the integrity of
the empire. The fall of the Irish church would endanger the connection
between the two countries. The leader of the Catholic population in
Ireland had told them to choose reformers as the best means of opening
the way to repealers; yet it was proposed by opening the boroughs to
put them into the hands of this party--a party whose influence would be
increased to an extent that no government would have power to oppose.
The amendment was seconded by Lord Castlereagh, and supported by Messrs.
Shaw, Conolly, and Gordon, who all said that the bill would be ruinous
to the Protestant interest in Ireland. Messrs. O'Connell and Shiel
defended the bill against the objections urged by the supporters of the
amendment, but pointed out other defects, which they expressed a hope
would be remedied in the committee. For instance, the name of the
ten-pound franchise had been given to Ireland without the reality; the
Irish and English freeholders, from the nature of their tenures, and the
disproportion between their means, were in opposite positions to each
other. In respect to houses also, the franchise was too high; and,
instead of being the instrument of reform, it would be productive of
corruption. Thus Portarlington, which was formerly sold by a single
proprietor, would now be sold by one hundred members. In England, no
man was called upon to show his title unless by previous notice; but
in Ireland a scrutinising assistant-barrister examined it without any
process being-served on the man who came to vote. In Ireland, also,
half-a-crown was the sum paid for registry; in England it was a shilling
only. Was this equality? Was this union? Could this conduce to the
continuance of the union between the two countries? But while he found
so much in the bill of an objectionable nature, he would support it for
the good it would effect; he would support it because it would strike
down the corporation of Dublin, and because it would open the borough of
Belfast, whose representative had hitherto been appointed by the noble
Marquis of Donegal, like his groom or his footman. After a few words
of opposition from Sir Robert Peel, the house divided on the second
reading, and it was carried by two hundred and forty-six against one
hundred and thirty.

It was in the committee that the attacks of the Irish reformers against
the bill commenced in reality. The emancipation act had been accompanied
by the disfranchisement of the forty-shilli