Historical and Political Essays

W >> William Edward Hartpole Lecky >> Historical and Political Essays

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The situation in Ireland was becoming very dangerous. For some years
after the Union a great apathy prevailed, and there is no reasonable
doubt that, if events in England had been favourable, Catholic
emancipation would have met with no serious opposition in Ireland, and
could have been carried with every reasonable limitation and
safeguard. The most competent English officials calculated that at
least sixty-four of the hundred Irish representatives would vote for
it, and that a decided preponderance of Irish Protestant opinion was
in its favour. On the other hand, the Catholic bishops and aristocracy
had fully accepted the policy of an endowment for the priests and a
veto on the appointment of bishops, and the most Conservative elements
in the Catholic body still exercised an ascendancy over their
co-religionists. The question of the veto had been mentioned in the
Commons, by Sir J. Hippisley, in 1805, and in 1808 Grattan and
Ponsonby formally announced, on the authority of the Catholic bishops,
their readiness to accept it. A letter from Bishop Milner was read to
the House, which very clearly stated their position:

'The Catholic prelates of Ireland,' he wrote, 'are willing to give a
direct negative power to his Majesty's Government with respect to the
nomination of their titular bishoprics, in such manner that when they
have among themselves resolved who is the fittest person for the
vacant see, they will transmit his name to his Majesty's Ministers;
and if the latter should object to that name, they will transmit
another and another, until a name is presented to which no objection
is made; and (which is never likely to be the case) should the Pope
refuse to give those essentially necessary spiritual powers, of which
he is the depository, to the person so presented by the Catholic
bishops and so approved by the Government, they will continue to
propose names till one occurs which is agreeable to both
parties--namely, the Crown and Apostolic See.'

The prelates also engaged to nominate no persons who had not
previously taken the oath of allegiance.[15] But a democratic party
had now arisen among the Catholics, which utterly repudiated the
restrictions of the veto, which sought emancipation by violent and
democratic agitation, and which was rapidly drawing the most dangerous
elements in the country into its channel. The bishops, pushed on by
the strong force that was behind them, speedily retraced their steps
and passed resolutions against the restrictions they had accepted, and
there were evident signs that the Catholic body was passing away from
the guidance of Grattan and of the gentry. This was not surprising in
a country where many elements of anarchy subsisted; and the democratic
party had already found in O'Connell a leader of consummate skill, and
of untiring industry, energy, and ambition. But the chief cause of the
great change that was passing over the Irish Catholics was to be
found in the disappointment of their hopes in 1801, in 1804, in 1806,
and 1812; in the desertion of their cause by Pitt; in the proved
impotence of the Whigs; in the failure of 'the securities' even to
mitigate the hostility of Perceval and his followers; in the profound
consternation and exasperation that were produced by the attitude of
the Regent. The formation of the General Committee of Catholic
Delegates was speedily followed by its suppression under the
Convention Act. But the influence of O'Connell was rapidly growing;
there were already ominous signs of a possible agitation for the
repeal of the Union, and the indignation of the Catholics was
significantly shown by the famous 'witchery resolutions,' which were
unanimously carried by the aggregate meeting of the Catholics in the
June of 1812, reflecting on the influence which Lady Hertford was
believed to exercise over the Prince. After calling for the 'total and
unqualified repeal of the penal laws which aggrieve the Catholics,'
they proceeded to use the following language: 'That from authentic
documents now before us we hear, with deep disappointment and anguish,
how cruelly the promised boon of Catholic freedom has been interrupted
by the fatal witchery of an unworthy secret influence.... To this
impure source we trace but too distinctly our baffled hopes and
protracted servitude.' Such language was not calculated to conciliate
the Prince, and he was only confirmed in his hostility to the
Catholics. As early as September 1813 the Duke of Richmond wrote to
Peel: 'I was delighted to find H.R.H. as steady a Protestant as the
Attorney-General.'

