Herbert Taylor, to be likely to prove final and conclusive.' The discussion ended on the 24th of March, by Lord Grey's engaging, on behalf of the cabinet, not to advise his majesty to dissolve parliament until it should be found absolutely necessary, but claiming the right to give that advice whenever he should be convinced that the good of the country required it. His majesty acquiesced; and there is no further reference in the correspondence to the question of a dissolution until General Gascoigne made his motion in the House of Commons, on the 18th of April, for an instruction to the committee on the Reform Bill. The ministers considered that the carrying of this motion would be fatal to the bill; and, on the 19th, after the first night's debate upon it, Lord Grey wrote to Sir Herbert Taylor, saying that, if the government should be defeated (which he did not then expect), it would probably be necessary to recommend a dissolution; and that he wished him to prepare the king's mind for its being proposed to him. He wrote another letter, at the same time, to the king himself, alluding more obscurely to the same probability. The king, having read the letter to Sir Herbert Taylor, as well as that addressed to himself, returned an answer expressing very strongly his continued objection to a dissolution. On the night of the 19th, General Gascoigne's motion was carried against the government; and early the next day this fact was communicated to the king by Lord Grey, in a short letter, in which he said the cabinet was about to meet. The cabinet met accordingly, and agreed to a minute advising a dissolution, which was personally delivered to the king the same day (Wednesday, April 20th) by Lord Grey, before the levée, In the course of the afternoon the king sent a short letter to Lord Grey, saying that he would reserve the subject for more mature consideration, and give his answer in writing. To this Lord Grey replied the same evening, expressing the wish of the cabinet not to press for an earlier decision than was consistent with the king's convenience, and the necessity for mature consideration. Early the next morning (the 21st), a very long answer to the cabinet minute was received from the king, recapitulating all his objections to a dissolution, and then explaining his reasons for acting on the advice of his ministers. Lord Grey, in reply, expressed the great satisfaction this letter had given him, and said he would communicate it to his colleagues, who were to assemble at twelve o'clock. A note, from Sir Herbert Taylor, desired Lord Grey to be himself the bearer of the answer of the cabinet to the king's communication; and he accordingly went to St. James's as soon as the cabinet was over, and informed the king, verbally, of the conclusion it had come to. The substance of this communication was afterwards, at the king's desire, embodied in the form of a cabinet minute, dated the 21st, though not written till the 24th. This minute contains little more than an expression of the gratitude of the ministers to his majesty for the confidence placed in them, and a further explanation of the grounds on which they had thought it right to recommend the dissolution of parliament. It does not appear, from the correspondence, how soon it was at this time proposed that the dissolution should take place; but I can state, from my own distinct recollection, that it was intended to be deferred for a day or two, in order to get some votes of money which were much required; and especially to have the report brought up on the ordnance estimates, in which several votes had been obtained in committee of supply, but were not available till reported. But on the evening of the 21st, when the report on the ordnance estimates was to have been brought up, a debate was raised upon a resolution respecting the Liverpool election, in which the conduct of the government was vehemently attacked, especially with reference to the dissolution, which it was known was intended; and it soon became evident that the opposition was determined to take up the whole night by this debate. The object of doing so was to prevent the report of the committee of supply from being received, and thus to render it impossible (as it was supposed) for the dissolution to take place before the House of Lords should have had time to carry the address against it, which Lord Wharncliffe had given notice that he would move the following day. The debate in the House of Commons was pro

