Part 9

It was a post requiring not only great administrative skill, but also great gifts of original statesmanship. During the last five years of the eighteenth century, and especially during the rebellion of 1798, religious passions in Ireland, which had for more than a generation been steadily subsiding, had been kindled into a flame, and the urgent necessity of settling the Catholic question had begun to press with irresistible force on the minds of the more intelligent statesmen. Pitt had intended to complete the Union by measures for admitting Catholics into Parliament, for commuting tithes, and for paying the Catholic clergy. Through the instrumentality of Lord Castlereagh assurances of the disposition of the Cabinet had been conveyed to the Catholic bishops and the leading Catholic laymen in 1799, which were sufficient to secure their active support for the Union and to prevent any serious opposition among the Catholic laity. The bishops met the wishes of the English Government by drawing up a series of resolutions, in which they declared their readiness to accept with gratitude an endowment for the priesthood, to confer upon the English Government a power of veto over the appointment of Catholic bishops which would prevent the introduction into that body of any disloyal men, and to certify to the Government the nomination of all Catholic parish priests, as well as the fact that they had taken the oath of allegiance. But the King had not been informed of the negotiations that had taken place, and it is well known how his uncompromising opposition produced the resignation of Pitt in 1801, how the agitation caused by the question threw the King into a temporary fit of insanity, and how Pitt at once promised that he would not move the question again during the reign. In the spring of 1804 Pitt resumed office, on the express understanding that he would not permit Catholic Emancipation; when the question was introduced in 1805 by Lord Grenville in the Lords, and by Fox in the Commons, it was defeated in both Houses by immense majorities, and Pitt declared that though he was still of opinion that there was no danger in the concession, yet, as long as the circumstances which prevented him from bringing it forward continued, he would be no party to agitating the question.

In 1806 Pitt died, and Fox and Grenville were themselves in power, but the Catholics were again disappointed. The prejudice of the King, the feeling of the country, the recent vote of the House of Commons, the presence of Lord Sidmouth in the Ministry, proved insuperable obstacles, and Fox could only urge the Catholic leaders to postpone the question. Fox died in September 1806, and the Government presided over by Lord Grenville met a new Parliament in the following December. Grenville had been Pitt's colleague during the negotiations with the Catholics that preceded the Union; he had strongly urged upon Pitt the necessity of resigning in 1801, and he never forgave him for having so lightly abandoned the cause. Grenville did not attempt to carry emancipation, but he resolved to take at least one serious step in the direction of concession, by throwing open to the Catholics all the posts in the army and navy. An Irish Act of 1793 had enabled them to hold in Ireland commissions in the army, and to attain any rank except commander-in-chief, master-general of the ordnance, and general of the staff; but if the regiments in which they served were sent to England, they were disqualified by law from remaining in the service. The original Bill of Grenville's Government was intended to remove this anomaly, and assimilate the law in the two countries; but in the course of the discussions it was agreed that the Catholics should be freed from the exceptions to which they were subjected by the Irish Act, that all posts in the army and navy should be thrown open to men of all religious persuasions, subject only to the obligation of taking an oath which was prescribed, and that Catholic soldiers should be guaranteed by law the free exercise of their religion. The King had been informed of this, and was understood to have given a distinct, though a reluctant, assent; but a strong Protestant party, headed by Perceval, fiercely opposed it. The King withdrew his assent from the added clauses, and expressed his disapprobation of the whole measure. At last, after much discussion, the Ministers agreed for the present to withdraw their Bill, reserving to themselves by a Cabinet minute, which was submitted to the King, the right to renew it, or to propose any other measure on the subject which they desired. But the King was determined to push his victory to the end. He demanded from his Ministers a promise in writing that they would never again propose to him any measure connected with Catholic emancipation, and as the Ministers refused to give this unconstitutional pledge, the King dismissed them from office, and called the Duke of Portland to the head of affairs.