The commencement, however, of what was virtually a new reign had given
a new activity to the question. It was brought forward in different
forms in the first months of 1812 by Lord Wellesley and Lord
Donoughmore in one House, and by Lord Morpeth and Grattan in the
other; and although it was still defeated, the diminished majorities,
the evident signs of an increased Catholic party in the country, and
the language of some of the most distinguished men in Parliament,
clearly indicated the progress of the measure. Canning especially now
strenuously urged that the time had come when the Catholic question
must be fully dealt with. The assassination of Perceval on May 11,
1812, again changed the situation and led to a long series of feeble
and abortive negotiations. An attempt was made to continue the
existing Ministry under the lead of Lord Liverpool, with the addition
of Canning and Lord Wellesley; but these statesmen declined the offer,
on the ground that the other Ministers refused to carry Catholic
emancipation, and Lord Wellesley on the additional ground of their
languor in prosecuting the Spanish war. The Regent then authorised
Lord Wellesley to construct a Ministry, with the assistance of
Canning, and an offer was made to Lords Grey and Grenville to join it,
promising an immediate consideration of the Catholic claims with a
view to a conciliatory settlement; while, on the other hand, attempts
were made to retain the services of the leading members of Perceval's
Ministry. But the Whig leaders refused to take part in a coalition
Ministry, in which they would probably be outvoted, and the former
Cabinet was reconstructed, under the leadership of Lord Liverpool, but
on the principle of leaving the Catholic question an open one.
Liverpool himself was opposed to concession, but his opposition was by
no means of the unqualified kind which had been shown by Perceval; and
a large proportion of his colleagues, including Castlereagh, who led
the House of Commons, were in favour of Catholic emancipation. If
Canning had consented to join the Ministry, Lord Wellesley would
probably have been Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, and under these
circumstances the Catholic side could scarcely have failed to acquire
a decisive preponderance. If, on the other hand, Castlereagh had
followed the example of Canning, and refused to take part in a
Ministry which declined to settle the Catholic question, or if the
Whigs had consented to co-operate with Canning, the settlement of this
great question could scarcely have been deferred. Unfortunately, none
of these things happened. Castlereagh remained the leader of the
House. Canning refused to follow his leadership, and two years later
accepted the embassy to Lisbon. The Whig leaders stood aloof from all
Ministerial combinations. The Duke of Richmond, who was violently
anti-Catholic, continued to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; the post of
Chief Secretary was given to Peel, and Ireland was destined to undergo
fifteen more years of demoralising and disorganising agitation before
the Catholic question was settled.

Canning, however, as an independent member, brought forward a
resolution pledging the House to an early consideration of the laws
affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, with a view to their
final conciliatory adjustment, and the conditions of the question had
so profoundly changed that it was carried by a majority of 129; while
a similar motion by Lord Wellesley in the House of Lords was met by
the previous question, which was carried by a majority of only one.

Peel, though he had come into Parliament as a special follower of
Perceval, had not yet pledged himself decisively against the
Catholics. He had voted silently against Canning's motion in June, and
although he had spoken against a previous motion of Grattan, he had
done so mainly on the ground that the time was not opportune, and had
expressly guarded himself against giving any positive pledge. He was
now, however, obliged to take a more prominent part, and for the next
six years he was the chief support of the anti-Catholic party in
Parliament. His part was a very difficult one, for he had to encounter
Grattan, Plunket, Canning, and the Whig leaders, and he had scarcely
any real supporters. Saurin, the Attorney-General, it is true, was
strongly opposed to all concession. He was a lawyer of high character
and attainments, of Huguenot descent and strong Huguenot principles,
and he had borne a distinguished part in opposition to the Union; but
Saurin refused to go to London. Bushe, who was Solicitor-General,
leaned to the Catholic side; and, to the great indignation and
consternation of the Government, Wellesley Pole, who had preceded Peel
as Chief Secretary and who was the brother of Lord Wellesley, now
pronounced himself strongly in Parliament in favour of the Catholics.
This speech was entirely unexpected, for Pole had hitherto been
regarded as a staunch adherent of the Protestant party, and as late as
the last day of 1811 he had sent a memorandum on the Catholic question
to the Secretary of State in England, which was intended to be laid
before the Cabinet, and which maintained the impossibility of safely
satisfying the Catholic claims, and the expediency of the Prince
Regent's taking a decided part against them. A general election had
taken place in September, and it is evident from the letters of Lord
Liverpool and Peel that they at this time looked upon Canning and his
followers with even more hostility than the regular Opposition.

