fe

w;;

«fe:2i.

By62 11833d

'iit'lLji.-rt*#«-»*-rti',. .

./

VALE U:.i\'.dRsnT
LIBRARY

WHAT MUST THE PEERS DO?

UemavM

ON THE

PRESENT CRISIS.

BY

THE HON. ARTHUR TREVOR, M.A. F. A. S.
OF CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD.

LONDON :
C. AND J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH YARD, AND
WATERLOO PLACE;
AND ROAKE AND VARTY, 31, STRAND.

PRINTED BY R. CHANDLER, BUCKINGHAM,
MDCCCXXXIIL

WHAT MUST THE PEERS DO? OR REMARKS
ON THE PRESENT CRISIS.

That in almost every stage of private life some
period of difficulty has occurred calling for raore
than ordinary energy and exertions, few will pre
tend to dispute ; and that the annals of public
events afford instances when that course, which
under ordinary circumstances would be as unjus
tifiable as imprudent, can alone, with any chance
of honor or security be resorted to, is equally
obvious. That a crisis is probably near at hand when
such a course will be necessary for the safety and
honour of the empire at large, it will be the hum
ble endeavour of the following pages to shew.
The question in the political world seems no
longer to be simply whether this or that party
shall rule in the councils of the state, — whether
the Whig or the Tory, the doctrines of a Canning,
A 2

a Peel, or a Huskisson, shall carry along with
them the popular voice; — but whether every
thing we have hitherto as Englishmen been
accustomed to value, — everything as Christians
we have been taught to revere, — and everything
which as a Great Nation we have admired and
appreciated, is to be handed down to succeeding
generations ; or upon the speedy destruction of
the whole, the Star of Daniel O'ConneU in Ireland,
and the smaller, yet equally mischievous, constel
lations of Joseph Hume and William Cobbett
in England, shall reign in the ascendant.
A very few years have elapsed since an asser
tion of this kind would have been considered
a chimera, the eutopian effusion of a wild and
speculative mind, or the result of futile alarm;
and even then, when some few to whom length
ened experience might have given no ordinary
claim of attention, did venture to predict what one
concession after another was too surely bringing
to pass, their warning voices were silenced, their
objections overruled, by, alas! that most mistaken,
that weakest of all creeds, — that the Main
Fabric was too strong, too deep rooted in general
affection and interest, to be injured by the partial
lopping of some of its contingent branches.

The fallacy of such arguments it has needed
no great length of time to discover ; and those
who upheld such opinions have too much cause
to deplore their error, when they find that so
much of the main building depended on the secu
rity and preservation of its outworks. To the over
throw of those outworks they have been the well
meaning but imprudent contributors ; and now
at the eleventh hour, when they behold the
last strong hold surrounded and besieged, what
can they, what will they put forward in its
defence? Can they any longer deceive them
selves with the hope that this or that further
concession will prove the panacsea of the many
evils which on all sides surround us, or stem the
tide of revolution? Can they be blind to what
must be obvious to the most ordinary under
standing, to the most lukewarm and thoughtless,
that the very bulwark of King, Lords, and
Commons, is not merely assailed, but tottering ?
Can they for one instant suppose that those who
have brought matters to their present state, who
have not simply demeaned themselves to invoke
the aid of, but have received and acknowledged
addresses from illegal associations; can they
imagine that such persons can now check and

restrain the very hydra themselves have conjured
up ? Will the lawless mob, will the self-formed
Political Unions, taught by the government to
believe themselves all-powerful, be guided and
ruled by those who owe to them, and them alone, in
short to public agitation and ferment, their pro
tracted existence? Reason, common sense,
every knowledge of the character of man, past
experience, every record of history, at once
point out the erroneousness (not to say absurdity)
of such an idea.
A reckless ministry has brought this once
happy country to the very brink of destruction :
our Church Establishraent is invaded : those
rights it justly enjoys, and which are as inalienable
as any species of property specially devoted to
particular objects, are about to become a prey to
the overwhelming spirit of the day ; to that spirit
which bids mob violence, ignorance, and visionary
theory aided by timid expediency, set at nought
intelligence, property, honesty, and sound sense;
unless indeed one branch of the legislature will
stand in the breach, and thus stay ihe plague.
Will that branch do its duty undismayed by
the threat suspended over it ? a threat which, if
there be found a minister as ready to put it in