It was the second time that the King had broken up a Ministry on the Catholic question, and his conduct was especially significant, as his refusal to grant military promotion to Catholics was announced in the midst of a great war, and at a time when thousands of Catholics were fighting in his armies. It at once appeared that there were two entirely distinct schools of Tories. Pitt, to the very close of his life, had declared that his opinions on the Catholic question were unchanged, though he would not force them against the inclination of the King; and his views were adopted by Canning, Castlereagh, and Wellesley. Perceval, on the other hand, emphatically declared that he 'could not conceive a time or any change of circumstances which could render further concession to the Catholics consistent with the safety of the State.' With the exception of Eldon, scarcely any man of real ability adopted this view until Peel entered Parliament as the follower of Perceval. It is sufficiently evident from this fact how little truth there is in the theory that attributes Peel's early Toryism to a blind admiration for Pitt.

The party of the King triumphed. Parliament was dissolved on the 'No Popery' cry, and on the first great party division that followed the election the Ministers in the House of Commons had a majority of 195. Canning and Castlereagh, though they had no sympathy with that cry, availed themselves of the current that ran so strongly against the Whigs. In the Ministry of the Duke of Portland they held the seals for the Foreign and War Departments, but the leadership of the Commons and the virtual leadership of the Ministry was given to Perceval, who, though entirely without brilliant parts, exhibited unexpected talents, both as a practical debater and as a manager of men, and who had the advantage of representing fully the dominant party. Several circumstances, however, other than a conviction of the danger of the Catholic claims, contributed to the triumph of the anti-Catholic party. The Whigs, already broken by their policy towards France in the first stages of the Revolution and of the war, had become still more unpopular through their opposition to the seizure of the Danish fleet and to the Peninsular War. They were divided among themselves, for there was little sympathy between the more aristocratic Whigs, who were represented by Grenville and Lord Howick, and the more Radical party of Sir F. Burdett and Whitbread. A strong personal as well as political dislike already existed between Howick and Canning, and prevented their hearty co-operation on the one great question on which they were agreed. Above all, there was a general conviction among statesmen that the King's mind was trembling on the verge of insanity, and that a renewal of the Catholic complications of 1801 would produce a catastrophe.

The question was debated in both the Lords and Commons in 1808. In the former it was lost by a majority of 87, and in the latter by a majority of 153. Grattan on this occasion introduced the Catholic petition in a speech of consummate power; but both Castlereagh and Canning opposed the reception of the petition, on the ground that the time was unsuited for the agitation of the question; and the spirit of the ruling part of the Ministry was sufficiently shown by the reduction of the Maynooth grant from 13,000l. to 9,250l. When the Portland Government was broken up in September 1809 by the quarrel, duel, and resignation of Canning and Castlereagh, Perceval became the head of the new Ministry, Lord Wellesley occupying the place of Canning, and Lord Hawkesbury that of Castlereagh; and an intensely anti-Catholic ministry continued to the death of Perceval. In 1809 the Catholic question was not introduced into Parliament. In the spring of 1810 it was introduced into both Houses, but was defeated by majorities of 86 and 104; but in October 1810 an event occurred which profoundly changed the aspect of affairs. The King's insanity broke out anew in a form which gave little hope of recovery, and the Prince of Wales was appointed Regent. For a year the regency was subject to restrictions similar to those which had been adopted in 1788, but on February 1, 1812, these restrictions were to cease, and the Regent was to enter into full fruition of the royal power.

The hopes of the Catholics were now raised to the highest point. With the confirmed insanity of George III. the most serious of all the obstacles to their claims was removed. During the year of the restricted regency, while there was still some chance of the recovery of the King, the Prince of Wales declined to remove the existing Ministry from office, though even this decision was not taken without some hesitation and some negotiations with the Whigs. The Catholics, however, fully expected that the royal influence would now be exerted in their favour, and that the Whig Ministry would speedily come. The Prince of Wales had long been in close connection with the Whigs. As early as 1797 he had expressed a desire to go over to Ireland as Lord-Lieutenant, carrying with him a policy of conciliation to the Catholics. In 1805, when Fox and Grenville had introduced the Catholic question into the Imperial Parliament, the Prince, while stating that considerations of obvious delicacy prevented him from taking an immediate and open part in its favour, had given the Whig leaders the fullest authority to assure the Catholics of Ireland that he would never forsake their interests, the 'most distinct and authentic pledge' of his wish to relieve them from the disabilities of which they complained, and to exert himself in their favour as soon as he was constitutionally able to do so. It is easy therefore to imagine the consternation and the indignation with which, in 1812, the Catholics found that the Prince Regent had changed his principles and his policy; that, after a short and perhaps insincere negotiation with the Whigs, he had resolved to maintain in power a Ministry which was constructed for the main purpose of maintaining the Catholic disabilities; and that his own opinions were rapidly verging towards this policy.

