The Sun.
London, England, 1829-03-14 00:00:00

On principle of compromise like that, I never could assent
to the measure for the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling
freeholders. But from what I know and have heard of
the infinite abuses which have sprung from the system, and
the false relation which it created between landlord and
tenant) I am ready to say that an alteration in that system
is imperiously required. Ever since J 825 I have been
prepared to enter on this question, but, at the same time
I never thought of a measure which would go the length
of disfranchising those who were legally in the actual pos-
session of the elective franchise. This is a point with
which we ought to deal with great circumspection. As
to the influence of the priests, 1 have every reason to be-
lieve that that influence will not continue after the measure
of Emancipation shall have passed into a law. But it will
he equally pernicious if the peasantry should escape from
the influence of the priests only to return under that of
the landlords, thus creating a vicious species of votes and a
vicious kind of influence, to which it is most desirable to
put an end by every proper and legitimate means. On the
whole, such are the importance and beneficial tendency of
the measure of Emancipation, that I hardly know what
racrifice I would not make for the purpose of having it
brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and I look forward to
the passing of the measure, not only without apprehension,
but with the highest possible gr ,tification, confident that
the result will be to lay the foundation of peace where
there was strire—of strength where there was weakness,
and of tolerance, harmony, and concord, where before there
was intolerance, suspicion, and bigotry. (Hear, hear.)
I have now the honour to present to your Lordships the
general petition of those numerous and very respectable
Protestants of Ireland by whom it was signed, praying
that the very sound and substantial reason; therein stated,
the civil disabilities under which the Catholics suffered,
may be without delay removed.—The petition was read
and laid on the table.

His LORDSHIP then presented a petition from the
University of Glasgow, and a considerable portion of the
inhabitants of that place, in favour of concession to the
Catholics. The petition, he stated, comprised a great
portion of the of intelligent inhabitants of Glasgow.
His LORDSHIP next presented a petition to the same
effect from the Recorder and Members of a Court of Jus-
tice at Ipswich. Also a petition to the same effect from
the Unitarian Congregation of Salford, in Lancashire.
Alpo a petition to the same effect from Tadcaster, in the
county of York. Two petitions to the same effect, from
the King's County, in Ireland. A petition from the city
of Cork, in Ireland.

The Bishop of DURHAM presentel a petition from his
Diocese against concession to the Catholics.
The Duke of SUSSEX had to present a petition tl

their Lordships from the inhabitant; of London, West-
minster, and the vicinity, in favour of concession to the
Catholics, and of the removal of their disabilities. The
petition was signed by between seven and eight thousand
persons, all of the most intelligent and respectable descrip-
tion ; and his Royal Highness said he would not he mis-
spending the time of their Lordships, if he said a few
wards as to the manner in which it had been got up,
and the manner in which, and the description of per-
sons by whom, it had been signed. These persons had
at one time thought it would be the most proper course
not to petition at all, but to leave the question to
the Legislature; but in consequence of another peti-
tion which they saw was in progress of signature
against concessions to the Catholics, they determined
to petition in favour of concession. The petition was
laid in a room, and notice given of its being there,
and of its nature and object, but nobody was invited to
sign it. When any one came to sign it, a person in the
room informed him of the nature and object of the petition
before he signed ; and when it appeared that any person
had signed the petition by mistake, the name of that per-
son was expunged from the list. But notwithstanding
this very cautious and proper mode of proceeding, an at-
tempt was made to prevetit its being signed, and placards
were placed before the door dissuading all persons from
having anything to do with it. But the petition was, not-
withstanding, signed by 168 lawyers, 149 medical gen-
tlemen, 68 members of the Stick Exchange, a great
number of bankers and others of high station in society,
and upwards of 5,000 respectable tradestnen. He ought
also to state, that it was signed by 17 Quakers, and would
no doubt have been signed by many more of the Society of
Friends, were it not that the strictest Quakers did not
think that they could conscientiously siga a petition to the
Lords Spiritual. The whole number who signed was
7,175 persons, and a petition, signed by a more respect-
able and intelligent body of men was never before laid on
their Lordships' table.
The Earl of ELDON said, that he was glad to find that
there were 17 Quakers who admitted that there were
Lords Spiritual in that House.
The petition was presented and laid on the table.
Earl DARNLEY had a petition, very numerously and
respectably signed, from Rochester, in favour of concession
to the Catholics, and he hoped their Lordships would per-
mit him to make two or three observations respecting it.
The petition was brought to him that day, and he had
every reason to believe that it was signed by a considerable
majority of the educated inhabitants of Rochester. Some
of them had been long adverse to any concession to the
Catholics ; but now advocated the cause of Catholic
Emancipation, from a conviction of its necessity. Ile
had on a former occasion stated, that attention was due to
the petitions of the humblest classes of the community,
and especially when the object of the petitions was to re-
move a grievance under which the petitioners laboured. In
such a case the petition of the meanest individual was en-
titled to as much attention as if it had come from one of

