stated his opinion that the Catholic question had retrograded in the minds of the people of England. This effect he attributed partly to the proceedings of the Association, and partly to the attacks which had been made in parliament upon the Protestant Establishment of Ireland. Proceeding to the third division of his subject, Mr. Canning vindicated himself and the ministry from the reproach which had been thrown upon them on account of their being divided in opinion upon the Catholic question. "I ask the hon. gentlemen," said he, "who have made this charge, to be so good as to tell me, when that administration existed (since the Union with Ireland), in which there prevailed a common sentiment respecting the Catholic question? I challenge them to point out a single month for the last twenty-five years, when division of opinion on that question has not existed among the confidential servants of the Crown; and when the objection to sitting in a chequered cabinet has not been just as applicable as at the present moment. There have, indeed, been periods, when this conflict of opinions had no practical operation; because it was superseded by a general understanding, that all the members of the cabinet, whatever might be their personal opinions, were to concur in resisting for the time, all consideration of the Catholic claims: but of a cabinet concurring in opinion to grant the Catholic claims, I repeat, there is no example. Wherefore, then, is the present cabinet to be selected as an object of peculiar reprehension on this account? the administration under lord Sidmouth (then Mr. Addington) was formed on the basis of a determined resistance to it. Of that administration lord Castlereagh subsequently became a member: but the cabinet was still avowedly and systematically hostile to the discussion of the Catholic claims. No attempt was made during its existence to bring those claims into discussion. "To lord Sidmouth's administration succeeded, in 1804, that of Mr. Pitt. During Mr. Pitt's administration, individual differences of opinion upon this subject were kept in abeyance by one preponderating sentiment, in which there was a general agreement. There was, in the feelings of all the members of that cabinet, an insurmountable obstacle to the discussion of the Catholic claims: I mean that scruple of the royal mind, which Mr. Pitt determined to respect; and which was pleaded, in no obscure terms, as one main ground of his resistance in 1805 to the motion then brought forward by Mr. Fox for the consideration of a Roman Catholic petition. "On the death of Mr. Pitt, in January, 1806, Mr. Fox, jointly with lord Grenville, succeeded to the management of affairs. Mr. Fox certainly did not hold in the same respect as Mr. Pitt professedly had done, the scruples of the king's conscience; for Mr. Fox's motion in 1805 was made and maintained in direct (I do not mean to say whether proper or improper) defiance of those scruples. That motion was not eight months old, when Mr. Fox seated himself as minister in Mr. Pitt's place in the House of Commons. "When Mr. Pitt retired from office in 1801, on account of his "Now, if the necessity for making inability to carry this question, the Catholic question a cabinet question is so very apparent,-how happened it not to strike Mr. Fox in that light, when he took office in 1806? It will not be said that Mr. Fox was so unimportant an element in any administration to be formed in this country, after the loss of Mr. Pitt, that he could not have dictated terms, which, it is always taken for granted, and made matter of charge, that I could have dictated if I pleased, in 1822. How, then, are we to account for it, that Mr. Fox, in forming his cabinet, not eight months after he had brought forward his motion (the first since the Union) for Catholic emancipation,-so far from having endeavoured to bring together a cabinet harmonious and consenting on the Catholic questionshould not even have been contented with the single dissent which he possessed-and could not, perhaps, get rid of-in his lord chancellor (lord Erskine), but should have gone out of his way to bring into the administration the two persons in public life, the most decidedly and notoriously opposed to that question? The first of these was lord Sidmouth, with whom neither Mr. Fox nor lord Grenville had ever had any political connexion, and to whom they could therefore have no political pledges: the other was sought for in a quarter in which I trust a member of a cabinet will never be sought for again, on the highest seat of justice, the chief criminal judge of the kingdom. Let it not be said that lord Sidmouth's and lord Ellenborough's sentiments on the subject of the Catholic question were unknown. By lord Ellenborough, I believe-by lord Sidmouth, I am confident (for he has more than once declared it in his place in the House of Lords), a formal and solemn claim to freedom of action upon the Catholic question was distinctly stipulated,before they would accept the offices that were tendered to them. It was, therefore, knowingly and advisedly, that these discordant materials were incorporated into that government;-a government (be it observed, too), which did make the abolition of the Slave trade for the first time a cabinet question; and which had therefore the doctrine of cabinet questions full and clear before their eyes. "I do not wish to press this point harshly or invidiously; but it does require, I think, some