bound to come to, but at the same time, reflecting that he had to the utmost of his power resisted all projects for the repeal of the union, and that he had, by the support he gave to this and former Bills for the maintenance of tithes, vindicated the right of property against those who wrongfully withheld them, he should, at whatever cost and sacrifice, do what he should consider his bounden duty; namely, do justice to Ireland.'

This speech was prompted by what I understood to be a declaration of Mr. Stanley, that he meant to persevere in the opinions he had given respecting the permanence of the Church of Ireland, and I thought that if that declaration were received in silence by his colleagues, the whole Government would be considered pledged to the maintenance of the revenues of the Church of Ireland, undiminished. I do not find in Hansard any such declaration, but it was strongly fixed in my mind at the time, and is so fixed in my memory at present. Perhaps Stanley's words were not so peremptory as I supposed, perhaps the words he uttered have been omitted in the Reports. Be that as it may, my speech made a great impression, the cheering was loud and general, and Mr. Stanley pronounced his sense of it in a well-known note to Sir James Graham. When the Cabinet next met, much dissatisfaction was expressed; some wished me to retract what I had said, but that I positively refused to do. Lord Althorp testified to the hearty cheering of the Liberal party. The question of the Irish Church was evidently advancing to a crisis. Redress was not immediately granted; justice was not done then; but a commencement had been made, and that which was not performed at the union by Mr. Pitt, and which the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel left undone in 1829, was yet to be accomplished. Mr. Ward did not give up his intention to bring forward a motion upon the Irish Church. He quoted the opinions of

Lord Brougham, and those which Lord Althorp had stated in 1824. He ended with the following motion:"That the Protestant Episcopal Establishment in Ireland exceeds the spiritual wants of the Protestant population: and that, it being the right of the State to regulate the distribution of Church property in such manner as Parliament may determine, it is the opinion of this House, that the temporal possessions of the Church of Ireland, as now established by law, ought to be reduced.' The debate was interrupted after the motion had been seconded by Mr. Grote, who said that when the advocates for the repeal of the union, put forward the evils arising from the Irish Church Establishment, no man replied to them. He continued:-When the magnanimity of England in her conduct to Scotland, as compared with her conduct to Ireland, with regard to their respective Churches, was urged, no man replied to them, and why? Because no reasonable answer could be given to such objections. The first step towards the reform of an abuse was to lay down a good principle, such a principle was laid down in this motion, and, as a first step, he earnestly hoped that the House would concur in it.' After this speech Lord Althorp rose, and spoke to the following effect: Since my hon. friend who rose to support this motion commenced his address, circumstances have come to my knowledge which induce me to move that the further debate upon this subject be adjourned to Monday next. I cannot now state what those circumstances are, but I hope the House has sufficient confidence in me (the noble lord was interrupted by loud and long-continued cheering, from all parts of the House)—I hope, I repeat, that the House will have sufficient confidence in me, to believe, that I would not make such a proposition unless I were convinced of its propriety. I now move that the further debate on this motion be adjourned to Monday next.'

On the Monday following, it was well known that four members of the Cabinet, and those among the most important, had resigned. The Cabinet, previously to their taking this step, had resolved on advising the Crown to appoint a commission to enquire into the revenues of the Church of Ireland, and the number of members belonging to that Church, compared with the whole population of Ireland. The consequence was, the resignation of the Earl of Ripon, Lord Privy Seal, Mr. Stanley, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Duke of Richmond, Postmaster General. The issuing of this commission was considered by these four members of the Cabinet, as a preliminary step towards the partial disendowment of the Established Church of Ireland. The motives of the seceders were thus explained by the Earl of Ripon, on June 6, in the House of Lords, in answer to a speech of Lord Grey :'As his noble friend (Lord Grey) had correctly stated, the proposition to appoint a commission arose out of peculiar circumstances, and was not taken up suddenly. The question was deeply considered, and certainly great objections were felt by himself, as well as by his colleagues, to the adoption of that measure. He had no particular desire to avail himself of the compliment that had been paid to himself and his colleagues, in adverting to their having been described as the "drags" of the Government of which they were members; but he might remark that possibly they had been useful ❝ drags." At all events he certainly did feel, with regard to the commission, that if he assented to it, the question as to the appropriation of the revenues of the Church to secular purposes was settled; and when he asked himself if he could assent to such a proposition, his answer was, no. He thought that the principle of enquiry into the state of the population of parishes, to ascertain the number of resident Protestants therein,

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as compared with the number of Catholics, if it meant anything, must mean something that had a direct tendency to effect an alteration of the principles on which the Church Establishment was based. His noble friend stated that he did not contemplate the possibility of any great change as the result of appointing the commission; but it was because he (the Earl of Ripon) believed, that the effect of the commission must be to alter the footing on which the Established Church stood, that he could not concur in that preliminary step.' Lord Ripon went on to argue, that if the revenue of the Church in a particular parish was to be regulated by the number of the Protestant population in that parish, then they destroyed the principle on which alone the Established Church existed.

Such was the commencement of the contest on the subject of the Established Church of Ireland. Had it been continued in every Session, from 1834 to the present time, a period of thirty-five years, it is probable that little progress would have been made, parties would have been marshalled against each other every year, and popular interest on the subject would have languished, and perhaps have perished. During the truce of this long period, discussion has taken place, information has been given, floods of light have been poured upon the subject, and public opinion has perceived the absurdity, the injustice, and the insult, of a monopoly kept up for the benefit of oneeighth of the population of Ireland, and repugnant to the sentiments of at least three-fourths of the people.'

In revising this page of my manuscript, I am struck by reading, in the Times, the remark of the shrewd and learned Bishop Philpotts, made many (more than twenty) years ago to Sir George Bowyer-The Irish Church must go. It is doomed, and nothing can save it, and if we don't keep clear of it we shall go too.' (Times, September 21, 1869.) A son of Bishop Philpotts has since contradicted Sir George Bowyer's assertion, but I can readily believe his story, and at the same time admit that the Bishop may have been, in his later years, a partisan of the Irish Church.

An event of far greater importance than the secession. of four members of the Cabinet, important as that was, occurred in the same session. The head of the Cabinet himself retired from office, and thenceforth took little part in public life, leaving, however, a brilliant example of unstained honour, of consistent public principle, and of a success in legislation achieved in strict conformity with the principles which, in conjunction with his great leader Mr. Fox, he had always strenuously maintained. It is well that those who embrace politics as the occupation of their lives, should have before them the example of two such men as Fox and Grey, who, having early in life distinguished themselves by their attachment to the cause of civil and religious liberty, of peace abroad and of reform at home, should have persevered in those sentiments in spite of the proscription of a court, and the mistaken passions of a people-should have vindicated in Parliament the suppression of the Slave Trade, the abolition of slavery in our colonies, and the cause of justice in Ireland, together with all those measures which flow from the adoption of sound principles, maintained during many years of political contention, and cherished to their last breath with unswerving rectitude. If the seventeenth century saw, in Sunderland and Shaftesbury, the example of selfishness and faction, the names of Fox and Grey should ever be used to incite men, who enter into public life, to keep their honour unstained, and to look to the welfare of their country as the object of all their exertions.

The immediate occasion of Lord Grey's retirement was in itself not very creditable to those who were the causes of it. Lord Wellesley, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, was led to suppose that he should facilitate the course of the Government on the Irish Coercion Bill, by departing partially from the sentiment he had expressed in a public