In another portion of his policy Peel encountered much more trouble. Measures were proposed for the establishment of Queen’s Colleges at Belfast, Cork, and Galway, which should be open to all, without religious distinction, and for increasing the annual grant to the College of Maynooth from £9,000 to £30,000. Both measures, though ultimately successful, were calculated to exasperate some of the deepest feelings of that time; and Peel found considerable difficulty in carrying out his designs. The proposed Colleges for Belfast, Cork, and Galway, were described as the “Godless Colleges,” and the expression was the common taunt levelled at all who thought such institutions likely to effect good in the mitigation of religious animosities. The opposition to the increased Maynooth grant had much more of reason on its side. The College at Maynooth had been founded by Parliament in 1795 for the education of students designed for the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland. An Act for its government was passed in 1800; but its existence as a State-supported institution was always repugnant to the Protestant feeling of England. When, therefore, it was proposed to add £21,000 to the yearly grant, it was not unnaturally considered by large numbers of Englishmen that the time had come for making a decided protest. No doubt a vast amount of the narrowest and fiercest bigotry was mixed up with this opposition; yet, after sweeping aside all this froth and venom, the naked fact remains that Protestants were expected to pay an annual sum towards the education of Roman Catholic priests, who were not likely to show any affection either for Protestantism or for England. The whole principle of religious endowments is open to the gravest question, and, had the opponents of the Maynooth grant taken their stand on _that_ ground, they would have advanced their cause with all reasonable men, though probably their numerical following would have been less. But the enlistment of bigotry on the side of the objectors was not unnatural from their own point of view, though it drew down on them some scathing criticisms. Mr. Macaulay, soon afterwards known as the most brilliant historian of modern times, spoke of “the bray of Exeter Hall,” and lost his re-election for Edinburgh, two years later, in consequence of that sarcasm. After all the clamour of adverse opinions, Peel carried the increased grant; but for many years after, the late Mr. Spooner made an annual motion against the Maynooth College, and delivered himself of a rambling speech, to which few listened. Most persons found the subject a nuisance; and when the Irish Church was disestablished and disendowed in 1869, it was agreed that the annual Parliamentary grant to Maynooth should cease at the commencement of 1871, though compensation was made, as a matter of obvious fairness.