longed accordingly, and, at last, ended by the adjournment of the House being carried on a division against the government, to which Lord Brougham alluded the next day as 'a refusal of the supplies.' There was a dinner that evening at Lord Durham's, in Cleveland Row, at which some members of the cabinet were present, and no one not in the cabinet, except Lord Duncannon, Mr. Wood (Lord Halifax), and myself. Lord Althorp was to have been of the party; but when the unexpected debate arose in the House of Commons, he found it impossible to get away; and he desired Mr. Wood and myself to go, saying it was of no use our remaining; and to tell Lord Grey, from him, that from what was going on in the House of Commons, it was obvious that no more votes of money could be got, and that the dissolution ought to take place at once. We carried this message to Cleveland Row, where we found dinner going on; and, as soon as it was over, a consultation was held among the members of the cabinet present; and I believe (though of this I am not sure) that as many of the other ministers as could be hastily assembled were sent for. The subject of their consultation was, whether parliament ought not to be dissolved the next day in consequence of what was then going on in the House of Commons, and of what had taken place earlier in the evening in the House of Lords. More than one communication passed between the ministers who were in Cleveland Row, and Lord Althorp in the House of Commons, and also with Mr. Spring Rice (the late Lord Monteagle), who was engaged at the Treasury in ascertaining whether it was possible to carry on the government till a new parliament could meet, without having command of the money for which votes had been obtained, but not reported. Lord Duncannon, Mr. Wood, and myself, did not leave the room; but, of course, took no part in the consultation of the ministers, except by whispering some suggestions to the Duke of Richmond, who was sitting near us. The result was, that a letter was written by Lord Grey to the king, of which no copy has been preserved; but it appears, from the king's answer, that its purport must have been to ask his majesty to grant an audience to Lord Grey the next day, and to appoint a council to determine formally on the dissolution; obviously implying that it had been decided that it should take place at once. The king's answer, dated the 21st, says that he had that moment received Lord Grey's letter from Cleveland Row; that he would see Lord Grey next morning, at half-past eleven; and that the council was to be summoned for twelve-the members of the government coming in morning dress. The king went to the House of Lords at three on the 22nd, and prorogued parliament, with a view to its immediate dissolution.'"

A correspondent of the Times corroborates this letter, by stating, from his own knowledge, as an official, that, "before the division in the House of Commons had taken place, the advice to dissolve the next day had already been given and accepted; summonses had been issued for the meeting of the Privy Council; and all the necessary orders given.”

At the end of the first session of the reformed parliament, the old Tories began to revive. The deluge had come, and they were not drowned after all. The government, it was clear, had not increased its popularity. In the autumn of 1832, a penny subscription had produced, for Lords Brougham, Althorp, and John Russell, gold cups, weighing eighty-five ounces, and made to contain five pints. Nothing of the kind was forthcoming in 1833. Great honour, too, had been done reformers in the gross by Haydon's famous picture, representing the reformed House of Commons, painted as regardless of expense as space; and now anti-reformers were being honoured, and Chantrey had been set to work on a marble bust of his grace the Duke of Wellington, for the University of Oxford. Nothing, however, could open the eyes of the Tories to the real necessity of the Reform Bill. To the very last they regarded it as a mere party manœuvre, and not as the result of national needs. Even in 1836, Mr. Raikes writes-"When the duke's government resigned on the civil list question, Lord Grey became Prime Minister. He was then only an advocate for moderate reform; or, as Talleyrand said of him,

only anxious to act consistently with what he said in parliament forty years ago. But here, again, he was overruled by and who worked him up to that sweeping bill which prevented him, and will prevent any other government, from ruling the country again. The Whigs had been so long excluded from office, and their constant defeats in the House of Commons, on every party question, had so exasperated them against the Tories, that when once they got into place, they determined to bring on a new order of things, which, if it did not maintain them in power, should at least for ever exclude their adversaries. Night after night I can remember the runners of the party coming up to Brookes' club from the House after a division, and exulting in a few votes gained to their never-ceasing minority; while their idol Thanet, who was playing his rubber at whist, would give them a sarcastic smile, and quietly say, 'I have been with them forty years, and never have seen them get a peg higher.' Had George IV. lived, or had the Duke of York succeeded him, we should never have seen the present changes in our constitution." Here is the old fallacy again-Canute can stop the rising tide. Earl Grey had the sense to know better.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE IRISH DIFFICULTY.

THOUGHTFUL observers early foresaw troubles coming on the Liberal administration. John Foster, the essayist, writing to Mr. Easthope, M.P., in 1832, says “They will soon lose the favour of the people, and so be left bare to the unrelenting siege of their mortal enemies, if they do not dare and accomplish some grand exploits of almost revolutionary change. Think of Ireland." Think of Ireland." Alas! it is seldom that unhappy land has been out of a statesman's thoughts. As we have seen, it has already imperilled the existence of the ministry; and the selection of Mr. Stanley as Irish Secretary was a most unfortunate event.

