THREE:The great meeting had been intended to take place on the 9th of August; and on the 31st of July an advertisement appeared in the Manchester Observer calling on the inhabitants to meet on the 9th in the area near St. Peter's Church for the purpose of electing a representative to Parliament, as well as for adopting Major Cartwright's plan of Parliamentary Reform. This immediately drew from the magistrates a notice that such a meeting would be illegal, and that those who attended it would do so at their peril. The working men on this announced that the meeting would not take place, and a requisition was presented to the borough-reeve and constables, requesting leave to hold such a meeting. It was refused; and on its refusal the people proceeded with their original design, only appointing the 16th as the day of meeting, with Hunt in the chair.
THREE:The Roman Catholic prelates, however, seem to have been satisfied with the achievement of Emancipation, and to have received the boon in a very good spirit. There was one of their number who, more than all the rest, had contributed to the success of the work. This was Dr. Doyle, so well known as "J.K.L.," unquestionably the most accomplished polemical writer of his time. In January, 1830, the Catholic bishops assembled in Dublin, to deliberate, according to annual custom, on their own duties and the interests of their Church. Dr. Doyle, at the close of these deliberations, drew up a pastoral, to which all the prelates affixed their signatures. It gave thanks to God that the Irish people not only continued to be of one mind, labouring together in the faith of the Gospel, but also that their faith was daily becoming stronger, and signally fructifying among them. Having drawn a picture of the discord that had prevailed in Ireland before Emancipation, the pastoral went on to say that the great boon "became the more acceptable to this country, because among the counsellors of his Majesty there appeared conspicuous the most distinguished of Ireland's own sons, a hero and a legislatora man selected by the Almighty to break the rod[304] which had scourged Europea man raised by Providence to confirm thrones, to re-establish altars, to direct the councils of England at a crisis the most difficult; to stanch the blood and heal the wounds of the country that gave him birth." The pastoral besought the people to promote the end which the legislature contemplated in passing the Relief Billthe pacification and improvement of Ireland. It recommended that rash and unjust oaths should not be even named among them, and deprecated any attempt to trouble their repose by "sowers of discord or sedition." The bishops rejoiced at the recent result of the protracted struggle, not more on public grounds than because they found themselves discharged from a duty which necessity alone allied to their ministry"a duty imposed on us by a state of times which has passed, but a duty which we have gladly relinquished, in the fervent hope that by us or our successors it may not be resumed."
THREE:There was one irritating circumstance connected with the Emancipation Act: the words, "thereafter to be elected," were introduced for the purpose of preventing O'Connell from taking his seat in virtue of the election of 1828. The Irish Roman Catholics considered this legislating against an individual an act unworthy of the British Senateand, as against the great Catholic advocate, a mean, vindictive, and discreditable deed. But it was admitted that Wellington and Peel were not to blame for it; that on their part it was a pacificatory concession to dogged bigotry in high places. Mr. Fagan states that Mr. O'Connell was willing to give up the county of Clare to Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, and to go into Parliament himself for a borough, adding that he had absolutely offered 3,000 guineas to Sir Edward Denny for the borough of Tralee, which had always been regularly sold, and was, in point of fact, assigned as a fortune under a marriage settlement. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, however, rather scornfully rejected the offer, and Mr. O'Connell himself appeared in the House of Commons on the 15th of May, to try whether he would be permitted to take his seat. In the course of an hour, we are told, the heads of his speech were arranged, and written on a small card. The event was expected, and the House was crowded to excess. At five o'clock the Speaker called on any new member desiring to be sworn to come to the table. O'Connell accordingly presented himself, introduced by Lords Ebrington and Duncannon. He remained for some time standing at the table, pointing out the oaths he was willing to take, namely, those required by the new Act, and handing in the certificate of his return and qualifications. His refusal to take the oaths of supremacy and abjuration having been reported to the Speaker, he was directed to withdraw, when Mr. Brougham moved that he should be heard at the bar, to account for his refusal. But on the motion of Mr. Peel, after a long discussion, the consideration of the question was deferred till the 18th. The Times of the next day stated that the narrative of the proceeding could convey but an imperfect idea of the silent, the almost breathless attention with which he was received in the House, advancing to and retiring from the table. The benches were filled in an unusual degree with members, and there was no recollection of so large a number of peers brought by curiosity into the House of Commons. The Speaker's expression of countenance and manner towards the honourable gentleman were extremely courteous, and his declaration that he "must withdraw," firm and authoritative. Mr. O'Connell, for a moment, looked round as one who had reason to expect support, and this failing, he bowed most respectfully, and withdrew.
TWO:In the eyes of the Conservatives the League was now the great cause of the political ferment that had spread throughout the land. In the Quarterly Review for December a long and elaborate indictment had been published against that body, and all who were in any way connected with them, in which it was attempted to show that the means by which the League sought to attain their objects were of the worst kind. The writer of the article hinted that the League's system of levying money for the avowed purpose of forcing Parliament to alter the law of the land was criminally punishable. A Mr. Bailey had stated, at one of the League meetings, that he had heard of a gentleman who, in private company, had said that if one hundred persons cast lots, and the lot should fall upon him, he would take the lot to deprive Sir Robert Peel of life. The teller of this injudicious anecdote added, that "he felt convinced that no such attempt ought to be made under any pretence whatever; but he was persuaded of this, that when Sir Robert Peel went to his grave there would be but few to shed one tear over it." The speaker was a minister of the Gospel, and there could be no doubt that he intended his anecdote only as an illustration of the frenzy to which some persons had been wrought by the political circumstances of the time; but this fact circulated by the great Tory organs, together with all the most violent and excited passages which could be found in the innumerable speeches delivered at League meetings, and in the pamphlets and other publications of that body, tended to create a vague horror of the Leaguers in the minds of that large class who read only writers on that side which accords with their own views.
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