Above : Picture Of Lord Mountjoy

The first Catholic Relief Bill of general importance was that introduced into the Commons by Luke Gardiner (afterwards Lord Mountjoy), 1778. The Catholics, since the foundation of the Catholic Committee in 1757, had begun to show more spirit. The Government appears to have realised that concession was necessary, and the introduction of Gardiner’s Bill was not seriously opposed. This Bill proposed the removal of several crying injustices under which the Catholics suffered in regard to the holding of land and to inheritance. It permitted a Catholic to take a lease of 999 years, released him from the necessity of ” gavelling,” or dividing his estate amongst his sons, and withdrew the advantages hitherto conceded to a wife or child who embraced the Reformed faith. The Irish Houses passed the measure by fair majorities, both in Lords and Commons (July, 1778). Less than two years after (March, 1780) the Irish Parliament, mainly in consequence of pressure brought by the Volunteers, abolished the Test, by which all officials were obliged to take the Sacrament according to the rites of the Established Church, thereby admitting the Protestant Dissenters freely to offices. The policy of the Relief Bill of 1778 appears to have been generally approved of in Ireland by both members of the Establishmed Church and Dissenters.

Above : Portrait Of Prime Minister Pitt

The year 1793 opened under conditions full of menace. The new French Republic, in the first flush of her democratic power, had declared (November 1792) that she would aid all enslaved peoples who desired to rid themselves of their tyrants. War had begun on the Continent; it was certain that soon other nations would be involved in it; England could scarcely hope to remain neutral. It behoved her, as well as the rest of the older governments, to set their own houses in order, and to endeavour to gain the good will of their subjects, lest worse should befall them. The British Ministers, finding the Irish Government and Parliament still blind to the necessities of the situation, absolutely insisted on concession, and when the Houses met (January, 1793), Westmoreland was reluctantly obliged to insert in the speech from the Throne with which Parliament formally opened, a clause in favour of the Catholic claims. In February the Catholic Relief Bill was introduced. It proposed to give to Catholics the Parliamentary and Municipal franchise, the right of sitting on grand juries and becoming magistrates, of holding commissions in the army and navy, and of obtaining University degrees. An amendment permitting them to sit in Parliament was defeated by a large majority, and also they were not to be eligible for the posts of Privy Councillors, Staff Generals, Sheriffs, Fellows of Universities or King’s Councillors. Their exclusion from these, and especially from Membership of Parliament, was a grave mistake. The franchise had been conferred on masses of often uneducated and uncultured voters who were, for the most part, owing to their dependence on their landlords, unable to use it freely, even when qualified to do so intelligently. At the same time the Catholic landowner, the Catholic barrister, the Catholic scholar found himself shut out, owing to his creed, from honours and emoluments freely accorded often to his intellectual inferiors.

Above : Pope Pius VII, Pope At That Time

The circumstances of Ireland were, however, peculiar, and the Irish Bishops soon made their position clear. In 1808, they issued an official declaration that they did not hold it expedient that there should be any change in the present mode of electing bishops, and, as the question of State-payment of the clergy had also been raised, they added that they desired that they and their priests should remain, as heretofore, dependent for their revenues on the voluntary offerings of their people.