their Lordships. But the petitions presented against con-
cessions to the Catholics were not of that description. The
object was very diffinent. It was not to remove a griev-
ance under which they laboured, but to prevent those
blessings from being extended to others which they them-
selves enjoyed. This was the manner in which these peti-
tions were got up; be thought it his duty to call the at-
tention of their Lordships to these circumstance.
The Duke of RICHMOND said the Noble Earl ap-
peared to be angry at what he had said the other night,
when he called on him to name the person who had in-
formed him that certain labourers had been compelled to
sign a petition against concession to the Catholics, by a
threat of dismissal from their masters. He still said that

the Noble Earl ought to name his informer, that if the
information was correct, the offending parties might be
brought to the bar of the House for a breach of privilege.
A petition, as the Noble Earl well knew, against conces-
sion to the Catholics, had been agreed to by the people of
Kent, at Penenden Heath, and the meeting on that occa-
sion had all the advantage of his Lordship's eloquence, and
that of many of his friends. It had also the advantage of
a lawyer's eloquence, and he preferred a lawyer's eloquence
to Isis opinion, when the lawyer got no fee. Yet after all
these advantages, the people of Kent had agreed to the
petition against concesion. As for himself, he would
never be led to support or oppose any measure by clamour
out of doors. But his prejudices on this subject, if pre -
judices they were, had been confirmed by the speeches of
Noble Lords and Gentlemen on the other side; for he
was convinced by these speeches that this measure of con-
cession would not satisfy the Catholics, while it would
materially injure one of the main barriers of the Con-
stitution.

Earl DARNLEY was not in the least angry with the
Noble Duke, although he did not think proper to adopt
the course which he suggested. As to the Meeting on
Penenden Heath, his opinion was, that there were few
events which had tended more to shew the propriety of
concession and conciliation than that meeting.

The petition was then presented, and laid on the table.
The Earl of ELDON, on rising, pursuant to his notice,
to rnoie for an Account of the Roman Catholics in Eng-

land who, since 1813, had taken the benefit of the Act of
1791, relieving them from certain disabilities on their
swearing allegiance to the succession to the Throne under
the Act of Settlement, took the opportunity of stating that
it appeared to him to be very singular, that, at the present
day, when the people of England were approaching both
Houses of Parliament with the expression of their senti-
ments on the important subject which so strongly agitated
the public mind, in greater numbers than he had ever be-
fore known in the course of fifty years' experience, the
Noble Lords opposite (the Noble Earl spoke from the 3lini-
sterial side of the House) for the first time treated the great
mass of those petitions with indignity. It was with great
pain that he had heard a Noble Marquis express his sur-
prise that the people of England should—do whit? pre-
some to judge of the important question which at present
filled the mind of every thinking man in the country.
Presume ! What ! When Parliament were asked to de-
stroy an establishment which had existed fa. a hundred and
forty years ; an establishment which secured the rights,
the liberties, and the religion of the people of this country ;
an establishment framed by a Parliament which contained
sound lawyers, learned divines, and men eminent in every
respect, to an extent probably unequalled, certainly not sur-
passed, in the present day. At such a moment was the
anxiety of the people at large to petition that the blessings
which they enjoyed might not be endangered, to be termed
presumption ! On what had fallen from the Noble Viscount,
with respect to the dissolution of the Catholic Associa-
tion by an act of their own, he would say only this, that
he thought that dissolution would prove just as effectual as
the Bill that had recently passed through that House. The
motion which he was about to submit to their Lordships
had, however, no relation to either of the topics on which
he had touched. Adverting to the English Act of 1791,