The repeal of Catholic disabilities bad not pacified Ireland.

The new Reform Bill was equally unsatisfactory. The Irish reformers complained, not only that, in direct violation of the promise made by Lord John Russell, the bill for Ireland was based upon principles totally different from the former as regarded the franchise, but that the mode of registration was essentially different.

The English Reform Act conferred the county parliamentary franchise on nine different classes of persons. 1. The owners and actual occupiers of a freehold estate of the annual value of forty shillings, for a life or lives. 2. The owners of a freehold of forty shillings annual value, held in perpetuity. 3. The owners of a freehold of £10 annual value, for a life or lives in fee. 4. The owners of a copyhold estate of the annual value of £10. 5. The original lessee or assignee of a term originally of sixty years, of the yearly value of £10. 6. The original lessee or assignee of a term originally of at least twenty years, of the clear annual value of £20. 7. The sub-lessee or assignee of a sub-lease, of a term not less originally than sixty years, of the clear yearly value of £10. 8. The sub-lessee or assignee of a sub-lease, not less originally than twenty years, of the clear yearly value of £50. 9. Every tenant whatsoever who was bona fide liable to the payment of an annual rent, whether he derived any profit from his holding

or not.

The Irish Reform Act conferred the franchise on only five classes: viz.-1. The owner of a freehold of the clear yearly value of £10, provided he was in actual occupation. 2. The lessee or assignee of a term not less originally than twenty years, having what the act termed a beneficial interest therein of the clear annual value

of £10, and provided he was in the actual occupation. 3. The owner of a freehold of the clear annual value of £20. 4. The lessee or assignee of a term not less originally than sixty years, and having a beneficial interest therein of the clear annual value of £10. 5. The lessee or assignee of a term not less originally than fourteen years, and having a beneficial interest therein of the clear annual value of £20. As regarded the registry, also, there was a difference in favour of the English. The same inequality existed in respect to the elective franchise in cities and boroughs. In vain did the Irish reform members remonstrate. Ministers were inflexible. The debates, too, on the subject were conducted with incredible acrimony, and often degenerated into a mere personal conflict between Mr. Stanley and Mr. O'Connell. Against the state of registration law the Irish people continued to protest for many years; and, in 1850, their remonstrance at length produced a remedy. For this change in the law the Edinburgh Review praises Lord Clarendon. The writer's words are- "The great measure of 1831 was not a more important enlargement of popular rights than the act we now speak of. The two monstrous evils of the former state of the law-the dependence of franchise upon tenure, and a vexatious process of registration-which made the attainment of the right of suffrage as troublesome as a law-suit, no longer disgraced the Irish representative system. The system established by the law of 1831, broke down under these two fatal defects."

A third source of dissatisfaction was the payment of tithes. The church of England, in Ireland, is the church of the minority. It is to the Irishman a badge of conquest, and he clings all the more fondly to the church of his forefathers-to the old faith which has covered Europe with the mansions of charity. At the period of which we write the payment of tithes was almost suspended; and scenes of the most sanguinary description were every day enacted in the struggles which took place between those who were legally bound to pay, on the one hand, and the persons employed to enforce the legal rights of those who were entitled to receive, on the other. As soon as the reformed parliament met, a committee was appointed by each House, to "inquire into the collection and payment of tithes in Ireland, and the state of the law relating thereto." After a very short inquiry, a report to the same effect was made by each of the committee, and was confined to what was most worthy of immediate attention-a provision for the clergy who had not, for more than a year, received any tithes whatever. To meet this pressing necessity, the committee recommended that his majesty should be empowered to advance to the incumbent from whom tithes, or the composition in lieu of tithes, had been illegally withheld, sums not exceeding the amount of the arrears due for the tithes for the year 1831, proportioned to the incomes of each, according to a scale, diminishing as their incomes increase; and that his majesty should be empowered to levy, by a law to be passed for the purpose, the amount of such arrears, and apply the money so to be received to reimburse the public, and to pay over the remainder to the legal claimant. The report further stated, that, with a view to secure the interests of the church, and the lasting welfare of Ireland, a permanent change of the tithe system was required; and that such change, to be safe and satisfactory, should involve a complete extinction of tithes, including those payable to lay proprietors, by commuting them for a charge upon land, or an exchange for, or investment in, land, so as effectually to secure the revenues of the church, so far as related to tithes; and, at the same time, to remove all pecuniary collisions between the parochial clergy and the occupiers of land. We may observe that, ultimately, an act of a somewhat similar character had been passed. How much legislation was needed, is evident when we find such a piece of news as the following, taken from the Galway Advertiser of 1822 :-"At the quarter sessions of government, one tithe proctor processed 1,100 persons for tithes. They were all, or most of them, of the lower order of farmers or peasants. The expense of each process was eight shillings !!"

