The election of Robert Stewart, however, though anti-Catholic, was not ministerial; for he promised on the hustings to support parliamentary reform, and on taking his seat in the House of Commons he placed himself on the opposition benches. This was a sort of sacrifice to popularity necessary from all statesmen at the beginning of their career, and the most powerful have not been exempt from paying this tribute to rhetoric. However, even at that time, young Stewart appeared to keep within certain limits of order and principles; and, avoiding declamation, he spoke seriously, and restrained himself while speaking. He was not an orator with a sonorous, reverberating voice, who, by means of biting epigrams, drew peals of laughter from his auditors. His speeches bore the impress of the Toryism of his family, and all his inclinations were those of an eminently Conservative mind. England and Ireland were at this time agitated more especially by two questions; the first was parliamentary reform, and the other the free commerce of Ireland with the colonies. On the first of these points, the Castlereagh family, like the Wellesleys, considered it absurd to impose upon the Catholics a conscientious oath, which would exclude them from participating in the benefit of the elections; but, at the same time, was it not very unwise to prepare an indefinite reform, which would overturn the whole of the social condition of Great Britain? It was with a view to the admission of the Catholics into parliament that the Irish Tories became friends with the opposition; they shewed themselves favourably inclined to the emancipation of those who differed with them in belief, and at the same time opposed to radical reform: and this last subject was the cause of Castlereagh's withdrawal from the Irish agitators, who now began to aim murderous blows at the Union. Robert Stewart, also, considered that Ireland could not with justice be deprived of an extensive commerce with the colonies. What was the use of a system which made all the advantages fall to the share of England and Scotland, without allowing the essentially agricultural population of Ireland, to participate in them? Young Stewart defended the interests of Ireland with energy and great ability, and he immediately attracted the attention of those in power, more especially the Marquis of Buckingham and Lord Westmoreland.