The situation in Ireland was becoming very dangerous. For some years after the Union a great apathy prevailed, and there is no reasonable doubt that, if events in England had been favourable, Catholic emancipation would have met with no serious opposition in Ireland, and could have been carried with every reasonable limitation and safeguard. The most competent English officials calculated that at least sixty-four of the hundred Irish representatives would vote for it, and that a decided preponderance of Irish Protestant opinion was in its favour. On the other hand, the Catholic bishops and aristocracy had fully accepted the policy of an endowment for the priests and a veto on the appointment of bishops, and the most Conservative elements in the Catholic body still exercised an ascendancy over their co-religionists. The question of the veto had been mentioned in the Commons, by Sir J. Hippisley, in 1805, and in 1808 Grattan and Ponsonby formally announced, on the authority of the Catholic bishops, their readiness to accept it. A letter from Bishop Milner was read to the House, which very clearly stated their position:

'The Catholic prelates of Ireland,' he wrote, 'are willing to give a direct negative power to his Majesty's Government with respect to the nomination of their titular bishoprics, in such manner that when they have among themselves resolved who is the fittest person for the vacant see, they will transmit his name to his Majesty's Ministers; and if the latter should object to that name, they will transmit another and another, until a name is presented to which no objection is made; and (which is never likely to be the case) should the Pope refuse to give those essentially necessary spiritual powers, of which he is the depository, to the person so presented by the Catholic bishops and so approved by the Government, they will continue to propose names till one occurs which is agreeable to both parties--namely, the Crown and Apostolic See.'

The prelates also engaged to nominate no persons who had not previously taken the oath of allegiance. But a democratic party had now arisen among the Catholics, which utterly repudiated the restrictions of the veto, which sought emancipation by violent and democratic agitation, and which was rapidly drawing the most dangerous elements in the country into its channel. The bishops, pushed on by the strong force that was behind them, speedily retraced their steps and passed resolutions against the restrictions they had accepted, and there were evident signs that the Catholic body was passing away from the guidance of Grattan and of the gentry. This was not surprising in a country where many elements of anarchy subsisted; and the democratic party had already found in O'Connell a leader of consummate skill, and of untiring industry, energy, and ambition. But the chief cause of the great change that was passing over the Irish Catholics was to be found in the disappointment of their hopes in 1801, in 1804, in 1806, and 1812; in the desertion of their cause by Pitt; in the proved impotence of the Whigs; in the failure of 'the securities' even to mitigate the hostility of Perceval and his followers; in the profound consternation and exasperation that were produced by the attitude of the Regent. The formation of the General Committee of Catholic Delegates was speedily followed by its suppression under the Convention Act. But the influence of O'Connell was rapidly growing; there were already ominous signs of a possible agitation for the repeal of the Union, and the indignation of the Catholics was significantly shown by the famous 'witchery resolutions,' which were unanimously carried by the aggregate meeting of the Catholics in the June of 1812, reflecting on the influence which Lady Hertford was believed to exercise over the Prince. After calling for the 'total and unqualified repeal of the penal laws which aggrieve the Catholics,' they proceeded to use the following language: 'That from authentic documents now before us we hear, with deep disappointment and anguish, how cruelly the promised boon of Catholic freedom has been interrupted by the fatal witchery of an unworthy secret influence.... To this impure source we trace but too distinctly our baffled hopes and protracted servitude.' Such language was not calculated to conciliate the Prince, and he was only confirmed in his hostility to the Catholics. As early as September 1813 the Duke of Richmond wrote to Peel: 'I was delighted to find H.R.H. as steady a Protestant as the Attorney-General.'

