e
of Lords), but had also passed, by a still larger majority, a
resolution, moved by Lord Francis Leveson Gower (who was now the
Secretary for Ireland), in favor of endowing the Roman Catholic priests
in Ireland. And at the late general election the opinions of the
candidates on what was commonly called Catholic Emancipation had been
the great cardinal question with a great number, probably a majority, of
the constituencies.

It may be remarked that it was not the Test Act which excluded Roman
Catholics from Parliament, but a bill which, fifteen years later, had
been passed (probably under the influence of Lord Shaftesbury) at the
time when the whole kingdom was excited by the daily expanding
revelations of the Popish Plot.[198] And this bill had a loop-hole which
was never discovered till now but the discovery of which totally changed
the whole aspect of the question. Even before the bill repealing the
Test Act had passed through all its stages, Sir Francis Burdett had
again induced the House of Commons to pass a resolution condemning the
continuance of the Roman Catholic disabilities; to which, however, the
peers, by a far larger majority, refused their concurrence.[199] But,
within a month of this division, the aspect of the whole question was
changed by the shrewdness of an Irish barrister, who had discovered the
loop-hole or flaw in the bill of 1678 already alluded to, and by the
energy and promptitude with which he availed himself of his discovery.
Mr. O'Connell had a professional reputation scarcely surpassed by any
member of the Irish Bar. He was also a man of ancient family in the
county of Kerry. And, being a Roman Catholic, he had for several years
been the spokesman of his brother Roman Catholics on most public
occasions. He now, on examination of the bill of 1678, perceived that,
though it forbade any Roman Catholic from taking a seat in either House
of Parliament, it contained no prohibition to prevent any constituency
from electing him its representative. And when, on the occasion of some
changes which were made in the cabinet, the representation of the County
Clare was vacated by its member, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, accepting the
office of President of the Board of Trade, O'Connell instantly offered
himself as a candidate in opposition to the new minister, who, of
course, sought re-election.

Mr. Fitzgerald was a man who had always supported the demands of the
Roman Catholics; he was also personally popul