In March, 1832, parliament proceeded to legislate in accordance with the

recommendations of the report. A bill was brought in, by which his majesty was empowered to advance £60,000 to the Irish tithe-owners, and to institute proceedings, through the Attorney-general for Ireland, to recover the arrears due for 1831. The money was advanced; the Attorney-general prosecuted, and recovered, at an expense of £26,000, only £12,000 out of arrears estimated at £104,000. Many of the peasantry, who were either unable or unwilling to pay, were committed to prison; and as the demands for which they were arrested had become debts due to the crown, they were precluded from obtaining the benefit of the Insolvent Act, and consequently remained in gaol for a length of time-their farms untilled, and their families reduced to pauperism. They were denominated "tithe martyrs."

The debate, angry and fierce, which heralded and accompanied this bill was a memorable one. As early as 1824, Mr. Hume had brought forward, in the House of Commons, a resolution that it was expedient to institute an inquiry into the revenues of the church of Ireland, with a view to their reduction; and was supported, on that occasion, by Lord John Russell, Mr. Brougham, and several other leading members of the Whig party: and now that they were in power, the Irish members very naturally asked them to give effect to the opinions which, eight years before, they had expressed. They contended that, if the church establishment in Ireland were cut down to a size more in accordance with the scanty numbers of its members, there would not be any occasion for the government to resort to a coercive policy. And, as if this demand were not sufficiently embarrassing to the government, the members of the Conservative party in the House of Commons, led by Sir Robert Inglis, insisted that no portion of the tithes could be withdrawn, even by the authority of parliament, from the Irish church. Actually he asserted, that although the title of the established church in Ireland was derived solely from acts of parliament, yet that the legislature did not possess the right to interfere with the application of it.

The next step taken by government was to make the act of 1823 permanent and compulsory; and, for that purpose, to empower the Lord-Lieutenant to appoint a commissioner to ascertain the annual value of the tithes, and fix their amount for the future, subject to a revision every seven years. It was also proposed to exempt from any personal liability to tithes, any occupier of land who held for a period less than ten years, and to render his immediate landlord liable, giving him a power to add the amount of the tithes to the rent payable to him; and so to construe the act as eventually to cast the liability to the payment of tithes altogether upon the owner of the inheritance, or such persons as might hold in perpetuity. The act passed, in spite of all the warnings as to its character-warnings which, of course, Mr. Stanley contemptuously rejected; and the consequence was, that many thousands of suits were instituted in Ireland within the next ensuing three years, for the double purpose of ascertaining who was liable to the payment of the composition, and enforcing the discharge of such liability. Nor is this all. In the attempt to do this, the people came into collision with the military, and many lives were lost in consequence.

When the new parliament met, in 1833, it was evident that their majority would not be made up by Irish M.P.'s. O'Connell succeeded in securing the return of at least forty members, pledged to support him, not merely in his advocacy of repeal, but on every other question respecting which a controversy should arise between him and the Whigs or Conservatives. Notwithstanding, however, it was manifest, by the speech from the throne, as well as by other symptoms, that ministers had resolved to be very firm with Ireland: and in this they were rather aided by the Conservatives, who were not sorry to see the Whigs making themselves unpopular.

On the 12th of February, 1833, Lord Althorp, as ministerial leader, applied for leave to bring in a bill "to alter and amend the laws relating to the temporalities of the Irish church." But although his lordship's motion was not opposed, the bill was not brought in, or read a first time, until the 11th of March. The