dissolve the parliament. Now I must say that I think noble lords are
mistaken in the notion of the benefits which they think that they would
derive from a dissolution of parliament at this crisis. I believe that
many of them are not aware of the consequences of a dissolution of
parliament at any time. But when I know, as I did know, and as I do
know, the state of the elective franchise in Ireland, when I recollected
the number of men it took to watch one election which took place in
Ireland in the course of last summer; when I knew the consequences which
a dissolution would produce on the return to the house of commons,
to say nothing of the risks which must have been incurred at each
election--of collisions that might have led to something short of civil
war--I say that, knowing all these things, I should have been wanting in
duty to my sovereign and to my country if I had advised his majesty to
dissolve his parliament." On a division the same house of peers which in
1828 had declared, by a majority of forty-five, that emancipation
would be a breach of the constitution, and dangerous to the Protestant
establishment, now declared, by a majority of two hundred and seventeen
against one hundred and twelve, it was consistent with the constitution;
and that, if it did no good, it would not do any harm to the Protestant
church.

On the 7th and 8th of April the bill passed through a committee, in
which, as in the commons, many amendments were moved, but none carried.
It was read a third time on the 10th of April, after another debate, in
which the former arguments were repeated on both sides of the question;
and on the 13th of the same month it received its final confirmation in
the royal assent. The working of that measure will be best seen in the
future pages of this history; but it may be here observed, that it has
proved neither an immediate, nor a sufficient cure for the disorders of
Ireland. Protestant ascendancy was too deeply and extensively rooted in
all its institutions to admit of such a remedy; nor was it likely that
the Roman Catholics, having acquired means to break their chain, would
remain long without trying their efficiency. Agitation had procured this
boon; and the Roman Catholics, thus successful, have sought to obtain
other benefits by the same unhallowed means. Agitation is, in fact,
still the bane of Ireland.

BILL FOR THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDERS.

{GEORGE IV. 1829--1