force, as he was to recommend its adoption to
his Sovereign, — if he really be so utterly regard
less of his station as an Englishman and a Peer,
so deaf to every dictate of honor, duty, and
patriotism; — the final blow, (there is no middle
term) the final hloiv is given to that fabric, which
has for centuries rendered England the glory and
the admiration of the civilized world, and which
is thus beautifully and aptly described by a cele
brated French writer.
" Aux Murs de Westminster 1' on voit paraitre ensemble
Trois Puissances etonnes du Noeud qui les rassemble ;
Les Deputes du Peuple, et les Grands et le Roi,
Divises d' interfet, reunis par la loi ;
Tous trois Membres Sacres de ce corps invincible
Dangereux k lui mfeme, a ses Voisins terrible."
It is unnecessary here to allude to the various
measures and events of the last few years, which
have more or less contributed to hasten the crisis
which is obviously fast approaching ; but it is
allowable to pause awhile at that more recent
epoch, when it raust be admitted one branch
of the legislature received a fearful blow, alike
with respect to its own power and privilege, as
well as regarded its position in public respect
and opinion. It cannot be denied that the with
drawal of such Peers as were conscientiously
opposed to the measure of parliamentary reforra,

at once established a most dangerous precedent ;
for though many might flatter themselves they
had thus prevented the obnoxious course of
adding indiscriminately to their nurabers, the
consequent evil was in fact nearly the same : it
was calculated to encourage a niinister of the crown
capable of recommending such a course to his
Sovereign, to imagine that a similar threat, that
" the sword of Damocles" thus suspended over their
heads, would insure a similar conduct on the part
of those opposed to the measures of the govern
ment. Whether the House of Lords is to be
swamped by an introduction of hireling members,
or whether under the apprehension of such a course
being adopted, a number of Peers are to retire
from their posts, and leave the field open to their
adversaries,^ — equally does one branch of the
legislature becorae in the truest sense of the
word, useless : or as in the days of the long
parliament, the mere tool of a House of Com
mons, to which the term representative is in
a general sense misapplied. The line pur
sued by the Peers, in 1832, was ill-judged and
unfortunate: they aided negatively in passing
into a law a measure, which their reason and
conscience prorapted them openly and in every

stage to oppose ; when it yet remained to be seen,
in case of their having stood firm, whether there
was indeed to be found a minister sufficiently
daring and reckless, — sufficiently lost to all sense
of what was due to his own order, his country,
and that Sovereign for whose acts he was respon
sible, as to put such an odious measure in force :
and for the honour Of England, we must hope
that it still remained a question, whether raany
gentlemen of birth, talent, and character, could
be found so lost to all sense of shame, as to
purchase their degradation, (for by no other name
can it be called) by becoming the mere tools and
puppets of the minister to whom they would be
indebted for their hireling rank.
We were vainly assured that the repeal of the
Test Act, the removal of the Roman Catholic
Disabilities, in other words, the adraission of the
Dissenters and the disciples of Dr. Doyle to
legislate for that Church of which their very
tenets teach and call upon thera to be determined
enemies,— would silence clamour, restrain party
spirit, and restore harmony and concord. Little
was the public mind then prepared to expect
that a measure so sweeping as the Reform Bill
would speedily follow; and can that be said to
A 6

10
have satiated the desire for innovation? its
first consequence is the attack made at the very
vitals of the Irish Church; " per fas aut nefas,"
say the organs of government, must that measure
be carried. Let it, or any thing bearing upon it,
once pass into a law, and what must be the neces
sary consequence to the Church of England?
Need the question be asked, — will any one
endowed with the ordinary powers of discrimina
tion imagine for a moraent that the hand of
spoliation will or can be stayed at the mere
threshold of its career ? Impossible ! Let the
Church of Ireland once be invaded and plun
dered, the fate of that in England can be no
longer matter of doubt or speculation. The same
spirit that could affect the one, must equally
strike a blow which will weaken and undermine
the other; and thus far the cause of destruction
haviog prospered, how long will the Spiritual Peers
be suffered to retain their places in the Upper
House ? and last, though not least, how long may
that branch of the legislature itself be suffered to
escape the fate that has already once in our
history befallen it ? Doubts or surmises on the
subject are out of the question : by yielding or
withdrawing from the scene of action, the eneray

