=Source.=--_Annual Register for 1829_, p. 94.
_Duke of Wellington's Speech._
[The attitude of the Ministry was set forth in a brief speech by
the Duke of Wellington at the close of the debate. While there
is little in the utterance beyond a personal explanation of the
secrecy maintained, it is inserted as being the final word on the
great question which had for so many years troubled the heart of
England.]
The debate was closed by a brief reply from the Duke of Wellington.
The apprehended danger to the Irish Church from the admission of a
few Catholics into Parliament, he treated as futile, considering
that the throne would be filled by a Protestant. Moreover, a
fundamental article of the Union between the two countries was the
union of the two Churches; and it was impossible that any mischief
could happen to the Irish branch of this united Church, without
destroying the union of the two countries. "A different topic,"
said his grace, "to which I wish to advert is a charge brought
against several of my colleagues, and also against myself, by the
noble earl on the cross-bench, of a want of consistency in our
conduct. My lords, I admit that many of my colleagues, as well
as myself, did on former occasions vote against a measure of a
similar description with this; and, my lords, I must say, that my
colleagues and myself felt, when we adopted this measure, that we
should be sacrificing ourselves and our popularity to that which
we felt to be our duty to our sovereign and our country. We knew
very well, that if we put ourselves at the head of the Protestant
cry of 'No Popery,' we should be much more popular even than those
who had excited against us that very cry. But we felt that in so
doing we should have left on the interests of the country a burthen
which must end in bearing them down, and further that we should
have deserved the hate and execration of our countrymen. Then I am
accused, and by a noble and learned friend of mine, of having acted
with great secrecy respecting this measure. Now I beg to tell him,
that he has done that to me in the course of this discussion which
he complains of others having done to him--in other words, he has,
in the language of a right hon. friend of his and mine, thrown a
large paving-stone, instead of throwing a small pebble. I say, that
if he accuses me of acting with secrecy on this question, he does
not deal with me altogether fairly. He knows as well as I do how
the Cabinet was constructed on this question; and I ask him, had
I any right to say a single word to any man whatsoever upon this
measure, until the person most interested in the kingdom upon it
had given his consent to my speaking out? Before he accused me of
secrecy, and of improper secrecy too, he ought to have known the
precise day upon which I received the permission of the highest
personage in the country, and had leave to open my mouth upon this
measure. There is another point also on which a noble earl accused
me of misconduct; and that is, that I did not at once 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 and of the
inconveniences 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 lead to something little short of a
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."