beg the whole question. I do not say that immediate concessions should be made: all I claim is, that this body of people should be sheltered under the protecting wing of the Legislature: that their case should be placed in the bands, or in the portfolio of the Executive Government. By those means, and those only, can you ensure to Ireland a happy and peaceful summer, and to the empire confiding and lasting tranquillity-(Hear, hear !)-When my honourable friend opposite (Mr. Wilberforce) asserts that measures and not men were to be the main topic of consideration and animadversion, he seems to have forgotten that I, one of the principal actors in the scene which has lately been displayed, have been imperiously called upon for a justification of my conduct; he does not recollect that even my reputation is at stake. He, of all others, is the one who would pay most attention to individual character; he will not say that if you deprive the present race of pigmy men of reputation, you destroy almost every claim they possess to the gratitude of the nation, and make them unworthy of the country in which they were born.-(Hear, hear !)--On my part, I can assert with the most perfect sincerity, that no disposition has been shewn to decline sustaining my share of the burden of the State in these perilous times. My anxiety has been to make them less perilous, but upon this great question I have seen not only no desire to grant any thing to the Catholics, but not even a disposition that an inquiry should be instituted. The noble lord (Castlereagh) seems by his gestures to express dissent from my statement. I am happy to remark it, and if, within the last eight and forty hours, any change of opinion should have taken place; if the various shades of sentiment have been amalgamated into one general and pleasing tone; if it is now thought that the question ought to be considered, I do not desire to take advantage of it by accepting any place, being myself out of the question; but although out of office, I shall hail this alteration of opinion with a joy as sincere as if I possessed a scat in the Cabinet."

Lord Castlereagh admitted that, according to the Constitution, Parliament had a right to address the Crown on urgent occasions, to prevent the execution of measures that were deemed by the House injurious to the welfare of the State. Before, however, a step were taken upon ground so seldom trodden, it would be well to examine its firmness and solidity, and to examine maturely whether the causes which

induced it were adequate. He approved highly of the manner in which this motion had been met by the amendment of the orders of the day, since the direct negative might have been subject to serious misconstruction. The right distinction had been taken when it was said that the House was not by circumstances justified at this moment to interfere, not that it ought not to interpose at all. As a ge neral admission, he was ready to agree that at no period of our history was it more necessary that a Government should be formed of the united talent and honour of the nation; at no period was it more necessary that a strong and efficient Administration should be selected, that their combined efforts might tend to the salvation of the state in these times of peculiar danger. He submitted, that in the proposal made to Marquis Wellesley, and his right honourable friend, the Crown had acted from the dictates of a sound discretion; and if with honour the offer could not be accepted, it was the duty of those to whom it was suggested to reject it: the laudable object of his Royal Highness was to form a broad and stable Administration. Precedent shewed that there might be obstacles in the way of its accomplishment, which it might be impossible to over-step. In 1783 two months of interregnum had occurred, during which the individual holding the chief office under Government, declared that he found it impossible to form an Administration like that which had lately been attempted. His lordship did not dare to predict that such a calamity would again ensue; if gentlemen intended that it should return, he called upon them to avow it, and to take the sense of the House upon it. He lamented that the honourable mover had not thought it right to declare more explicitly what, in his view, the Crown had attempted, and what it ought to have done. The right honourable gentleman who spoke last had noticed one great question on which differences of opinion prevailed, and he seemed to have forgotten all other matters in dispute, some of which were of scarcely less magnitude; even upon that solitary subject he had not favoured the House with one practical idea, or with one reason why the sentiments of so many others should yield to his opinion. Before the House voted by a concurrence with the motion, that the Sovereign had not done all in his power to attain the desired object, it would be fit to inquire whether nothing stood between the Crown and the formation of the Govern ment, so much desired by all parties? For himself and his VOL. III.-1812.

