them." It is clear that the Clare election had already done some good. It had opened the eyes of the most haughty of the antiCatholics to the fact, that the question was approaching its crisis

and conclusion.

State of Ireland.

The next obvious effect was a singular one, the conversion of some of the county members of Ireland who were strong in the Protestant interest. It has been seen that the Association was threatening and preparing to carry all the other Irish counties as it had carried Clare; and one part of its preparations was, composing pledges which the Catholic candidates should be required to take. Even if the system of pledging had not been objectionable, these pledges must have been considered so in themselves by every man of strict principle and independent mind; and every candidate who would not agree to them was to be opposed by the whole power of the Catholic Association. Already the old relations of landlord and tenant were broken up; and the landed proprietors who had fallen under the machinery of the Association were humbled and disabled. Here was another mode of operation threatened, under which the political power of the Protestants was to be utterly crushed. The counties would be lost; or, if an existing member here and there held his position, it would be in a sort of vassalage to the Association, and at its mercy. The alarm operated very quickly in producing conversions among the Irish county representatives and their friends.1 So early as the 12th of August, ten days after the moving of the pledges in the Association,find Mr. Dawson, brother-in-law of Mr. Peel, and hitherto a vehement anti-Catholic, publicly avowing a change of opinions. which induced him now to desire and advocate Catholic emancipation. Mr. Dawson was the head of the anti-Catholic party in the Commons, and was in the service of the Crown; and whatever he said publicly was of consequence, not only to his party, but to the Administration. What he now said, at a public dinner in Londonderry, was, that the Catholic Association must clearly be either crushed or conciliated, or society must dissolve into its elements in Ireland. He did not pretend to suppose it could now be crushed; and he avowed his wish that it might be conciliated. An example like this was sure to be eagerly imitated by many of the sufferers under the present evils of society in Ireland; and the conversions went on rapidly. The Association cared little about them; for they were confident that they should soon have the government avowedly on their side. Notwithstanding all the disgrace with which Mr. Dawson was visited by the Ministry, and all the disavowals of his relatives of any participation in what he had said, and all his protestations that he spoke for himself

1 Annual Register, 1828, p. 130.

we

alone, the Catholic Association felt secure. He would not have said any thing, they were certain, that could put him into radical opposition with the ruling powers, in whose immediate service he was. He might have been rash in speaking so soon and so broadly; but there could be no doubt that what he had said might be taken as a prophecy of good times to come. So the Association went on gayly and boastfully, promising speedy victory, but neglecting no preparations for carrying on a long conflict, if need should be.

We find, in a speech of Mr. Shiel's at this time, an account of the state of society in Ireland, which probably all parties, from Lord Eldon to Mr. O'Connell, would agree to be a fair representation. At one of the aggregate meetings, of which several were held during the Parliamentary recess,—at the great Munster meeting, Mr. Shiel said, "What has government to dread from our resentment in peace? An answer is supplied by what we actually behold. Does not a tremendous organization extend over the whole island? Have not all the natural bonds by which men are tied together been broken and burst asunder? Are not all the relations of society, which exist elsewhere, gone? Has not property lost its influence? has not rank been stripped of the respect which should belong to it? and has not an internal government grown up, which, gradually superseding the legitimate authorities, has armed itself with a complete domination? Is it nothing that the whole body of the clergy are alienated from the State, and that the Catholic gentry and peasantry and priesthood are all combined in one vast confederacy? So much for Catholic indignation while we are at peace; and, when England shall be involved in war I pause it is not necessary that I should discuss that branch of the division, or point to the cloud, which, charged with thunder, is hanging over our heads.”

No feature of Irish society alarmed government and all reflecting men more at that time, than the sudden and almost total cessation of Irish crime. That which, if it had come about gradually, and as a consequence of improved education or prosperity, would have been hailed as the greatest of encouragements and blessings, was now ominous and most alarming, as showing the power of the Catholic leaders, and the strength of their organization. At the bidding of these leaders, feuds were suspended; factions met and acted as brethren; and men mastered their strongest propensities, in order to become a vast soldiery for the achievement of political objects. In almost every county, the judges on circuit congratulated the magistrates on the disappearance of atrocious crimes, and the paucity of even the lighter offences.1 The government would rather have had to deal with

1 Annual Register, 1828, p. 135.

the average amount of Irish outrage, than to witness a lull which boded a coming hurricane. Ireland was governed now by a power greater than their own.

On the expiration of the Suppression Law in July, when the Catholic Association resumed its primitive form, the Orange Clubs sprang up again, affording a new cause of alarm. New Orange Associations were formed, under the name of Brunswick Clubs, which collected a Protestant rent, and in every way imitated the Catholic organization. The strength of the Brunswick Clubs lay in the north; that of the Catholics, in the south: but they did not, as the magistracy hoped, lie apart, railing at each other, without attempting collision. A rash and foolish Catholic agitator, Mr. Lawless, declared his intention of braving the British lion in its den,-its Irish den. He would visit "all the strongholds of the Orangemen." And he went, with tens of thousands at his heels, for no other purpose, as far as appears, than rousing the antagonism of the Orangemen. He advertised, for some time previously, his intention of entering such and such a town, attended by so many thousand Catholics; and, naturally enough, the town was entered, early on the appointed morning, by troops of Orangemen, many or most of them armed. This was not to be endured. The magistrates warned the people against attending these assemblages. The soldiery were kept on the alert. On one occasion, when the agitator himself was prevailed on by the magistrates and military commander to turn back, his followers got into a scuffle with the Protestant mob; and one man, a Catholic, was killed.1 The Catholic Association saw that this would never do. Their policy was one of peaceful parade; and they would enter into no competition of force with the Orange party. They put forth all their influence at once to stop the assemblages of their own body, to induce them to lay aside all uniforms, flags, and military music, and abstain from all provoking demonstrations. It was wonderful how promptly and thoroughly the leaders were obeyed. Bodies of men, in one case amounting to fifty thousand, marching on with flags, music, and uniform, were met on the road by a hortatory address of O'Connell's, and at once turned back and disbanded themselves, making no complaint of the loss of their pleasure, or of the money they had spent in their decorations. Throughout these perilous weeks, the legality and peaceableness were certainly on the side of the Catholics, the rashness and vanity of some of their leaders being kept in check by the good sense and earnest patriotism Brunswick of others; while, of the Orangemen, of the Bruns- Clubs.

