r by
the dangerous facility which they offer to violation. Sooner or later
they produce discord between the neighbouring states. But all these
considerations were set aside; and, indeed, at this time our government
displayed much apathy on the subject of Greek independence.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

{GEORGE IV. 1829--1830}

The Catholic Question..... Meeting of Parliament.....
Suppression of the Catholic Association..... Rejection of
Mr. Peel at Oxford..... The Triumph of Catholic
Emancipation..... Bill for the Disfranchisement of the
Forty-Shilling Freeholders..... The Case of Mr.
O'Connell..... Financial Statements..... Motion for
Parliamentary Reform..... Prorogation of Parliament.....
State of Affairs in Ireland..... Agricultural and
Commercial Distress..... Affairs on the Continent.

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

{A. D. 1829}

The recommendation of the late lord-lieutenant to agitate, was followed
in Ireland to the very letter. When the Duke of Northumberland arrived
in Dublin as his successor, he found agitation pervading the whole
country. Protestants and Catholics alike were in the field, breathing
defiance and revenge against each other, so that there was every
prospect of a civil war. The premier's situation at the opening of the
year, from this cause, was one of great and peculiar difficulty. The
whole tenor of his political life had been marked by hostility to
the Catholic claims; and every individual associated with him in the
government was pledged to resist their claims. The time had arrived,
however, at the opening of the year, when it became necessary for the
Duke of Wellington to decide on some mode of action; either to determine
not to yield, or to grant emancipation, or to retire from the helm of
state for a season, and permit a Whig government to carry the measure.
The course which he pursued astounded the nation. The wisest and most
honourable course which his grace could have taken, would have been to
have retired, since it was scarcely fair to steal the crown of victory
from statesmen who, during the whole of their political career, had
ably and eloquently pleaded the cause of the Catholics. Yet such was the
course he adopted. Although he had declared that he saw no prospect of
the settlement of the question, and although he had recalled the late
lord-lieutenant because he favoured the Catholics, yet he was now
determined to grant with a free an