military officers, without political experience, were now imported
into the ministry. Sir George Murray succeeded Huskisson at the colonial
office, and Sir Henry Hardinge replaced Palmerston as secretary at war,
but was not admitted to the cabinet; Lord Aberdeen became foreign
secretary, and Vesey Fitzgerald president of the board of trade, while
Lord Francis Leveson Gower succeeded Lamb as chief secretary for
Ireland. So purely tory an administration had not been formed since the
days of Perceval. Looking back we can see that, for that very reason, it
was doomed; but to politicians of 1828 Wellington's ascendency seemed
assured, and it was not actually broken for above two years. By far the
most important event of domestic history within that period was the
crisis ending in the catholic emancipation act, and this crisis was
immediately precipitated by the almost casual appointment of Vesey
Fitzgerald. He was a popular Irish landlord, who had always supported
catholic relief, and his re-election for the county of Clare was
regarded as perfectly secure. The landlords were known to be entirely in
his favour, and Irish tenants, miscalled "forty shilling freeholders,"
had been used to vote obsequiously for the candidate of their landlords.
Indeed, these counterfeit freeholds had been manufactured recklessly
throughout Ireland for the very purpose of extending landlord influence.
Perhaps the recent defeat of a Beresford at Waterford by a nominee of
Daniel O'Connell, who had made himself the leader of the movement for
Catholic relief, ought to have undeceived the Irish tories, but no one
could have foreseen so daring an act as the candidature of O'Connell
himself, notwithstanding that, as a catholic, he was incapable of
sitting in the house of commons.

The contest began on June 30 and lasted five days. All the gentry and
electors of the higher class supported Fitzgerald, but all the poorer
electors, headed by their priests, flocked to the poll and voted for
O'Connell, who, on Fitzgerald's retirement, was triumphantly elected.
The violence of O'Connell's language was unmeasured, and as was said by
Sheil, "every altar became a tribune," but perfect order was maintained
throughout. The terrorism which has since disgraced Irish elections and
vitiated the whole representation of Ireland had no place in this
startling victory, and the impression produced by it was thereby
infinitely enhanced. Two conclusions were instantly drawn f