FORE:But whatever may have been the prudence of the chiefs of the party in Britain, however quietly the suppression may have been effected on the English side of St. George's Channel, the society was very far from dying quietly, or dying at all in Ireland, its native land. It was stunned for the moment, but very soon recovered all its pristine vigour and became as troublesome as ever. Lord Mulgrave went to that country as Viceroy, determined to govern on the principle of strict impartiality between sects and parties, but the Orangemen and the Tories generally denounced him as the most partial and one-sided of Viceroys. It was enough for them that O'Connell declared him to be the best Englishman that ever came to Ireland. Eulogy from his lips was the strongest possible censure in the estimation of the opposite party. The violence of party feeling against the Government may be inferred from the fact that the Recorder of Dublin, Mr. Shaw, one of the ablest and most eloquent of the Protestant chiefs, denounced the Melbourne Administration as infidels in religion. Lord Mulgrave, imitating some of the Viceroys of old times, made a "progress" of conciliation through the country, first visiting the south and then the north. This progress was signalised by the pardon and liberation of a large number of prisoners, which produced much excitement and clamour against the Government. It subsequently appeared that he had during his viceroyalty liberated 822 prisoners, of whom 388 were liberated without advice, the number of memorials which he received being 1,631. Although he evinced his impartiality by setting free all the Orangemen who had been imprisoned in Ulster for taking part in processions on the previous 12th of July, the members of that[396] body were not conciliated. The Dublin Grand Committee published a manifesto, declaring that the mere will of the king was not law, and that their watchword should still be "No Surrender." Sir Harcourt Lees, who had been long famous as an Orange agitator, issuing counter-blasts to O'Connell's letters and speeches, concluded one of his appeals on this occasion thus:"Orangemen, increase and multiply; be tranquil, be vigilant. Put your trust in God, still revere your king, and keep your powder dry." In Ulster the organs of the Orange party called upon its members to resist the law against processions, since the provisions of the Emancipation Act against the Jesuits and other religious orders, who treated the law with defiance, were allowed to remain a dead letter. The Londonderry Sentinel warned off the Liberal Viceroy from that citadel of Protestant ascendency, and said, "If he should come among us, he shall see such a display of Orange banners as will put him into the horrors." The irritation was kept up by various incidents, such as setting aside the election of a mayor of Cork, because he was an Orangeman, setting aside two sheriffs, and the dismissal of constables for the same reason. In the meantime a tremendous outcry was raised on account of the alleged partiality of the Irish Government on the subject of patronage. It was said that every office was at the disposal of the Roman Catholics; that from the bench of justice down to the office of police-constable there was no chance for any one else. In the midst of a war of factions in the spring of 1836 a tremendous sensation was produced by the blowing up of the statue of King William on College Green. On the 8th of February, a little after midnight, this astounding event occurred. The statue stood on a pedestal eighteen feet in height, surrounded by an enclosure of iron railing, the head being about thirty feet from the level of the street. The figure consisted of lead, and though weighing several tons, it was blown up to a considerable height, and fell at some distance from the pedestal. The Government and the corporation offered rewards for the discovery of the authors of this outrage, but without success. It was a mystery how such a quantity of gunpowder could have been got into the statue, and how a train could have been laid without detection in so public a place, the police being always on duty on College Green at night. King William, however, was restored to his position.The magnitude of the interests at stake, the difficulty of estimating the real character and extent of the threatened evil, and the alarming consequences that must ensue if the worst fears should be realised, rendered immediate action necessary. A Cabinet Council was held on the 31st of October. From what passed on that occasion, says Sir Robert Peel, in the account which he has left of these events, "it was easy to foresee that there was little prospect of a common accord as to the measures to be adopted." On the 5th of November he apprised her Majesty of the probability of serious differences of opinion. At the adjourned meeting of the Cabinet, on the 6th of November, he submitted certain proposals for the consideration of his colleagues, which he has recorded in the following outline of these events:
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FORE:per cent.[2]The crisis of extreme difficulty to which Peel referred was occasioned by the power acquired by the Catholic Association, which had originated in the following manner. Early in 1823 Mr. O'Connell proposed to his brother barrister, Mr. Sheil, and a party of friends who were dining with Mr. O'Mara, at Glancullen, the plan of an association for the management of the Catholic cause. At a general meeting of the Roman Catholics, which took place in April, a resolution with the same design was carried, and on Monday, the 12th of May, the first meeting of the Catholic[250] Association was held in Dempsey's Rooms, in Sackville Street, Dublin. Subsequently it met at the house of a Catholic bookseller named Coyne, and before a month had passed it was in active working order. From these small beginnings it became, in the course of the year, one of the most extensive, compact, and powerful popular organisations the world had ever seen. Its influence ramified into every parish in Ireland. It found a place and work for almost every member of the Roman Catholic body; the peer, the lawyer, the merchant, the country gentleman, the peasant, and, above all, the priest, had each his task assigned him: getting up petitions, forming deputations to the Government and to Parliament, conducting electioneering business, watching over the administration of justice, collecting "the Catholic rent," preparing resolutions, and making speeches at the meetings of the Association, which were held every Monday at the Corn Exchange, when everything in the remotest degree connected with the interests of Roman Catholics or of Ireland was the subject of animating and exciting discussion, conducted in the form of popular harangues, by barristers, priests, merchants, and others. Voluminous correspondence was read by the secretary, large sums of rent were handed in, fresh members were enrolled, and speeches were made to a crowd of excited and applauding people, generally composed of Dublin operatives and idlers. But as the proceedings were fully reported in the public journals, the audience may be said to have been the Irish nation. And over all, "the voice of O'Connell, like some mighty minster bell, was heard through Ireland, and the empire, and the world."
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