarm lack

Of zeal or fire he thus holds back,
As even Lord Coal himself is not

For the Orange party more red-hot;
But the truth is, 'til their Club affords
A somewhat decenter show of Lords,
And on its lists of members gets

A few less rubbishy Baronets,

Lord Belzebub must beg to be
Excused from keeping such company.

Who the devil, he humbly begs to know,

Are Lord Glendine and Lord Dunlo?

B