In the new Parliament the Catholic question at once assumed a great
prominence. A motion for the immediate consideration of the laws
affecting the Catholics was introduced by Grattan, supported by
Castlereagh, opposed by Peel, and ultimately carried by a majority of
40. A resolution of Grattan's for removing laws imposing civil and
military disabilities on the Catholics, with such regulations and
exceptions as might provide for the security of the Protestant
succession and of the Established Church, was next introduced. Peel
opposed it bitterly, but was beaten by a majority of 67.

'We were terribly beaten,' he wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'but we
are sad cowards, I am afraid; at least, we are shamefully used. Poor
Duigenan could not get a hearing, and the general impression seemed
against the Protestants. We will fight them out, however, to the last.
I am sure it is better than to give way.' 'Your defence of the
Protestant cause,' wrote Saurin, 'was not only by far the ablest and
best, but the only one which did not seem to strengthen the cause of
the adversary by some concession of principle. I really fear the
Protestant cause is lost in the Commons. There can be no rally now but
on the securities.'[16]

Grattan at once brought in a Bill in accordance with the terms of the
Resolution that had been carried; but the Protestant party now rallied
around a motion of Sir John Hippisley, for a committee to inquire into
the state and tenets of the Roman Catholics, and the laws affecting
them. Canning pointed out with great force that a committee of inquiry
was exactly what the Protestant party had for so many years
strenuously resisted; but, as Peel wrote to the Duke of Richmond,
there was no inconsistency in their conduct: 'When the question was
whether we should consider the claims of the Catholics and the laws
affecting them, or should resist their claims, we voted for resistance
without inquiry; the question now is, whether we shall consider or
concede, and we prefer inquiry to concession.'[17]

The motion for delay, however, was defeated by 187 to 235, and the
second reading of Grattan's Bill was carried by 245 to 203. But a
sudden change now occurred in the prospects of the cause. Canning and
Castlereagh, with the full assent of Grattan, introduced clauses for
the securities which had been before intimated, giving the Crown a
control over the nomination of the Catholic bishops. But the bishops
unanimously condemned the proposal, and the large majority of the
Catholic Board supported them. It became evident that the Bill before
Parliament would fail to satisfy the Catholics, and after a long
discussion the clause admitting Catholics to Parliament was rejected
by 251 to 247.

Peel had triumphed. The profound division which had broken out among
the supporters of Catholic emancipation threw back for many years a
cause which had been almost gained, though in 1817 an Act was passed
without opposition throwing open to the Catholics the military and
naval positions which Grenville had vainly attempted to open in 1807.
Few things could have been eventually more disastrous both to Ireland
and to the Empire than the defeat of the influence represented by
Grattan and by the Catholic gentry, and the growing ascendancy of
O'Connell and the democratic and sacerdotal party in Irish popular
politics. Grattan had long predicted that, if concession was not
speedily and wisely made, population in Ireland would drift away from
the guiding and moderating influence of property; that seditious and
anarchical men would gain an ascendancy which would make the whole
problem of Irish Government incalculably difficult; that a priesthood
unconnected with the English Government would lead to a 'Catholic
laity discorporated from the people of England.' In the Irish
Parliament the strong bias of Conservatism in his policy had been
repeatedly displayed, and it was equally apparent in the Imperial
Parliament. In 1807 he had supported the Insurrection Act, in
opposition to many of his friends, on the ground that there was a real
and dangerous French party in Ireland, which the common law was
insufficient to suppress. In 1814 he expressed his full approval of
the proclamation suppressing the Catholic Board. He steadily and
earnestly maintained that, although it was vitally necessary that
Catholic emancipation should be speedily carried, it should be
accompanied by measures for securing, as far as possible, the loyalty
of the higher Catholic clergy, and uniting them in interest and
sentiment with the British Government. He looked with bitter hostility
on the rise and policy of O'Connell. He accused him of 'setting afloat
the bad passions of the people,' making grievances instruments of
power without any honest wish to redress them, treating politics as a
trade to serve a desperate and interested purpose.

