The Sun.
London, England, 1827-05-03 00:00:00

112

No. 10,810.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 2.

At three o'clock the House met, when the Lord
Chancellor was introduced, as Lord Lyndhurst, by
Lords King and Howard de Walden, and took the
oaths and his su.t on the Woolsack.

Viscount Goderich (late Mr. Robinson), was
introduced by Viscounts Dudley, and Melville;
—Lord Plunket (late Mr. Plunket) was intro-
duced by Lcrds Clanricarde and Seaford ; and Lord
Tenterden (late Sir Chas. Abbott) by Lords Bex-
ley and Kenyon.
The new Peers were then severally sworn at the
table, and took their seats.
The Attorney-General, and several of the lead-
ing Counsel, attended below the Bar, to witness
the elevation of the Lord Chief Justice to a Peerage,
and to mark their high respect for that eminent in-
dividual.
The Duke of CLARENCE came down to the House
at an early hour.

—After some Private Bills had :ead a third
time, the House adjourned during pleasure.
At half-past four o'clock we 'were again admitted,
when we found nearly the entire space below the bar
occupied by Members of the Lower House, and
others who had been permitted to enter during
our . exclusion. Among them we observed Mr.
Wynn, Mr.Hobhouse, and Sir John Burke. The space
immediately around the Throne was &so cro,s, ded
to excess by Members of the House of Commons,
and other persons of distinction.
There were a greater number of Peers present
in the House than we ever remember to have seen
before. Lord Eldon entered the House, shortly
after, and took his seat on one of the cross benches.
His Lordship appeared to be in excellent spirits.—
The Duke of Wellington, Lord Melville, and also,
we believe, the Earl of Westmoreland, took their
seats on the cross benches near the Earl of Eldon.
On the Treasury benches we observed Lord Gode-
rich and Lord Dudley; and on the Treasury side of
the House his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex,
Lord Plunkett, the Marquis of Lansdown, Lord
Holland, and Lord Auckland. Earl Grey and Earl
Fitzwilliam occupied their usual seats on the Oppo-
sition side of the House. In general there seemed a
great change of places, and all the Peers most deci-
dedly hostile to the Catholic Claims were seated on
the Opposition benches.