courage, some front, in those who were connected with Mr. Fox's administration of 1806, to catechise any man, or any set of men, as to their motives for framing or belonging to an administration divided in opinion upon the Catholic question. I say, Mr. Fox's administration,not as presuming to apportion power between the eminent individuals of whom that administration was composed, but in order to mark particularly that period of the administration of 1806, during which Mr. Fox was alive. During Mr. Fox's life-time it is perfectly notorious that there was not a stir, not a whisper, towards the agitation of the Catholic question, or of any thing connected with it. In the interval between Mr. Fox's death, and the dissolution of lord Grenville's administration, an attempt to moot a part, and no unimportant part of the question, was made; and it is therefore that I address to the friends of Mr. Fox, not to those of lord Grenville, the interrogatories which I have taken the liberty to propose. "To lord Grenville's administration succeeded, in 1807, that of the duke of Portland; which, being formed in a great measure out of the materials which had been broken up by the death of Mr. Pitt, naturally inherited his principles, and walked in his steps. The obstacle, which had opposed itself to the favourable consideration of the Catholic question in Mr. Pitt's time, continued unchanged. I think it not necessary to make any other defence for myself for having adopted Mr. Pitt's principles, than that they were Mr. Pitt's. I continued to abide by them so long as the same obstacle existed. I followed the course which he had pursued, and I followed it equally in office and out of office. Under the influence of his example I resisted the question in 1808, when I was a minister. I resisted it again in 1810, after I had resigned my office; when I had no tie to control me; and when, my opinions being what they have been ever since and are now, I should naturally have taken a different course, if unrestrained by the motive which I have described. "I resigned my office in 1809; and shortly after, by the death of the duke of Portland, the government devolved into the hands of Mr. Perceval. away with it the obstacle which had so long impeded my free course on the Catholic question. I considered the unrestricted regency as tantamount to a new reign. On that occasion, therefore, I imagined that the ministers, my former colleagues, whose opinions I knew to agree with mine on the Catholic question, would feel themselves unfettered for the discussion of it, whenever it might come before the House. Such was my own feeling. Such I knew to be that of lord Wellesley; who about this time resigned his situation in Mr. Perceval's administration, and was succeeded by lord Castlereagh as secretary for foreign affairs. "On the first occasion, however, on which the Catholic question was brought forward, both Mr. Perceval and lord Castlereagh stated that, however differing in opinion on the Catholic question, the ministers were, for the present, united as one man to resist the consideration of it. "Upon that occasion it was that I gave the first vote that I ever gave in favour of the Catholic question; and upon those statements of the * Extract from Mr. Perceval's speech, "At the same time, April 24, 1812. Mr. Perceval's Sir, I must state that it is the unanimous sentiments on the Catholic question are well known. His cabinet, however, contained members differing from him, and agreeing with me, upon that question; but they refrained, like me, from manifesting that difference of opinion, by the same obstacle which we alike respected. "In 1812, as in the preceding years of 1811 and 1810, I was out of office. In the beginning of that year, the restrictions on the regency were removed. I considered that removal as carrying opinion of all those with whom I am connected, that the present is not a moment in which any further concessions ought to be made to the Roman Catholics." Extract from lord Castlereagh's speech the same night. "With respect to the vote I shall give to-night, my right hon. friend (Mr. Perceval) has truly stated that the cabinet are unanimous in this opinion, that the question of concession to the Catholics could not now be conveniently agitated, nor any inquiry gone into upon the subject of the legal disabilities of his majesty's Catholic subjects in Ireland, with the hope of coming to any ultimate and satisfactory arrangement.' ministers I founded a notice of a motion, the object of which was, to obtain a parliamentary declaration in favour of that consideration of the Catholic question, which the administration were united to resist. "While that motion was depending, Mr. Perceval died; and his death produced from the remaining part of the administration a proposal to me to come into office. The only question, which I put on this occasion to my noble friend (lord Liverpool), who was the bearer of this proposal to me, was, whether the administration continued in the same determination with respect to the Catholic question, which had been announced by Mr. Perceval and lord Castlereagh in debate a few weeks before; which determination was to resist as one man the consideration of that question. I was answered, that that determination continued unaltered; and I refused to come into office. Did I, by so refusing office, give any proof of subserviency to those vulgar inducements which are assumed to have so powerful an influence