cated, that no personal and offensive language should be held towards those who oppose the claims. Personality offers no advantage- it effects no good; on the contrary, it offends, and confirms predisposed aversion. Let the catholic trust to the justice of his cause-to the growing liberality of mankind... My warm anxiety to promote the general interests of this country is the motive that has induced me to give an opinion and offer advice."

These occurrences took place during the month of December. In the beginning of January lord Anglesey was recalled, to be succeeded by the duke of Northumberland. The letter of lord Anglesey, conveying the soundest advice with the utmost kindness of tone, was published, with his consent, on the eve of his departure, and received by the catholics with grateful enthusiasm. It was, and is still, supposed to have been the cause of his recall. The supposition is incompatible with dates. Lord Anglesey's letter was dated the 25th, and his recall was dated the 28th of December, when the existence of the letter addressed to Dr. Curtis in the north of Ireland could not have been known in London. Other motives are assigned in the correspondence subsequently made public between the prime minister and lord lieutenant. Among these are lord Anglesey's popularity with the association, and his dining with a popular Irish nobleman, since created an English peer. These motives were but ostensible. It was a forced quarrel on the part of the duke. He had determined to emancipate the catholics, and chose to rid himself of one who would divide the honour with him. Lord Anglesey himself is

said to have seen instantly the true motive of his recall, and to have observed, in private conversation, "I know the duke: his mind is made up; and I am recalled because he would have no sharer in the victory."

At the commencement of 1829 there was a vague and faint anticipation on the subject of the catholic question, that something would be done. The catholics foreboded relief; their opponents, coercion. Parliament was opened by commission on the 5th of February, with a speech which contained the following momentous and decisive recommendation from the throne:

"The state of Ireland has been the object of his majesty's continued solicitude. His majesty laments that in that part of the united kingdom an association should still exist, which is dangerous to the public peace, and inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution; which keeps alive discord and illwill amongst his majesty's subjects; and which must, if permitted to continue, effectually obstruct every effort permanently to improve the condition of Ireland. His majesty confidently relies on the wisdom and on the support of his parliament; and his majesty feels assured that you will commit to him such powers as may enable his majesty to maintain his just authority. His majesty recommends that when this essential object shall have been accomplished, you should take into your deliberate consideration the whole condition of Ireland, and that you should review the laws which impose civil disabilities on his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. You will consider whether the removal of those disabilities

can be effected consistently with the full and permanent security of our establishments in church and state, with the maintenance of the reformed religion established by law, and of the rights and privileges of the bishops and of the clergy of this realm, and of the churches committed to their charge."

The friends of liberty, and even the catholics themselves, were temperate in their triumph; but the exclusionists set no bounds to their rage and reproaches. They charged the duke of Wellington with perfidious and guilty concealment of his designs up to the last hour, and loaded Mr. Peel with imputations of faithlessness and apostacy.

The king's reluctance was deep-rooted and violent. The bare mention of the subject exasperated him. He was known to say, and only in his milder mood, "I wish those catholics were damned or emancipated." The angered despotism of this alternative still afforded the hope that his intolerance might be overcome by his selfish love of ease. It cost the duke of Wellington many months of management, vigilance, and perseverance to obtain his assent. The duke's mind, then, during his supposed supineness, was intently directed to overcome the first and greatest obstacle in his way. It appears from a passage in his correspondence with lord Anglesea that the king's health or his temper was in such a state, that for some weeks the catholic question could not even be named to him. Monarchy, doubtless, has its advantages; but it is a matter of serious reflection that under a government called free, among a people called civilised, the claims of millions, and

the contingent horrors of a civil war, should be thus dependent upon the distempered humours and paramount will of a single unit of the species.

The protestants complained of treacherous desertion and surprise. Had the duke of Wellington disclosed his intentions sooner, the petitions of the people and individual counsel would, they said, have fortified and secured the opposition of the king. The duke vindicated himself by the fact of his not having finally obtained the king's sanction until near the last moment. But he was too able and too old a soldier not to know the advantages of masking his movements from the adversary in politics as well as in war. Mr. Peel subjected himself to execration and ribaldry from the party of which he was hitherto the chosen chief. He has since entered into frequent and circumstantial vindications of the course which he pursued: but his conduct, in reality, demanded eulogy, not defence. His character was cleared by the sacrifices which he made, and really exalted by his political fortitude and public motives. It will suffice to repeat from his own statement that, to preserve consistency of opinion, he had determined to resign; that the archbishop of Canterbury and bishop of London, having learned, in the mean time, the intentions of government, had an audience of the king with hostile views:- that if he resigned, the duke of Wellington would find it difficult to carry his intentions into effect; and, that judging the contemplated measure, under the circumstances, advisable, he thought it his duty to continue his support to the prime minister.

The considerations pressed by the duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel upon the king have not appeared; but it may be presumed that they were mainly those urged by them in parliament - the dangers to which the peace and integrity of the kingdom were exposed by the state of Ireland. A protestant petition in favour of emancipation, very numerously and still more respectably signed by noblemen and gentlemen of Ireland, was forwarded in January to the duke of Wellington, and was understood to have contributed greatly to his success in obtaining the king's approval. But so strong was the king's reluctance, and so powerful or insidious were the arts employed to indispose him to the measure, that even after the opening of parliament, when the government was pledged, and down to the afternoon of the 10th of February, when the ministerial plan was to be introduced in the house of commons, the duke of Wellington did not hold himself perfectly secure. It was said that

to the last hour it was a matter of doubt with Mr. Peel whether he should proceed, until he received a pencilled note from the duke containing the words "You may go on." The duke of Wellington had one great security, an auxiliary which had already sustained him against the disinclination of the king, and the authority and persuasions of the prelates, the king's horror of the fatigue, embarrassment, and great difficulty of constituting a new ministry, if the duke should, as he assuredly would, resign.

That spirit of the cloister at Oxford which had repelled Mr. Canning and adopted Mr. Peel, now