[The want of accommodation below the bar of
the House of Lords, and the difficulty of hearing in
the best place which can be got there, renders it at
all times more difficult to report the proceedings of
that House than those of any other public body.
Unfortunately, this difficulty, which is infinitely in-
creased on important occasions, in consequence of
the pressure of the crowd then collected, was this
day greatly aggravated by a circumstance which
might be so easily prevented, that we apprehend the
bare mention of it will be sufficient to induce the
superior officers of the House to give such orders as
mayobviate its recurrence. It is usual when a crowd
is expected, to anit the Reporters in a way which
gives them the opportunity of taking places close to the
bar; but this day, after the new Peers had been intro-
duced, as above stated, the space below the bar and
all the lobbies were cleared, and when the Reporters
were re-admitted, they found the whole of the bar
occupied chiefly by Members of the House of Com-
MOM. Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt attencksd with . great
politeness to a complaint made to him on this ex-
clusion, but he could not remedy the evil. It is,
however, on public grounds, not on account of the
inconvenience ;experienced by ourselves, that we
notice this subject. If it be desirable that Parlia-
mentary reports should at all times be given with ac-
curacy, it is extremely mortifying to find that on
such an occasion as that of to-day, when the whole 1
country takes a•deep interest in what is passing, cir-
cumstances should occur to render the attainment of
that accuracy more than usually difficult.]
At five o'clock their Lordships resumed for the
despatch of public business.
Lord LYNDHURST took his seat on theWool-
sack, as Chancellor.
Lord GROSVENOR was sorry again to have
to bring before the House the Catholic Question.
There was now an Administration, almost en-
tirely favourable to the Question, and the Members
of the last, were almost wholly against it. He
felt confident that from the changes that had lately
taken place some great benefits would result to the
public. And notwithstanding the opinion of the
present Administration on the Catholic Ques-
tion, yet he believed that it was the earnest
wish of some of the Catholics themselves,
that the House should not proceed hastily to le-
gislate on the subject. He himself thought it would
be better to pause on the question till next spring;
and he was confident that until the existing Catholic
laws were repealed, capital would never circulate' in
that country; but that when the change took place,
capital would be more plentiful there, and pros-
perity would be the happy result.
Lord ELLENBOROUGH was perfectly con-
vinced that ere long the disappointed hopes of the
Noble Earl on the other side would be thrown
to the contrary side of the House. Since
the House had last separated, the whole of
the Government of the country had been re-
constructed ; on what principles, or whether
in the total absence of all principles, that Govern-
ment had been reconstructed, he was entirely igno-
rant. That it had been constructed as it was with
a view to benefit the nation, looking at the opposite
benches, no one could suppose. Since that House
last separated, many individuals who had held
the highest offices under his Majesty had
thought it fit and proper to resign those
offices; in consequence, their characters had
been abused, and they had been accused of,
the highly improper feeling of wishing to dic-
tate to the Crown. It. seemed to him there-
fore to be as essential to the maintenance of their
own yet unblemished characters as to the honour of
that House that they should take the first and ear-
liest opportunity of explaining the circumstances at-
tending their resignations.—(Loud" applause.)
The Earl of ELDON went from the cross benches
where he was sitting, to the Ministerial side of the
table, and from thence addressed their Lordships.
Having learned that they who had resigned their offi-
ces had been charged, and unmercifully charged, with
concert in resigning those offices, and with the unpar-
donable offence of dictating to their Sovereign ; he
hoped that he might be permitted, after having been
so long a Member of that House, and after having so
long advocated principles contrary to such uncon-
stitutional principles, to take the first opportunity of
standing up before them to state that such a charge
was of the most base and most infamous calumny.—
As far as it applied to himself, and he believed as
far as any man dared to apply it to any of
those Right Honourable Personages who had
resigned the offices they held, it was most base
and calumnious. That he himself should be sup-
posed to have been guilty, after having sustained
all the principles he had so undeviatingly
Sustained, through ill and through, good report, of
yielding to a principle so unconstitutional as to
affect to dictate to his Sovereign, who should
have the Government of the country subject
to that controul which belonged to the two Houses
of Parliament, constituted as the Parliament of this
country was, was a thing that he would never hear
stated as far as regarded himself, without declarins
that it was a base and scandalous falsehood—(Hear,
On the other hand he would take the liberty of
saying that he had a right for the sake of

THURSDAY EVEN!