But the influence of Grattan was now manifestly declining, and Peel
watched the decline with a short-sighted and not very generous
pleasure. In Parliament, though numbers were against the Catholics,
the overwhelming preponderance of ability was still in favour of the
principle of emancipation, and it was in leading the anti-Catholic
party that Peel chiefly acquired his almost unrivalled parliamentary
skill. He had, indeed, all the qualities of a great debater: courage,
fluency, self-possession, complete command of every subject he
treated, unfailing lucidity both in statement and reasoning; admirable
skill in marshalling and disentangling great masses of facts, in
meeting, evading, or retorting arguments, and detecting the weak
points of the case of an opponent, in veiling, by plausible language,
extreme or unpalatable views, in extricating himself by subtle
distinctions and qualifications from embarrassing situations. He can
scarcely, it is true, be called a great orator. His style was formal,
cumbrous, extremely verbose, without sparkle and without fire. He had
little or no power of moving the passions, nothing of the flexibility
that can adapt itself to very different audiences, nothing of the
philosophic insight that can impart a perennial interest to transient
discussions. But few men have ever understood the House of Commons
like him, or have possessed in so high a degree the qualities that are
most fitted to command and influence it. The great mass of
anti-Catholic sentiment in the country rallied around him as its most
powerful champion, and in 1817 he attained one of the chief objects of
his ambition in being elected member for Oxford University. It is well
known that his older and more brilliant rival had long aspired to this
honour. It was mainly through the Catholic question that Canning
missed and Peel won the prize.

The nickname 'Orange Peel,' which was given to him in Ireland, was
not wholly deserved. His letters abundantly show that he had no
sympathy with the ribbons, the anniversaries, the party tunes, the
insulting processions and insulting language of the Orangemen; and,
although he believed that in Ireland anti-Catholicism and loyalty were
very closely connected, he viewed with much dislike the growth of any
political confederacies unconnected with the Government. Declamation
and boastfulness and needless provocation were, indeed, wholly alien
to his nature; and even when defending extreme causes he rarely or
never used the language of a fanatic. He resisted Catholic concession
mainly on the ground that the admission of the Catholics to political
power would prove incompatible with the existence of the Established
Church in Ireland, with the security of property in a country where
property was mainly in Protestant hands, and ultimately with the
connection between the two countries. His arguments were not based on
religion, but on political expediency; but it was an expediency which
he believed to be permanent.

'I see,' he wrote to the Duke of Richmond, 'one of the papers reports
me as having said that I was not an advocate for perpetual exclusion.
It might be inferred that I objected only to the time of discussing
the question. That is not the case.... There are certain anomalies in
the system which I would wish to remove, but the main principles of it
I would retain untouched.... At no time, and under no circumstances,
so long as the Catholic admits the supremacy in spirituals of a
foreign earthly potentate, and will not tell us what supremacy in
spirituals means--so long as he will not give us voluntarily the
security which every despotic Sovereign in Europe has by the
concession of the Pope himself--will I consent to admit them.'[18]

The letters before us show clearly that his political sympathy was
with Saurin, with Duigenan, with Lord Eldon, and even with Lord
Norbury. O'Connell early perceived in Peel his most dangerous
opponent, and a strong personal enmity, which was as much due to
profound differences of character as to differences of policy, grew up
between them. A scurrilous attack of O'Connell on Peel in 1815 was
followed by a challenge, and a duel was prevented only by the arrest
of O'Connell. The antipathy between the two men was never mitigated.
O'Connell said of Peel that 'his smile was like the silver plate on a
coffin.' Peel, in his confidential letters, expressed the utmost
dislike and contempt for the character of O'Connell, and when he was
at length compelled by the Clare election to concede Catholic
emancipation, his feeling towards him was significantly and
characteristically shown. He enumerated in a brilliant passage the men
to whom the triumph of Catholic emancipation was really due. He spoke
of Fox and Grattan, of Plunket and of Canning, but he made no mention
of O'Connell.

