Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English essays
opposition, and which is now in place, was attempting to force through
Parliament a law, which bore indeed a specious name, but of which the
effect would have been to disfranchise the Roman Catholic electors of
Ireland by tens of thousands. It was in vain that we argued, that we
protested, that we asked for the delay of a single session, for delay
till an inquiry could be made, for delay till a Committee should report.
We were told that the case was one of extreme urgency, that every hour
was precious, that the House must, without loss of time, be purged of
the minions of Popery. These arts succeeded. A change of administration
took place. The right honourable Baronet came into power. He has now
been near four years in power. He has had a Parliament which would,
beyond all doubt, have passed eagerly and gladly that Registration
Bill which he and his colleagues had pretended that they thought
indispensable to the welfare of the State. And where is that bill now?
Flung away; condemned by its own authors; pronounced by them to be so
oppressive, so inconsistent with all the principles of representative
government, that, though they had vehemently supported it when they
were on your left hand, they could not think of proposing it from the
Treasury Bench. And what substitute does the honourable Baronet give his
followers to console them for the loss of their favourite Registration
Bill? Even this bill for the endowment of Maynooth College. Was such a
feat of legerdemain ever seen? And can we wonder that the eager, honest,
hotheaded Protestants, who raised you to power in the confident hope
that you would curtail the privileges of the Roman Catholics, should
stare and grumble when you propose to give public money to the Roman
Catholics? Can we wonder that, from one end of the country to the other,
everything should be ferment and uproar, that petitions should, night
after night, whiten all our benches like a snowstorm? Can we wonder that
the people out of doors should be exasperated by seeing the very men
who, when we were in office, voted against the old grant to Maynooth,
now pushed and pulled into the House by your whippers-in to vote for
an increased grant? The natural consequences follow. All those fierce
spirits, whom you hallooed on to harass us, now turn round and begin to
worry you. The Orangeman raises his war-whoop: Exeter Hall sets up its
bray: Mr Macneile shudders to see more costly cheer than ever provided
for the priests of Baal at the table of the Queen; and the Protestant
operatives of Dublin call for impeachments in exceedingly bad English.
But what did you expect? Did you think, when, to serve your turn, you
called the Devil up, that it was as easy to lay him as to raise him?
Did you think, when you went on, session after session, thwarting and
reviling those whom you knew to be in the right, and flattering all the
worst passions of those whom you knew to be in the wrong, that the day
of reckoning would never come? It has come.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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