vernment, and of the resolution of the ministers to exert
it.[181]

Notes:

[Footnote 172: Against Junot, at Vimiera and Rolica, in 1808; Soult, at
Oporto, and Victor, at Talavera, in 1809; Massena and Ney, at Busaco and
Torres Vedras, in 1810; Massena and Bessieres, at Fuentes d'Onor, in
1811. Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz had been taken in 1812, in spite of the
neighborhood of Soult and Marmont. In July, 1813, a month after the
formation of Lord Liverpool's ministry, he routed Marmont at Salamanca;
in 1813 he took Madrid, and routed Jourdain at Vittoria; and, having
subsequently defeated Soult at Sauroren, he crossed the French frontier
in October.]

[Footnote 173: A resolution, moved by Mr. Canning, to take the claims of
the Roman Catholics into consideration in the next session had been
carried in June by the large majority of 129; and when Lord Wellesley
brought forward a similar motion in the House of Lords, not only did
Lord Liverpool "protest against its being inferred from any declaration
of his that it was, or ever had been, his opinion that under no
circumstances would it be possible to make any alteration in the laws
respecting the Roman Catholics," but the Chancellor, Lord Eldon, who was
generally regarded as the stoutest champion of the existing law, rested
his opposition entirely on political grounds, explaining carefully that
he opposed the motion, "not because he quarrelled with the religion of
the Roman Catholics, but because their religious opinions operated on
their political principles in such a way as to render it necessary to
adopt some defence against them," and met the motion by moving the
previous question, avowedly because "he did not wish, at once and
forever, to shut the door of conciliation;" and the previous question
was only carried by a single vote--126 to 125.]

[Footnote 174: "It (difference on the Catholic question) was an evil
submitted to by the government, of which Mr. Fox, Lord Grenville, and
Lord Grey were members, in the years 1806, 1807, as well as by the
governments of Mr. Perceval, Lord Liverpool, and the Duke of
Wellington."--_Peel's Memoirs_, i., 62. This passage would seem to imply
that Peel believed the Catholic question to have been left "open" in
1806; but there is not, so far as the present writer is aware, any trace
of such an arrangement on record, and Lord Liverpool's letter to the
King, of November 10, 1826 ("Life," iii., 436), shows clearly that he
was not aware