The commencement, however, of what was virtually a new reign had given a new activity to the question. It was brought forward in different forms in the first months of 1812 by Lord Wellesley and Lord Donoughmore in one House, and by Lord Morpeth and Grattan in the other; and although it was still defeated, the diminished majorities, the evident signs of an increased Catholic party in the country, and the language of some of the most distinguished men in Parliament, clearly indicated the progress of the measure. Canning especially now strenuously urged that the time had come when the Catholic question must be fully dealt with. The assassination of Perceval on May 11, 1812, again changed the situation and led to a long series of feeble and abortive negotiations. An attempt was made to continue the existing Ministry under the lead of Lord Liverpool, with the addition of Canning and Lord Wellesley; but these statesmen declined the offer, on the ground that the other Ministers refused to carry Catholic emancipation, and Lord Wellesley on the additional ground of their languor in prosecuting the Spanish war. The Regent then authorised Lord Wellesley to construct a Ministry, with the assistance of Canning, and an offer was made to Lords Grey and Grenville to join it, promising an immediate consideration of the Catholic claims with a view to a conciliatory settlement; while, on the other hand, attempts were made to retain the services of the leading members of Perceval's Ministry. But the Whig leaders refused to take part in a coalition Ministry, in which they would probably be outvoted, and the former Cabinet was reconstructed, under the leadership of Lord Liverpool, but on the principle of leaving the Catholic question an open one. Liverpool himself was opposed to concession, but his opposition was by no means of the unqualified kind which had been shown by Perceval; and a large proportion of his colleagues, including Castlereagh, who led the House of Commons, were in favour of Catholic emancipation. If Canning had consented to join the Ministry, Lord Wellesley would probably have been Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, and under these circumstances the Catholic side could scarcely have failed to acquire a decisive preponderance. If, on the other hand, Castlereagh had followed the example of Canning, and refused to take part in a Ministry which declined to settle the Catholic question, or if the Whigs had consented to co-operate with Canning, the settlement of this great question could scarcely have been deferred. Unfortunately, none of these things happened. Castlereagh remained the leader of the House. Canning refused to follow his leadership, and two years later accepted the embassy to Lisbon. The Whig leaders stood aloof from all Ministerial combinations. The Duke of Richmond, who was violently anti-Catholic, continued to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; the post of Chief Secretary was given to Peel, and Ireland was destined to undergo fifteen more years of demoralising and disorganising agitation before the Catholic question was settled.

Canning, however, as an independent member, brought forward a resolution pledging the House to an early consideration of the laws affecting his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, with a view to their final conciliatory adjustment, and the conditions of the question had so profoundly changed that it was carried by a majority of 129; while a similar motion by Lord Wellesley in the House of Lords was met by the previous question, which was carried by a majority of only one.

Peel, though he had come into Parliament as a special follower of Perceval, had not yet pledged himself decisively against the Catholics. He had voted silently against Canning's motion in June, and although he had spoken against a previous motion of Grattan, he had done so mainly on the ground that the time was not opportune, and had expressly guarded himself against giving any positive pledge. He was now, however, obliged to take a more prominent part, and for the next six years he was the chief support of the anti-Catholic party in Parliament. His part was a very difficult one, for he had to encounter Grattan, Plunket, Canning, and the Whig leaders, and he had scarcely any real supporters. Saurin, the Attorney-General, it is true, was strongly opposed to all concession. He was a lawyer of high character and attainments, of Huguenot descent and strong Huguenot principles, and he had borne a distinguished part in opposition to the Union; but Saurin refused to go to London. Bushe, who was Solicitor-General, leaned to the Catholic side; and, to the great indignation and consternation of the Government, Wellesley Pole, who had preceded Peel as Chief Secretary and who was the brother of Lord Wellesley, now pronounced himself strongly in Parliament in favour of the Catholics. This speech was entirely unexpected, for Pole had hitherto been regarded as a staunch adherent of the Protestant party, and as late as the last day of 1811 he had sent a memorandum on the Catholic question to the Secretary of State in England, which was intended to be laid before the Cabinet, and which maintained the impossibility of safely satisfying the Catholic claims, and the expediency of the Prince Regent's taking a decided part against them. A general election had taken place in September, and it is evident from the letters of Lord Liverpool and Peel that they at this time looked upon Canning and his followers with even more hostility than the regular Opposition.

