past. A crisis had arrived which made it absolutely necessary
for the Government to take one side or the other. A simple issue
was proposed to the right honourable Baronet, concession or civil
war; to disgust his party, or to ruin his country. He chose the
good part. He performed a duty, deeply painful, in some sense
humiliating, yet in truth highly honourable to him. He came down
to this House and proposed the emancipation of the Roman
Catholics. Among his adherents were some who, like himself, had
opposed the Roman Catholic claims merely on the ground of
political expediency; and these persons readily consented to
support his new policy. But not so the great body of his
followers. Their zeal for Protestant ascendency was a ruling
passion, a passion, too, which they thought it a virtue to
indulge. They had exerted themselves to raise to power the man
whom they regarded as the ablest and most trusty champion of that
ascendency; and he had not only abandoned the good cause, but had
become its adversary. Who can forget in what a roar of obloquy
their anger burst forth? Never before was such a flood of
calumny and invective poured on a single head. All history, all
fiction were ransacked by the old friends of the right honourable
Baronet, for nicknames and allusions. One right honourable
gentleman, who I am sorry not to see in his place opposite, found
English prose too weak to express his indignation, and pursued
his perfidious chief with reproaches borrowed from the ravings of
the deserted Dido. Another Tory explored Holy Writ for
parallels, and could find no parallel but Judas Iscariot. The
great university which had been proud to confer on the right
honourable Baronet the highest marks of favour, was foremost in
affixing the brand of infamy. From Cornwall, from
Northumberland, clergymen came up by hundreds to Oxford, in order