11
will neither be appeased, or the evil hour mate
rially delayed ; every thing most dear and valued
will be surrendered without a struggle, and the
impartial historian dwell on the weakness and
pusillanimity of those who raight have acted a
nobler part: while, ou the other hand, by a
steady determination raanfuUy to do their duty,
and to stem the tide of revolution, the Peers of
England would rally round them all the sound
sense aud right feeling of the country, which, if
fairly called forth, is yet sufficient to cause con
fusion and disraay in the ranks of the eneray.
Every one devoted to our cherished institutions, —
every one anxious to preserve our liberties in
their truest and purest form, would crowd under
such a standard; existing generations would incur
a debt of gratitude never to be repaid, and
posterity would owe to their energy and decision
the blessings that would thus be handed down
to them.
That a successful opposition to the Irish
Church Bill has long since been apprehended in
the House of Peers is obvious ; and gladly would
the determined enemies of Church and State
raake of it a pretext to effect the overthrow of
what alone they have now cause to dread, by

12
dwelling on the necessity of one branch of the
legislature, acting more in unison with the other.
Can the affairs of the country go on, they will
exclaim, with the two houses at issue? Is a
ministry with the popular voice, with the sense of
the country in their favour, to be thus thwarted,
and their measures crossed and impeded by one
body in the state ? Is that body to set at nought
the general feeling and wish of the community?
There does exist in the Sovereign a raeans whereby
this crying evil may be open to remedy, let hira
use that prerogative with which the constitution
invests him, and thus effect that, without which
the very affairs of the country must come to a
stand still, a greater union of sentiment and action
between the two branches of the legislature.
Such is the specious and plausible language of
the admirers, partizans, or organs of the present
government. It may be as well first of all to
enquire, how far the sense ofthe country and the
popular voice is really in their favor ; and then a
few observations touching the matter of the royal
prerogative, may not be irrelevant or useless.
That His Majesty's present ministers really do
possess the confidence of even a fair portion of
the community, is matter (to say the very least)

13
of considerable doubt ; if reliance is to be placed
on what is daily passing within and without the
Houses of Parliament, a fair and impartial
observer would conclude, that beyond their
constituent selves, (and harmony and concord
are not supposed even there uniforraly to prevail,)
on no party could they essentially rely for sup
port: they appear to pursue a systera oi give and
take, to effect a species of exchange, in which the
firm of O'ConneU, Hume, and Co. obtain very
considerable advantage, and are thus induced to
lend out their dubious support on large security
and usurious interest: they lean in short to the
Conservatives one day, and to the Destructives
another: they are stigmatized by those very
Political Unions whom a year since they suffered
to brave the royal proclamations; whose mis
chievous principles, as regards order or the main
tenance of good governraent they cannot but
adrait, —but whom having once acknowledged
and approved, (for such replying to their letters
and addresses must be considered,) they are now
unable to restrain, much less to silence and put
down. By agitation and ferraent they may yet
a little longer retain the reins of power and place ;
by adopting the policy of the destructives, they

14
may command majorities in the present House of
Commons ; and even then the day must come,
when those very persons whose suffrages now
retain them in their places, will becorae their
raasters, and theraselves be overwhelmed by that
sarae torrent whose sluices they have thrown
open. So rauch then for their position with
respect to the House of Coraraons.
As the constitution still stands, there reraains
another place through which every measure must
pass, before it can receive the royal sanction,
and thus becorae law. In that place the means
of obtaining a majority appear not equally secure ;
and in order to meet the difficulty, in order in
short to make the Upper House the obsequious
tool of the Lower, we are told that a creation of
Peers is in contemplation ; which, whether they
are boldly brought in en masse, or introduced gra
dually, yet continually, in various sraall numbers,
as regards the ultiraate effect must be equally per
nicious and destructive. That the general popu
larity of ministers in the country is such as to
cause the opposition they experience in the House
of Lords to be considered factious or singular,
passing events seem amply to disprove.
And now to the more delicate and interesting
question of the royal prerogative.

15
That a full prerogative is constitutionally vested
in the King to bestow the peerage on whomso
ever he raay think worthy to enjoy that dignity,
is indisputable ; it is the first and highest honour
the Monarch can confer on a subject, the result
of personal friendship and esteera, or the reward
of national services, — open alike to all ranks and
orders of men, and to which merit and talent
may lay claim, however obscure the station or
origin of the individual; in short, it must be
looked upon as an act of grace, dispensed accor
ding to the pleasure of the Sovereign, and received
on the part of the subject as the highest mark of
royal favor, regard, and approbation.
But may it not be asked, was such a privilege
vested in the King, in order that any minister
might prostitute it to a political purpose? was
the highest dignity in the power of the Monarch
to bestow, ever intended to be the medium of
upholding this or that particular party in power
and place ? forbid it every principle of reason and
justice,— forbid it every sentiment connected with
the dignity of the Monarch, and the honour of his
crown ! There doubtless may be circumstances
calculated, not alone to justify, but to call for an
unlimited extension or use of the royal preroga-