In the new Parliament the Catholic question at once assumed a great prominence. A motion for the immediate consideration of the laws affecting the Catholics was introduced by Grattan, supported by Castlereagh, opposed by Peel, and ultimately carried by a majority of 40. A resolution of Grattan's for removing laws imposing civil and military disabilities on the Catholics, with such regulations and exceptions as might provide for the security of the Protestant succession and of the Established Church, was next introduced. Peel opposed it bitterly, but was beaten by a majority of 67.

'We were terribly beaten,' he wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'but we are sad cowards, I am afraid; at least, we are shamefully used. Poor Duigenan could not get a hearing, and the general impression seemed against the Protestants. We will fight them out, however, to the last. I am sure it is better than to give way.' 'Your defence of the Protestant cause,' wrote Saurin, 'was not only by far the ablest and best, but the only one which did not seem to strengthen the cause of the adversary by some concession of principle. I really fear the Protestant cause is lost in the Commons. There can be no rally now but on the securities.'

Grattan at once brought in a Bill in accordance with the terms of the Resolution that had been carried; but the Protestant party now rallied around a motion of Sir John Hippisley, for a committee to inquire into the state and tenets of the Roman Catholics, and the laws affecting them. Canning pointed out with great force that a committee of inquiry was exactly what the Protestant party had for so many years strenuously resisted; but, as Peel wrote to the Duke of Richmond, there was no inconsistency in their conduct: 'When the question was whether we should consider the claims of the Catholics and the laws affecting them, or should resist their claims, we voted for resistance without inquiry; the question now is, whether we shall consider or concede, and we prefer inquiry to concession.'

The motion for delay, however, was defeated by 187 to 235, and the second reading of Grattan's Bill was carried by 245 to 203. But a sudden change now occurred in the prospects of the cause. Canning and Castlereagh, with the full assent of Grattan, introduced clauses for the securities which had been before intimated, giving the Crown a control over the nomination of the Catholic bishops. But the bishops unanimously condemned the proposal, and the large majority of the Catholic Board supported them. It became evident that the Bill before Parliament would fail to satisfy the Catholics, and after a long discussion the clause admitting Catholics to Parliament was rejected by 251 to 247.

Peel had triumphed. The profound division which had broken out among the supporters of Catholic emancipation threw back for many years a cause which had been almost gained, though in 1817 an Act was passed without opposition throwing open to the Catholics the military and naval positions which Grenville had vainly attempted to open in 1807. Few things could have been eventually more disastrous both to Ireland and to the Empire than the defeat of the influence represented by Grattan and by the Catholic gentry, and the growing ascendancy of O'Connell and the democratic and sacerdotal party in Irish popular politics. Grattan had long predicted that, if concession was not speedily and wisely made, population in Ireland would drift away from the guiding and moderating influence of property; that seditious and anarchical men would gain an ascendancy which would make the whole problem of Irish Government incalculably difficult; that a priesthood unconnected with the English Government would lead to a 'Catholic laity discorporated from the people of England.' In the Irish Parliament the strong bias of Conservatism in his policy had been repeatedly displayed, and it was equally apparent in the Imperial Parliament. In 1807 he had supported the Insurrection Act, in opposition to many of his friends, on the ground that there was a real and dangerous French party in Ireland, which the common law was insufficient to suppress. In 1814 he expressed his full approval of the proclamation suppressing the Catholic Board. He steadily and earnestly maintained that, although it was vitally necessary that Catholic emancipation should be speedily carried, it should be accompanied by measures for securing, as far as possible, the loyalty of the higher Catholic clergy, and uniting them in interest and sentiment with the British Government. He looked with bitter hostility on the rise and policy of O'Connell. He accused him of 'setting afloat the bad passions of the people,' making grievances instruments of power without any honest wish to redress them, treating politics as a trade to serve a desperate and interested purpose.