his Sovereign's safety whom be had so long
served, in dutiful attention to him, and in dutiful
attention to the memory of his father, whom he had
so long served, to state in that House, and to his
Majesty, that he, never disguised any opinion he
ever entertained on any subject submitted to
his consideration. Whether it was a correct
notion entertained by the Noble Earl who had
first addressed the House that Catholicism and con-
version went hand in hand he knew not ; but
if capital, conversion, and religion would go together,
for God's sake let that Noble Earl be at the head
of anairs.—(Great applause and laughter.)—He
did not mean to say that religion and capital in
some instances did go together; he had seen too
much to allow him to say so. What he had
to say of himself, was this, and he spoke in the pre-
sence of those who knew the fact—who knew that
in what he was about to state, he stated the truth,
that his notion of resigning was a thought not new
to him. He spoke in the presence of many who knew
that for years past it had been a question with him
whether he ought to resign or not; and if he had
retained office he had now to declare before that
House and the public, that he had retained it because
he had been desired to do so, because he had been
urged to do so. And when the circumstance of
this change took place, the question with
him was, not whether he should maintain
a purpose of resignation, but whether he should dis-
miss that purpose of resignation which. for some
years past he had expressed. Cueld ke continue
holding office under the circumstances which had
taken place of late ? He desired to have it dis-
tinctly understood that he had no personal feeling
with respect to any man, or dared to suppose that
his Majesty had not a constitutional inviolable
right to name whom he should choose to be
his Minister. On the other hand, he felt that
no man could do his duty under such circum-
stances, without stating whether he could usefully
serve him. What he had to say on the
subject was this ; he might be perfectly right, or he
might be perfectly wrong, and he wished to reason
it on the supposition that he was perfectly wrong,
that with respect to the great and important ques-
tion of the Catholic claims, that it had a degree
of importance attached to it, which called upon the
House not to postpone a decision upon it any
longer. The House ought to have it decided.
He had been one of those who had been as instru-
mental as anybody in having had a decision upon
it postponed, but he now • thought the time was
come when it ought to be decided.—(Laughter.)—
He begged to know how it was possible for any
body in his situation to have done any thing but
what he had done ? Meaning to resign, if an Ad-
ministration of perfectly different principles had been
made, could it be supposed that he ought not to
have resigned when an Administration had been
formed, as they had been told, though he did not
know whether it had or not,.--of perfectly dif-
ferent principles.,? Thee -House would allow
him to say, that with his- principles, and look-
ing at the principles' of the Right Honour-
able Member who had got into office, without say-
ing that he did not.as ZettiOusir and as anxiously
maintain the principles he, fostered, as he (Lord
Eldon) did his, he had egaiii and again considered
whether he ought not to,have Changed his opinions,
and he had found it impossible ; consequently,
though-he had found --ii-lpiatitertO say he could
serve an individual Member Oh Government, having
at the head of it such a Member as the „Earl
of Liverpool was, yet- spe.aking with all the regard
and respect he felt for the Prime Minister of the
present day, he did ~eestly wish, him to under-
stand, giving him, firlLcredis for as much sin-
cerity in his principles as any man could pos-
sibly have, that he could not help saying, that if
the question now was what it was not—namely,
whether if he.had had no prior view of resigning, he
ought now to have remained in office, his opinion
was that he ought not. He knew that there -were
Members in the House who entertained a di-
rectly contrary opinion, but his decided .opinion
with respect to the question of the Catholic
Claims was, that if those claims were carried,
there was an end to the religious liberties of this
country, and that with the end of those religions
liberties, the civil liberties of the country would
likewise indisputably cease. This being his
opinion, he would to his dying day, in whatever
situation of life lie might be placed, support the
opinions he had hitherto maintained.—(Cheers.)—lt
was as silly as it was calumnious to charge with
conspiracy individuals so long tried, and so well
known, and perhaps it was equally silly in
him to repel such a charge, and for the truth
of this he appealed to their Lordships' common
sense; if they were brought to trial for a
conspiracy in a Court of Justice, the case would
have blown out of Court before the party accused
was even called on for his defence.—(Cheers.)
—He had looked attentively and anxiously to the
progress and the consummation of the recent ar-
rangements, and his honest conviction was, that the
present Administration was not and could not be formed
upon the same basis as Lord Liverpool's. Lord
Liverpool was an honest r.nd zealous opponent of
the claims of the Catholics, whilst Mr. Canning was
as zealous, and he believed as honest, an advocate of
their claims. His Lordship had experience enough
to know that a person who had been a mere component
part of an Administration possessed much more power
when he was appointed to the situation of Prime Mini-
ster.—(Cheers.)—This observation was intended as
an answer to those who thought that Mr. Canning's
eleVation would still allow matters to remain as they
were. His Lordship denied most solemnly before
his God that he had acted in concert with any
man, and that he had not even seen their communi-
cations. There was no censure too harsh to be
applied to that man who should dare to dictate to
his Majesty the choice of his Ministers. But if a man
were asked his 'advice on such an occasion by his
Majesty, there would be no censure too harsh, if he
refused or hesitated to give his conscientious counsel,
and whilst he did so, he was actis is in accordance
with the truest principles of the Constitution. His
Lordship had ueen long, perhaps too long, in the
service of the public, and he hoped their Lordships
would give him credit for sincerity, and believe him,
when he assured them, that nothing—NO NOTHING—
couId ever prevent him, during the continuance of
his life, from upholding the Constitution of his
country, as established by the Revolution. By the
maintenance of that Constitution only could we hope
to preserve our civil liberty, and his experience,
strengthened by the opinions of great men, told him
that we should lay aside the benefits of that consti-
tution if we permitted the encroachments which
it was the object of some individuals to intro-
duce. This was his honest conviction—his whole life
had been devoted to the support of the Constitution,
and he would continue to oppoe such alterations as lie
felt must introduce Ecclesiastical tyranny, feeling as
he did that ecclesiastical must produce civil tyranny.
After some further remarks his Lordship said
that perhaps these, his sentiments, were erro-
neously conceived, he might err, but it was
only right that his own notion"' should influence
his own conduct. I have now done (said his Lord-
ship) and may I be allowed to express the most
sincere declaration of the obligation I am under to
you all for the patience and support which you have
invariably given me in the arduous discharge of my
duties. I beg again to assure you of my eternal
gratitude to you for bearing with my imperfections
during the long, long period I had the honour of
presiding in this House.—( Loud cheers.) His Lord-

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