pounds, make use of it to promote the interests of Mr. Fitzgerald; but
my vote I must give to Mr. O'Connell." "Could anything," he asked, "be
so painful as the situation of him who was obliged to perform such a
part, to observe such a doubtful contest between his religion and his
conscience?" On a division only seventeen members voted against the
bill; and it passed into a law. Mr. O'Connell had publicly bound himself
to reject even emancipation if accompanied by such a condition, and to
perish in the field, or on the scaffold, if necessary, in defence of his
"forties;" but he forgot his vows, and became silent and acquiescent.

THE CASE OF MR. O'CONNELL.

At the time of the Clare election Mr. O'Connell had assured the people
that he was entitled to sit in parliament without taking the oaths,
which no Catholic could take. He had staked his professional reputation
on this point, and had given assurances that he held other learned
opinions to the same purport. His return had subsequently been
petitioned against; but a committee to whom the petition had been
referred, had reported that he was duly elected. Now, according to the
old law, under which Mr. O'Connell's claim had arisen--he having been
elected before the measure of emancipation had passed--if a person known
and believed to be a Catholic could take certain oaths, which oaths
involved an abjuration of Popery, he was entitled to take his seat. The
new act, however, did not seem to forward his pretensions. The oath,
indeed, which it substituted for those that were abrogated, could be
taken by a Catholic as well as a Protestant; but that provision was
expressly limited to "any person professing the Roman Catholic religion,
after the commencement of this act, be returned as a member of the
house of commons." Mr. O'Connell and his friends, however, held that
from the moment the bill received the royal assent, there was an end to
the power of administering the abrogated oaths, or demanding any of the
declarations which then stood repealed. On these grounds Mr. O'Connell
hoped to take his seat in parliament. He presented himself at the table
of the house on the 15th of May; and the clerk produced the oath which
had been repealed by the late act. A brief conversation took place;
and the clerk having communicated what took place to the speaker,
he addressed the house thus: "It is my duty to state, if I have been
correctly informed, that the course which the honourabl