2

wick Clubs, even the old Tory, Lord Eldon, could find nothing

1 Annual Register, 1828, p. 139.

2 Life of Lord Eldon, iii. p. 59.

VOL. III.

5

more approbative to say than this, in answer to a request for his opinion on the subject of forming a Brunswick Club in England: "Already very inconvenient questions seem to have been stated, whether the calls upon the people of the country have not, some of them, been expressed in such terms as make it questionable whether those who, in such terms, make such calls, act as legally as they ought." This is put so very delicately, that we may see how reluctantly the admission is made. He goes on: "It is true, those who may so complain may most justly be told that they have not so objected to the shamefully illegal proceedings of the Roman-Catholic Association; and I think it not impossible that we may hear some abusing in Parliament the proceedings of Protestant Associations, who have mainly encouraged the proceedings of the Roman-Catholic Association: but this is an example not to be followed." It is curious to see how utterly blind Lord Eldon was, even at this time, and with all his fears of the Liberals, and his distrust of the government, to the real pressure of the case. No man talked more loudly of his terrors, or of expected apostacy in high places; yet what he anticipated was this, and no more:1"I look on the Roman-Catholic question as, bit by bit, here a little and there a little, to be ultimately, and at no distant day, carried. I have no conception, that even Oxford will struggle effectually against the great Church interests which will patronize that question, and those who support it in Parliament." It was too late for giving liberty, "bit by bit, here a little and there a little."

The Protestant Clubs in England did not succeed very well. The people generally were disposed to leave the matter to the government. There was a meeting of twenty thousand people on Pennenden Heath, in Kent, convened by Protestant leaders, and attended by some advocates of the Catholic cause.2 The petition to Parliament proposed by the conveners was merely to declare attachment to our Protestant constitution, and to pray that it might be preserved inviolate. Some noblemen present moved that the business of dealing with the Catholics should be left with the government; but the petition was adopted by a large majority. This was the only demonstration of any importance in England.

O'Connell now found himself strong enough to declare his pleasure as to the legislation which should take place in regard to his cause; and he even dared a schism in the Catholic body. The English Catholics parted off from the Irish, on the question of securities. They were willing to negotiate with government on the subject of securities: O'Connell scorned them, feeling, as he said, that it was better to receive a part of the Catholic claims, 2 Annual Register, 1828, p. 145.

1 Life of Lord Eldon, iii. p. 56.

without being fettered with securities, and in full certainty that the rest of the demand must soon be granted, than to receive political equality on terms which might occasion future difficulty. He would not entertain the "paltry question of political discount:" he would have full emancipation, either at once, or by instalments; but he would give nothing in return for clear political rights. But on no subject were his asseverations so emphatic as on that of the disfranchisement of "the forties." He Forty-shilling well knew that his former agreement, to sacrifice the Freeholders. forties, had never been forgotten; and he now doubled and redoubled his protestations, given in the strongest terms the language affords, that he would never permit their franchise to be touched. On the 16th of December, the Association unanimously passed a resolution, "that they would deem any attempt to deprive the forty-shilling freeholders of their franchise, a direct violation of the constitution." Mr. O'Connell "would rather die," than yield that franchise; "would say, that, if any man dared to bring in a Bill for the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders, the people ought to rebel, if they cannot otherwise succeed." Again: "Sooner than give up the forty-shilling freeholders, I would rather go back to the penal code. They form part of the constitution; their right is as sacred as that of the King to his throne; and it would be treason against the people to attempt to disfranchise them. . . . I would conceive it just to resist that attempt with force; and in such resistance I would be ready to perish in the field, or on the scaffold." So said O'Connell up to the end of the year. As for Mr. Shiel, he said, in anticipating the policy of the Duke of Wellington, "I trust he will not pursue this course; but, if he should, I tell him, we would rather submit for ever to the pressure of the parricidal code, which crushed our fathers to the grave, than assent to this robbery of a generous peasantry." These declarations were made in public, at the Clare election, and at the meetings of the Association, and printed in the newspapers, at a time when all men's ears were open, and every word of the Catholic leaders echoed from end to end of the empire; and by them the leaders must be judged. During these important months, nothing seems to have been seen and heard of the Irish government, till, on the 1st of October, it issued a proclamation against such assemblages as had already been put down by the influence of the Association. All was again still and mute, till a strange incident, which occurred in the last month of the year, fixed attention on the two friends, the Duke of Wellington and the Marquis of Anglesey, who governed England and Ireland.

The Viceroy.

Dr. Curtis, the titular Catholic Primate of Ireland, had been intimate with the Duke of Wellington, ever since the Peninsular