16
tive, whenever the safety of the crown may be in
question, or those institutions, that religion, and
those laws the Sovereign is bound by his corona
tion oath to maintain inviolate, are endangered;
but here, the case would be far otherwise, and
the first privilege possessed by our King degraded
and prostituted to party and personal objects.
For the public acts of the Sovereign, the minis
ter is responsible to the legislature and to the
country; and if, presuming on the confidence of
his raaster, he can venture to recomraend the
adoption of such a course, if indeed " per fas aut
" nefas," he is resolved to maintain his post, why
in that case the duty of those Peers who pro
fess to uphold the three estates of the realm is
obvious. A personal audience of the Monarch, their
rank and station authorize them to solicit ; and it
will then become their part humbly yet solemnly
to lay before their royal master their honest and
conscientious belief that so fearful a violation of
the very essence of the constitution, — so unjusti
fiable a perversion of the first and highest honour
the Monarch can bestow ; must bring degradation
and ruin upon every thing, calculated to uphold
the real privileges of parliaraent, and the glory of

17
the crown: so long as the sceptre of these realms
is wielded by a Son of George III. such an appeal
can never be made in vain. Such is the plain and
straightforward course, the Peers of England
may be imperiously called upon to adopt : it
may be uncoraraon, God forbid it should be
the reverse ! but is the case one of an ordinary
kind ? in the hands of the Peers the future des
tinies of England maybe placed, — upon their firm
ness and decision may depend wiiether she is to
rise or fall in the scale of nations, — to reraain the
object of admiration and envy, or to becorae that
of commiseration and contempt to the civilized
world. Will the partizans of the government defend
the measure by asserting that a precedent can be
established ? Be it so ; let them take all the
advantage they may of the twelve Peers created
during the reign of Queen Anne under the mem
orable administration of Harley and St. John,
and let them not orait to narae along with that
then justly considered degrading act, the equally
celebrated and biting sarcasm of the Earl of
Wharton, who enquired on their introduction,
"if they intended to vote by their foreman;"
the historian iu recording it observes, " The min-

18
" istry, in order to ascertain a majority in
" the house of lords, persuaded the Queen to
" take a measure which nothing but necessity could
"justify." Thus it is raanifest that the word neces
sity was intended to apply only to cases in
which the interests of the crown, the religion and
institutions of the country, were vitally at
stake ; it never for a moment could refer to
party, political, or personal objects; and the
indignation manifested at that period, clearly
demonstrated that the royal privilege was per
verted to an object to which it ought never to have
been applied,— dangerous in example, and uncon
stitutional in precept. Let those therefore, if any
there be, who would look to such a precedent,
for support, be reminded that it was the advice
of a ministry noted alike for incapacity and
iniquity, and which not a single historian can be
found to justify, of that ministry, whose weak
and temporizing conduct rendered futile the vic
torious career of Marlborough, scandalously
violated the faith of treaties with an old and
faithful ally, acted in despicable concert with a
natural and hereditary enemy, — in a word, tar
nished the dear bought glory of England in the
momorable fields of Blenheim, Ramilies, and

19
Malplaqu6t, by negotiating and sanctioning in the
cabinet the infamous treaty of Utrecht: such
advice, such nefarious policy, was well befitting
the misnamed statesmen who unfortunately swayed
the royal councils in 1711. But will a rainister
of the crown iu 18^3 venture in the face of a
British public to make his stand on such an
example? " Credat Judseus Apella, non ego."
Will an enlightened people, deceived by boasted
patriotisra and professed attachment to their
rights and privileges, sanction an act, in effect the
most selfish and despotic ? if they can be thus
deluded, if they cast not aside the flimsy veil,
well indeed may be uttered this brief but emphatic
remark —
" When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the
Post of honor is a private station."
But setting aside, if that be possible, the
iniquity and selfish injustice of such a raeasure, it
raay be allowable for a moraent to refer to the
alraost ludicrous extent of inconvenience it, in all
huraan probabUity, would occasion.
Suppose the present or any future Sovereign to
call to his councils a Minister of an opposite poli
tical bias ; he finds the two branches of the legis
lature opposed to his views ; in the one case an

