Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/177

 i822.] Death of George III. to the Death of Castlereagh. 163 Although the new viceroy had no power to affect the legal position of the Catholics, yet his well-known sympathy with them, and the tendency to yielding which his appointment indicated, were strong inducements to continued agitation. There was a temptation, moreover, to make their action more and more violent, since, on the one hand, it might be sup- posed that a friendly lord-lieutenant would not suppress too rigidly any movement in favour of a policy with which he agreed ; and, on the other, the very appointment was a proof that the Government was divided and open to pressure. Thus were the Irish people acquiring that lesson, the most fatal which rulers can teach, the most dangerous which subjects can learn, that reforms and concessions which are refused to orderly agitation may be obtained by disorder and violence. The idea has taken root and fructified, with results which do not even yet seem to have reached the end, and those who are most responsible for its inculcation are undoubtedly the Tory ministers of this period, who opposed the dead weight of their influence in the House of Lords to the just requirements of the Irish people and the growing intelligence and mode- ration of the House of Commons, until, brought face to face with the threat of absolute revolution, they not only retired from further contest, but themselves made the capitulation at the cost of the disruption and disorganization of their party. Such was the state of parties, and such the position of great questions, at the close of the session of Parliament, which took place on the 6th of August ; but an event occurred immediately after, which entirely altered the aspect of affairs, and affected the policy not only of this country, but of the whole of Europe. After the prorogation, whilst the King was on a state visit to Scotland, Canning had gone to Liverpool to take farewell of his constituents before his depar- ture for India, when his proceedings were arrested, and the whole country astounded, by the announcement that the Marquis of Londonderry* had, on the I2th of August, com- 1821.
 * Lord Castlereagh had succeeded to this title on the death of his father in