and Mr. Wood, one of the members for Preston, moved as an amendment for
leave to bring in a bill to grant to his majesty's subjects, generally,
the right of admission to the English universities, and to equal
eligibility to degrees therein, notwithstanding their diversities of
religious opinion, degrees in divinity alone excepted. The address was
withdrawn; and after a discussion, in which even the introduction of the
measure was opposed by Messrs. Goulburn and Estcourt, and Sir R. Inglis,
three of the four members for the universities, it was carried by a
majority of one hundred and eighty-five to forty-four. Although the
Cambridge petition had been presented in both houses by members of
the cabinet, and government had declared its entire concurrence in the
prayer of the petitioners, neither the proposition for an address, nor
that for a bill, was brought forward by ministers. They were favourable
to the measure, however, and supported it by their speeches and votes.
At the same time they wished that neither parliament nor the government
should be pressed or hurried to intermeddle, before they could take
up the matter with the prospect of terminating it in the best and most
satisfactory manner. They hoped, they said, that as a portion of one
of the universities was already inclined to it, the object, by allowing
some time for consideration, might be effected with the concurrence
of those learned bodies, and in a much better form, and to much better
purpose, than if they were made reluctantly to act under the compulsion
of a statute. That hope, however, was vain. Before the bill was brought
in, the sentiments of the great mass in the two universities were fully
expressed. It was soon discovered that the sixty-three petitioners
at Cambridge, by offending the honest principles of many, and the
party-spirit of others, had raised a storm which no argument or
explanation could allay. Meetings were almost daily held, pamphlets were
distributed on every hand, the public press joined in the contest, and
the university pulpits resounded with the most awful denunciations.
During the excitement at Cambridge, a counter-petition was signed by two
hundred and fifty-eight members, resident and non-resident, comprising
eleven heads of houses, eight professors, and twenty-nine tutors; while
a second was signed by seven hundred and fifty-five under-graduates and
bachelors of arts. These were presented on the 21st of April by the Duke
of G