But the influence of Grattan was now manifestly declining, and Peel watched the decline with a short-sighted and not very generous pleasure. In Parliament, though numbers were against the Catholics, the overwhelming preponderance of ability was still in favour of the principle of emancipation, and it was in leading the anti-Catholic party that Peel chiefly acquired his almost unrivalled parliamentary skill. He had, indeed, all the qualities of a great debater: courage, fluency, self-possession, complete command of every subject he treated, unfailing lucidity both in statement and reasoning; admirable skill in marshalling and disentangling great masses of facts, in meeting, evading, or retorting arguments, and detecting the weak points of the case of an opponent, in veiling, by plausible language, extreme or unpalatable views, in extricating himself by subtle distinctions and qualifications from embarrassing situations. He can scarcely, it is true, be called a great orator. His style was formal, cumbrous, extremely verbose, without sparkle and without fire. He had little or no power of moving the passions, nothing of the flexibility that can adapt itself to very different audiences, nothing of the philosophic insight that can impart a perennial interest to transient discussions. But few men have ever understood the House of Commons like him, or have possessed in so high a degree the qualities that are most fitted to command and influence it. The great mass of anti-Catholic sentiment in the country rallied around him as its most powerful champion, and in 1817 he attained one of the chief objects of his ambition in being elected member for Oxford University. It is well known that his older and more brilliant rival had long aspired to this honour. It was mainly through the Catholic question that Canning missed and Peel won the prize.

The nickname 'Orange Peel,' which was given to him in Ireland, was not wholly deserved. His letters abundantly show that he had no sympathy with the ribbons, the anniversaries, the party tunes, the insulting processions and insulting language of the Orangemen; and, although he believed that in Ireland anti-Catholicism and loyalty were very closely connected, he viewed with much dislike the growth of any political confederacies unconnected with the Government. Declamation and boastfulness and needless provocation were, indeed, wholly alien to his nature; and even when defending extreme causes he rarely or never used the language of a fanatic. He resisted Catholic concession mainly on the ground that the admission of the Catholics to political power would prove incompatible with the existence of the Established Church in Ireland, with the security of property in a country where property was mainly in Protestant hands, and ultimately with the connection between the two countries. His arguments were not based on religion, but on political expediency; but it was an expediency which he believed to be permanent.

'I see,' he wrote to the Duke of Richmond, 'one of the papers reports me as having said that I was not an advocate for perpetual exclusion. It might be inferred that I objected only to the time of discussing the question. That is not the case.... There are certain anomalies in the system which I would wish to remove, but the main principles of it I would retain untouched.... At no time, and under no circumstances, so long as the Catholic admits the supremacy in spirituals of a foreign earthly potentate, and will not tell us what supremacy in spirituals means--so long as he will not give us voluntarily the security which every despotic Sovereign in Europe has by the concession of the Pope himself--will I consent to admit them.'

The letters before us show clearly that his political sympathy was with Saurin, with Duigenan, with Lord Eldon, and even with Lord Norbury. O'Connell early perceived in Peel his most dangerous opponent, and a strong personal enmity, which was as much due to profound differences of character as to differences of policy, grew up between them. A scurrilous attack of O'Connell on Peel in 1815 was followed by a challenge, and a duel was prevented only by the arrest of O'Connell. The antipathy between the two men was never mitigated. O'Connell said of Peel that 'his smile was like the silver plate on a coffin.' Peel, in his confidential letters, expressed the utmost dislike and contempt for the character of O'Connell, and when he was at length compelled by the Clare election to concede Catholic emancipation, his feeling towards him was significantly and characteristically shown. He enumerated in a brilliant passage the men to whom the triumph of Catholic emancipation was really due. He spoke of Fox and Grattan, of Plunket and of Canning, but he made no mention of O'Connell.

