ry. Still, it was thought necessary to suppress
another catholic convention in 1814, and to renew the insurrection act,
which remained in force with one interval till 1817. It can well be
imagined that a population so lawless, and so prone to horrible outrages
which shock Englishmen more than a thousand crimes against property,
should have excited little general sympathy by their complaints of
political grievances. These grievances were justly denounced by party
leaders, but in the eyes of ordinary politicians, and still more of
electors, coercion rather than concession was the appropriate remedy for
the ills of Ireland.

[Pageheading: _CATHOLIC RELIEF._]

Canning, however, though suspected of lukewarmness, did not let the
question rest in 1822. On April 30, while still out of office, he
introduced a bill which he could scarcely have expected to become law,
for enabling Roman catholic peers to sit and vote in the house of lords.
This bill was passed in the commons by a majority of five, but rejected
in the lords by a majority of forty-four, in spite of somewhat
transparent assertions that it was not intended to prejudice the main
issue. On April 18, 1823, an angry protest from Burdett against the
"annual farce" of motions leading to nothing was followed by a quarrel
between Canning and Brougham, who accused Canning, then foreign
secretary, of "monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office";
and when Plunket moved, as usual, for the relief of catholics, a
temporary secession of radicals took place, which left him in a
ridiculous minority. In spite of this discomfiture, Lord Nugent
succeeded in carrying through the commons a bill, granting the
parliamentary franchise to Roman catholics in Great Britain. The bill
was lost in the lords, and the question remained dormant in 1824; but in
1825 it received a fresh impulse. This time it was Burdett who, at the
instance of Lansdowne and Brougham, appeared as spokesman of the
catholics. His action was in some respects inopportune, as the "Catholic
Association," founded by O'Connell and Sheil in 1823, was now usurping
the functions of a government, and regularly levying taxes under the
name of "rent". The necessity of suppressing it, though not apparent to
Lord Wellesley, the lord-lieutenant, was strongly felt on both sides of
the house of commons. A bill for this purpose, but applicable to all
similar associations, was rapidly carried by large majorities in both
houses