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colleagues, the noble lord asserted, that they had interposed no obstacles. If, however, they had sought to shelter themselves from the pelting of the supposed storm, gathered by their measures, animadversion might have been justly bestowed, and if they had given the pusillanimous advice, that because the hand of an assassin had deprived the Government of one of its Members, that Administration should be removed, they would indeed have merited to be stigmatized as the basest of mortals. Under such a cover they disdained to place themselves, and they had ventured to hope that those who, for four years, had successfully conducted the affairs of the kingdom, by the unfortunate death of one individual, had not forfeited all claim to the confidence of the Sovereign. His lordship then observed, that he hoped he should not be considered as trespassing too much on the attention of the House, or of indulging habits which were too familiar to him, if he offered to their consideration a few words respecting himself. He wished to justify himself in the opinion of the House, by stating fairly and distinctly what the views and principles were on which he had acted. He had felt it to be his duty at a time when, for want of abler assistance, a more effective and desirable arrangement could not take place, not to abandon his situation, or withdraw bis bumble services from the Government. He believed it was not necessary for him to acquit himself of having entertained any feelings of impatient ambition, or from the charge of having acted from any other motive than a desire to support those principles to which he had always adhered, at a period when they seemed to be put to hazard. So far, indeed, as his own personal honour was concerned, (and he hoped that it would never be called in question, as he held that it would be then next to lost) he was happy in a perfect consciousness that he had omitted no effort to prevent any considerations personal to himself from interfering with the formation of an arrangement on an extended basis. Feeling that his presence might have embarrassed Government in prosecuting the object of availing themselves of those talents and connections which were deemed to be advantageous for the promotion of the interest of the state, he had felt it his duty to tender his resignation to his Royal Highness. This he had done, not from any wish to shrink from the difficulties of an arduous employment, and those who knew him best, he was sure, would admit that his nature was incapable of such a sentiment; but he had so

acted exclusively from a sense of duty, and an earnest and sincere desire to put himself altogether out of the question. (Hear, hear!)-He had tendered his resignation, and had done so with an anxious wish that it should be accepted. He was no party whatever to those negociations, but he did think the right honourable gentleman (Mr. Canning) had pressed a little too hard on his right honourable friend (Mr. Ryder), and his honourable friend the Member for Yorkshire. Were they to be told that the publication of documents in the Morning Chronicle (and some wonder might reasonably be entertained that this publication should have been so speedy), was a proper or sufficient ground for any Parliamentary proceeding? The right honourable gentleman (Mr. Canning) had no doubt acted on feelings quite satisfactory to his own mind on this occasion; he himself had not seen these documents till yesterday, but he did consider it the duty of every man to lend his services to the Administration, if he was conscientiously of opinion that those services might be beneficial. But the right hon. gentleman refused the assistance and co-operation of his talents, because he could not carry a particular point. His great and only principle of objection to acceding to the present ministry was, that the Catholic question was not to be taken into consideration-(hear, hear!). But ought he not to have apprised the House what his practical opinion on the subject was, what was the plan by which it appeared to his judgment that the measure to which this consideration pointed might be ultimately carried into execution? Did the right honourable gentleman mean to say, that the present moment, and under all the circumstances of the disturbed domestic situation of the country, was a period peculiarly favourable for conceding to the Catholics with perfect security to the state? Was the House, then, upon the vague plea of giving the subject their consideration, to conceive themselves bound to gratify the right honourable gentleman in constructing a new Administration? The honourable gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, with some few exceptions, pursued a more manly policy, and declared themselves openly the advocates of unqualified concession. He felt as strongly as any man that the question itself was a cardinal and fundamental one to the interests of the country, but it was ridiculous to talk of creating a Government simply for its discussion. It appeared to him that the right hon. gentleman ought in candour to have acquainted the House

that he was ready to submit a distinct proposition, founded on his practical view of the question, and also to have laid that proposition before them. From the first moment of the Union being accomplished, he had himself been uniformly friendly to the claims of the Catholics. He had never made the question a political engine—(Hear! from Sir J. Newport.)-The honourable baronet was fond of his own music, but he apprehended little from his interruption, as he had lately shewn himself a very inaccurate reporter-(a laugh.)-Whenever it could be shown that the Catholic Body were prepared to concede those securities which he had always deemed necessary, and which had appeared to be so both to Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville, he should be willing to espouse their claims; but he never would suffer it to be made a stalking-horse for the mere purpose of embarrassing the Government. He was not disclosing state secrets, for he had, in acting both with Lord Sidmouth and Mr. Perceval, stipulated to express his own individual sentiments at all times on the subject, when he explained what his conduct had been with regard to it. He would be a base and ungrateful man, if he were not readily to acknowledge that the Catholics had materially assisted in accomplishing the measure of the Union. His own language to them, and the language of Lord Cornwallis, had then, as well as subsequently, been, that there were practical difficulties which time and a spirit of mutual concession and conciliation could alone overcome. He had supported, when a Member of Lord Sidmouth's Cabinet, strenuously supported, the measure of a provision for the Catholic Clergy. The noble lord, after recapitulating his former grounds, referred to the war on the Peninsula, and asked, could that be said to have been carried on with any want of vigour, or on a scale not sufficiently extensive, in the maintenance of which a sum of twenty millions was annually expended ?

Sir J. Newport assured the noble lord, that he should persevere in charging him with having acted with duplicity towards the Catholics, until those promises and engagements into which he bad entered with them were carried into effect. The noble lord contented himself with denying that any pledge had been given; but there were implied engagements which, to an honourable mind, were not less binding than the most formal obligations-(Hear, hear!). Such engagements he knew had actually been entered into between