h
he proposed contained all these securities; and if the necessity of
obtaining them were so great as the petitioners contended, let him be
answered this question: "Would the Protestants ever have had the least
chance of obtaining them if his majesty had not recommended that the
disabilities of the Catholics should be taken into consideration, with
the view to an adjustment of this question? Could any man say it was
possible, though the unanimous voice of the Protestants of Ireland
declared those securities to be necessary, that any one of them could
have been obtained, unless a proposal or adjustment had been made?" On
a division the motion was carried by a majority of three hundred and
forty-eight against one hundred and sixty; a preponderance which, as
regarded the house of commons, was decisive of the ultimate fate of the
question.

Resolutions, proposed by Mr. Peel in the committee, were immediately
agreed to; and a bill founded on them was introduced and read for the
first time on the 10th of March. The opponents of the measure allowed
the first reading to take place without opposition, it being arranged
that the debate on the principle of the bill should take place on the
second reading. That reading was fixed for the 17th, on which day it
was moved by Mr. Peel. The motion led to a very warm debate. Sir
Edward Knatchbull strongly attacked Mr. Peel on the desertion of his
principles, as well as other members of the government, asserting that
from it the confidence which had hitherto been accorded to public men,
had received a blow from which it never would recover. Mr. Goulburn
admitted that he had adopted new opinions on this subject; but he had
done so, he said, because it was impossible that any other thing could
be wisely done in the present state of Ireland. He contended that the
measure proposed was calculated to give more complete ascendancy to the
Protestant establishment, by diminishing the irritation, and removing
the prejudices of its opponents. He argued, that it would also have the
effect of causing the people to treat the ministers of the Protestant
church with the respect and attention to which their character and
virtues so eminently entitled them; and that it was only under such
circumstances that the church could be employed as an important engine
in the moral improvement of the people. These notions, however, were
ridiculed by Mr. G. Bankes, who contended that, although the house did
not surren