tised him as ‘a decoy duck’ for the catholic voters. Six months later he was admitted to the inner bar, being one of the first catholics to obtain that coveted distinction.
His first wife died in 1822, and on 20 July 1830 he married Mrs. Anastasia Power, the daughter and coheiress of John Lalor, esq., of Crenagh, co. Tipperary. His wife's fortune rendered him independent of his profession, and he accepted an invitation to stand for county Louth at the general election of that year; but he was ignominiously beaten. Early, however, in the following year he was, through the influence of the Marquis of Anglesey, returned M.P. for the borough of Milborne Port in Dorset. He took his seat on 8 March, and on the 21st delivered his maiden speech on the second reading of the Reform Bill. It hardly realised the expectations of his friends. Thenceforth he sedulously sought to win the ear of the house. As a rule he continued to refrain from extempore speaking, and for this reason his speeches read well; but they are artificial in the last degree. The art of saying a simple thing in a natural way he never acquired. At the general election in 1831 he was returned for Milborne Port and county Louth, but elected to sit for the latter. During the session he advocated the application of a poor-law system to Ireland, and supported O'Connell's endeavours to procure the assimilation of the Irish Reform Bill to that of England.
Meanwhile in Ireland, under the unequal administration of the law, the demand for a repeal of the union gained ground daily. With much reluctance Sheil took the pledge to support repeal, and was accordingly returned unopposed for co. Tipperary to the first reformed parliament (January 1833). But, however lax his views seem to have been on the main question of repeal, his denunciation of the Suppression of Disturbances Bill on 28 Feb. 1833—that first-fruits of the reformed parliament of which so much had been expected—was couched in no uncertain language. Unfortunately, so far as he was concerned, the matter did not terminate with the passing of the bill. For a statement having some time afterwards appeared in the papers that, during the progress of the bill, a certain Irish member, who voted against every clause of it, had privately urged government not to bate one jot of it, as otherwise it would be impossible for any man to live in Ireland, the matter was brought directly before the house by O'Connell, and, in answer to repeated inquiries, Lord Althorp admitted that the statement referred to Sheil. Starting to his feet, he solemnly denied the accusation, and, a committee having been appointed to investigate the matter, he was a few days afterwards honourably acquitted of the charge.
The attack strengthened his hold on the sympathies of the house, and, quitting Irish topics, he delivered an admirable speech on the eastern question on 17 March 1834. His success stimulated his interest in subjects of foreign policy, and believing that O'Connell's crushing defeat on repeal, coupled with the prospect of a more impartial administration under Thomas Drummond [q. v.], had finally settled that question, he began to realise Grattan's prophecy of becoming more ‘a gentleman of the empire at large’ than the representative of an Irish constituency. He still, it is true, continued to vote and act with the national party on such subjects as tithes and the revenues of the church, and his speech on the Irish Municipal Corporations Bill on 23 Feb. 1836, in reply to Lord Stanley, was one of the most effective he delivered. But the prospect of holding office, to which his share in bringing about the so-called Lichfield House compact lent plausibility [see Russell, John, first Earl Russell], moderated his zeal as a critic of the government. On 13 March 1835 he opposed the appointment of Lord Londonderry as ambassador to the court of Russia; but in 1837, during the debates to which the reverses of the British legion in Spain gave rise, he strongly supported the ministerial policy. At the general election consequent on the death of William IV, he was again returned at the head of the poll for county Tipperary, and shortly afterwards accepted the commissionership of Greenwich Hospital. On the reconstruction of the ministry a year later he exchanged the commissionership for the vice-presidency of the board of trade. His speech supporting Lord John Russell's motion of confidence in the Irish government in April 1839 was, O'Connell declared, ‘admirable, argumentative, and brilliant.’ But he had drifted out of touch with his constituents, and at the general election in 1841, following the collapse of the Melbourne administration, he refused to risk the expense of a contested election, and sought a safer seat as M.P. for the borough of Dungarvan. During the ensuing session he spoke effectively in opposition to the Corn Bill and the income tax, and in 1843 he gained much credit with the dissenters by his scathing criticism of the sectarian spirit in which the bill for the regulation of factories was conceived, and with the radicals by the support he lent to Grote's ballot proposals. At the ‘monster trials’ in Dublin early in the follow-