The administrative side of Peel's Chief Secretaryship is much more creditable to him than the political side. The vivid picture which his letters present of the manner in which Ireland was governed more than fifteen years after the Union will probably strike the reader with some surprise, when he remembers that the Union had extinguished about seventy small boroughs, and had at the same time greatly diminished the importance of the Irish representatives, and therefore the necessities for corruption. Peel noticed that while 'the pension list of Great Britain was limited to 90,000l. per annum, the pension list of Ireland may amount to 80,000l. a year; and he found almost all Irish patronage still employed for political purposes, and almost every office honeycombed with abuses and peculations. A few extracts will give the reader some notion of the nature and extent of the evil, and of the efforts of Peel to reduce it:--

'How is it possible,' he wrote, 'to propose that a shilling should be granted to a general officer on the staff in Ireland when sixpence is granted in England? This is called a modification in official phrase, but it ought to be called doubling the allowance. Set your face steadily against all increase of salary, all extra allowances, all plausible claims for additional emolument. Economy must be the order of the day--rigid economy.' 'When English members hear that the sheriff appoints the grand jury, that the grand jury tax the county, that the sheriff has a considerable influence at elections, and that the sheriff is appointed openly on the recommendation of the member supporting the Government, they are startled not a little.... I know that this is a most convenient patronage to the Government, but I know also that I cannot hint in the House of Commons at such a source of patronage, and I confess I have great doubts on the legitimacy of it.... After Lord Redesdale's declaration ... that the mode of appointing sheriffs "poisons the sources of justice," and witnessing the general feeling among the English against making the nomination of a most important officer in the execution of justice dependent on the will of the county member, I thought it highly expedient to give a positive assurance that the Government would revert to the ancient and legal practice of appointing sheriffs in Ireland.... With a pure Bench--and time will, I hope, purify it--the change would be an essential change for the better.' 'Foster says that the abuses discovered in the office [of Clerk of the Pleas] are enormous, that the amount of fees exacted from suitors is not less than 30,000l. per annum, of which the principal clerk did not receive more than one-third. A Mr. Pollock, the first deputy, is in receipt of 8,000l. or 9,000l. a year as his own share of the profits; other deputies and persons unnecessarily employed have profits amounting to 1,200l. or 1,400l. a year each. Foster thinks that every possible difficulty will be thrown in the way of an early decision in the Irish Courts.... In the meantime, the Chief Baron is receiving the enormous profits arising from these enormous abuses.'

The practice of buying and selling public offices, and the practice of dividing the salaries of a single office between a principal and deputies, still continued; but Peel did his utmost to eradicate them. If it were permitted in one case, he said, 'every officer in every department who purchased on corrupt terms and is now living may claim a right to sell the office so purchased.'

'With respect to a payment out of the salary to R., I can have no scruple in giving you my opinion that it would not be right. I have never been, and cannot conscientiously be, a party to an arrangement of that kind, because I think this is quite clear, that if the salary of the office is disproportionate to the labour of it, and can bear to be taxed to the amount of 200l., the public should benefit, and the emoluments of the office be reduced.'

One of Peel's first tasks was to conduct a general election, and he had ample opportunities of judging how these things were managed in Ireland. A law known as Curwen's Act had been recently passed, condemning to a heavy fine in the event of failure, and to the loss of his seat in the event of success, any person giving, or promising to give, or consenting to give either money or office for a seat in Parliament. The law was not a little embarrassing to Peel, as his own seat of Cashel had been purchased, and he thought it safer to transfer himself to the English seat of Chippenham, where his return was managed by his father without any intervention on his own part. At the same time, the elections in Ireland went on much as if Curwen's Act had never passed.

'I am placed in a delicate situation enough here,' he wrote to his friend Croker: 'bound to secure the Government interests, if possible, from dilapidation, but still more bound to faint with horror at the mention of money transactions, to threaten the unfortunate culprits with impeachment if they hint at an impure return, and yet to prevent those strongholds, Cashel, Mallow, and Tralee, from surrendering to the enemies who besiege them.'

Croker himself furnished an admirable illustration of the manner in which these principles were carried out. 'I find the borough' , he writes, 'extremely well disposed to me. Of the respectable and steady people I have a decided majority, not less than twenty; but there are sixty-two persons who are extremely doubtful.... I have the greatest repugnance to bribery, ... but my agent informs me that many voters will require money.... The return absolutely depends upon pounds sterling. The best computation which my agents can make is that a sum of 2,000l. will be necessary. The natural expenses will be 500l. These, I think, I am bound to make good. But with regard to the money for votes, that I expect from Government.'