on every public man? Did I manifest a disposition to sacrifice my integrity to my interest, or, what would be less disgraceful, perhaps, though disgraceful enough, to my ambition? "And yet that refusal was not quite an ordinary effort. I had at that moment a temptation to take office, more powerful, perhaps, than I have felt at any other period of my political life. There are circumstances which excuse, in generous minds, a strong desire for power; and such precisely were the circumstances under which office was now tendered to my acceptance. I had been secretary of state during the first years of the war in the Peninsula. I had been in a measure the author, and in this House the responsible defender, of that animating but difficult struggle. I had, therefore, gone through all the parliamentary contests, which the disasters and reverses that attended the commencement of the Spanish war, called down upon the administration; I had borne the brunt of all the attacks, and buffeted all the storms, with which the opposition of that day had assailed us. Certainly, my opinions had never been altered, nor my hopes depressed, by the misfortunes of the early campaigns in Spain. I had anticipated even in the hour of the deepest gloom, a brighter and more fortunate period, when the gale of fortune would yet set in gloriously and prosperously for the great cause in which we were embarked. In 1812, the prospect had begun to clear, victory attached itself to our standard; and the cause, which I had so long advocated under less auspicious circumstances, appeared to promise, even to less sanguine eyes, those brilliant results which ultimately crowned it. And, I desire to ask any man who hears me, and who has within him the heart of an English gentleman, animated by a just desire to serve his country, whether greater temptation to take office could possibly be held out to any one, than was at that time held out to me, at the very moment when I might have come in to reap the fruits of the harvest, which I had sown under the lowering atmosphere of distrust and discouragement, and the early and ungenial growth of which I had watched with such intense anxiety? At such a moment I was called to resume my station in the councils of my country: but the answer of the cabinet being what it was on the Catholic question, I declined the call. Was this to sacrifice my conscience and the Catholic cause to the love of office? "After these transactions,-that is to say, after this offer of office to me, and a simultaneous one to lord Wellesley, and our refusal of these offers, a motion was made in this House to address the throne for the formation of a more efficient administration. That motion was carried; and the negotiation for the purpose pointed out in the address, was confided to lord Wellesley and myself. On the day after this commission was received, lord Wellesley, with my concurrence, addressed to lord Grey,-and I, with lord Wellesley's concurrence, addressed to lord Liverpool, -a proposal for forming a combined administration. The basis upon which we proposed to form this administration was laid in two propositions; 1st. a vigorous prosecution of the war in Spain: 2nd. a fair consideration of the Catholic question. The object of this last proposition was, manifestly and avowedly, not to form a cabinet united in opinion upon the Catholic question (for how could lord Liverpool and his friends be expected to make such a surrender of their opinions?)--but to undo the bond by which the displaced administration had been united together against all consideration of the Catholic question. Our wish was to bring together in one comprehensive scheme, all the best talents of the country, in a crisis of unexampled difficulty; and at the same time to secure to the Catholic question the advantage of a free discussion in parliament. "What does this statement prove? Why it proves that my course on that occasion, was consistent with my practice now; that as, on the one hand, I had refused to make part of an administration combined against the Catholic question,-so, on the other, I did not think it necessary or wise to proscribe every man whose opinion differed from mine on that single question, while on other questions, touching the safety and interests of the country, we agreed. The notion may be absurd, the error in judgment may be gross and unpardonable; but I did think then, as I think now, that an administration might be formed on a basis quite distinct from that of the recognition of the Catholic question, as à cabinet measure, and as the single paramount necessity of the state; that an administration, I say, might be well, and rightly, and usefully, and honestly formed, of which the members differed conscientiously from each other on that question, and that such an administration, might yet have the means of rendering great service to the country. "Here, again, what becomes of the reproach that for the sake of office I gave up that question? On this occasion I was not a candidate for office: I was employed to offer it to others. I was concerned in forming an administration, not seeking an appointment in or under one: and it was under such circumstances that I was prepared and desirous to act with colleagues of my own selection, on the very basis on which the present administration stands. "It is, therefore, in the highest degree disingenuous to pretend, that, by my refusal to accept office after Mr. Perceval's death, I im |