Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/227

1832.] Canning's Premiership to Passing of Reform Act. 213 a far less decisive tone than usual ; he was perhaps not quite certain that the " change " about which he had spoken was to be long deferred. The session closed on the 28th of July, but even before then an alteration had taken place in the character of the agitation in Ireland, which promised little peace for a Cabinet united against concessions to the Catholic claims. The Irish leaders determined to carry the contest into the polling-places of the counties, hitherto the stronghold of Conservatism. They began in a sufficiently striking manner. Mr. Fitzgerald, who sat for county Clare, was nominated to succeed Mr. Grant as President of the Board of Trade. He was in favour of the Catholic claims, and expected to be returned without opposition. It was decided, however, to begin the new move- ment at once, and to make it only the more remarkable by first attacking a half friend. O'Connell himself was nomi- nated, and was elected by 2057 to 983 votes. The victory was overwhelming, and it encouraged the Catholics to declare that every county seat in Ireland should be won, and it proved their possession of power to carry out the threat. At the same time, the Act for its suppression having expired, the Catholic Association was openly and ostentatiously re- organized, and assumed what was practically the government of the country. There was something for the duke and his united Cabinet to ponder over before they again met in Parliament. They thought over their difficulty to some purpose, and with a result that was to astonish the whole country. The duke had begun to make concessions, and now he saw nothing before him but violence, which would amount to civil war or the greatest of all capitulations. He and his Cabinet the men who had driven Canning to despair, if not to death determined to surrender. They were all doubly pledged to resist the Catholic claims, and they decided to grant them. We can imagine that the struggle cost them anxiety and pain ; but they kept their trouble to themselves, whereby they were saved from many a useless reproach