The administrative side of Peel's Chief Secretaryship is much more
creditable to him than the political side. The vivid picture which his
letters present of the manner in which Ireland was governed more than
fifteen years after the Union will probably strike the reader with
some surprise, when he remembers that the Union had extinguished about
seventy small boroughs, and had at the same time greatly diminished
the importance of the Irish representatives, and therefore the
necessities for corruption. Peel noticed that while 'the pension list
of Great Britain was limited to 90,000_l._ per annum, the pension list
of Ireland may amount to 80,000_l._ a year; and he found almost all
Irish patronage still employed for political purposes, and almost
every office honeycombed with abuses and peculations. A few extracts
will give the reader some notion of the nature and extent of the evil,
and of the efforts of Peel to reduce it:--

'How is it possible,' he wrote, 'to propose that a shilling should be
granted to a general officer on the staff in Ireland when sixpence is
granted in England? This is called a modification in official phrase,
but it ought to be called doubling the allowance. Set your face
steadily against all increase of salary, all extra allowances, all
plausible claims for additional emolument. Economy must be the order
of the day--rigid economy.'[19] 'When English members hear that the
sheriff appoints the grand jury, that the grand jury tax the county,
that the sheriff has a considerable influence at elections, and that
the sheriff is appointed openly on the recommendation of the member
supporting the Government, they are startled not a little.... I know
that this is a most convenient patronage to the Government, but I know
also that I cannot hint in the House of Commons at such a source of
patronage, and I confess I have great doubts on the legitimacy of
it.... After Lord Redesdale's declaration ... that the mode of
appointing sheriffs "poisons the sources of justice," and witnessing
the general feeling among the English against making the nomination of
a most important officer in the execution of justice dependent on the
will of the county member, I thought it highly expedient to give a
positive assurance that the Government would revert to the ancient
and legal practice of appointing sheriffs in Ireland.... With a pure
Bench--and time will, I hope, purify it--the change would be an
essential change for the better.'[20] 'Foster says that the abuses
discovered in the office [of Clerk of the Pleas] are enormous, that
the amount of fees exacted from suitors is not less than 30,000_l._
per annum, of which the principal clerk did not receive more than
one-third. A Mr. Pollock, the first deputy, is in receipt of 8,000_l._
or 9,000_l._ a year as his own share of the profits; other deputies
and persons unnecessarily employed have profits amounting to 1,200_l._
or 1,400_l._ a year each. Foster thinks that every possible difficulty
will be thrown in the way of an early decision in the Irish Courts....
In the meantime, the Chief Baron is receiving the enormous profits
arising from these enormous abuses.'[21]

The practice of buying and selling public offices, and the practice of
dividing the salaries of a single office between a principal and
deputies, still continued; but Peel did his utmost to eradicate them.
If it were permitted in one case, he said, 'every officer in every
department who purchased on corrupt terms and is now living may claim
a right to sell the office so purchased.'

'With respect to a payment out of the salary to R., I can have no
scruple in giving you my opinion that it would not be right. I have
never been, and cannot conscientiously be, a party to an arrangement
of that kind, because I think this is quite clear, that if the salary
of the office is disproportionate to the labour of it, and can bear to
be taxed to the amount of 200_l._, the public should benefit, and the
emoluments of the office be reduced.'[22]

One of Peel's first tasks was to conduct a general election, and he
had ample opportunities of judging how these things were managed in
Ireland. A law known as Curwen's Act had been recently passed,
condemning to a heavy fine in the event of failure, and to the loss of
his seat in the event of success, any person giving, or promising to
give, or consenting to give either money or office for a seat in
Parliament. The law was not a little embarrassing to Peel, as his own
seat of Cashel had been purchased, and he thought it safer to transfer
himself to the English seat of Chippenham, where his return was
managed by his father without any intervention on his own part. At the
same time, the elections in Ireland went on much as if Curwen's Act
had never passed.

'I am placed in a delicate situation enough here,' he wrote to his
friend Croker: 'bound to secure the Government interests, if possible,
from dilapidation, but still more bound to faint with horror at the
mention of money transactions, to threaten the unfortunate culprits
with impeachment if they hint at an impure return, and yet to prevent
those strongholds, Cashel, Mallow, and Tralee, from surrendering to
the enemies who besiege them.'

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