20
appeal to the country may change the face of
things, but in the other he too must have recourse
to the raonstrous expedient of a large creation of
Peers, simply because the line pursued by his
predecessor compels him to have resort to it.
Need such a state of things require comraent?
Again, let it be fairly put to Lord Grey and his
colleagues, let them declare, if they conscientiously
can, their belief that the greatest minister of the
days ofthe house of Brunswick, a Chatham, or a
WiUiam Pitt would have ventured, even under
more justifiable circumstances, a resort to such
an expedient? would there not have been found
in the ranks in which his lordship sits, even per
haps in the present noble premier hiraself, one
who would have been foremost to denounce so
flagrant an act, so despotic a violation of the
constitution, so scandalous an invasion of the
freedom of debate? no longer can the latter exist
when the house of lords is rendered either the
tool ofthe minister, or the obsequious instruraent
of the other house of parliament; one or other it
thus U7iques tionably would become, and in either
case would as a component body in the state be
rendered alike useless and conteraptible.
If at the present moment the Peers are really

21
awake to their danger, really true to their order,
it can never be believed that the independent
spirit of the country will reraain unmoved. Will
the gentry of England tamely behold the over
throw of what must be the best safeguard of their
own interests and properties? surely not ! What
ever inroads, evil design, error, ignorance, or
public infatuation may have effected, there yet
exists in every true British mind those feelings
capable of beiug evinced in a raanner perhaps
the rainistry themselves little conceive.
Let it by way of caution be borne in mind that
what the enemy raay not dare to atterapt boldly
and at once, he may effect by a covert and gradual
course ; what he cannot face public opinion by
doing openly, and in extremes, he may lull their
suspicions and elude their vigilance by other and
less glaring means.
Whether an unliraited nuraber shall at once be
created, or a partial fetv frora time to time be intro
duced, the danger is equaUy great, the end in
view the same; equally are the Peers called upon
to be true to themselves;— equally wUl the course
already alluded to become their solemn their
paramount duty.
With regard to the Irish church bUl, it is

22

mainly immaterial whether this, or another bUl,
possibly more modified, may in the end be car
ried ; the principle is the sarae, it is in short an
iniquitous innovation, alike unjust and rapacious,
and if once suffered to pass the legislative assera
blies and obtain the royal sanction, where is the
man who can venture to consider even his private
property secure ? Modifications in a committee
in such a case amount, essentially speaking, to
nothing : unless rejected, " k principle," the mis
chief is effected, a breach is raade, and the very
citadel of all our boasted institutions shaken to
its very foundations. Pause there it neither can
nor will ; the church of England will speedily
share the same fate, the exclusion of the Bishops
from the house of lords will be the necessary con
sequence, and step by step will the course of
destruction proceed, till England may experience
the repetition of times which have more than once
darkened the pages of history.
Did the forced sanction given to the attainder
of Strafford in 1640, preserve the Monarch from
the hands of a regicide parUament in 1648? did
the resignation of their titles and privUeges by the
Peers of France, save the royal victim, or prevent
a reign of terror ? will their allowing the plunder

23
of the church, in 1833, secure the Peers of
England from the ultimate invasion, and perhaps
overthrow of their own privileges ? wUl the con
cession of this point to-day, secure them from a
demand for another to-morrow ? does concession
to the call of hatred and rapacity at once satiate
and silence, or embolden to further encroach
ment ? past experience will make the reply. The
question then comes simply to this, — Are the
boasted institutions of the country, are the three
estates of the realm just objects of veneration,
worthy of our best energies, our life's blood in
order to their safety and protection ? if the reply
is in the affirmative, but one course remains, yield
or withdraw, and the torrent of revolution will be
alike rapid and secure ; raise the standard of
loyalty, true patriotism, and sound sense, and
England's bright days have not passed away.
Upon the course then adopted by the Peers of
England at this awful crisis will raainly depend into
whose hands the present governraent will resign
the reins, very long it clearly cannot retain them;
upon them every eye is turned, upon their integ
rity, firmness, and good faith, the sound sense,
the right feeling of the country implicitly con
fides, — of that country roused from an intoxi-

24
eating dream, from an indulgence in eutopian
anticipations, to that honest, sober, comraon
sense, which in the hour of her greatest difficul
ties and dangers, has ever proved the safeguard
of her best and dearest rights. The Peers of
England it now behoves lo set a bright example
to the present generation, to posterity, and the
civilized world : to them alone must we now con
fide the safety and honour of the throne, and
the people, our religion, and laws.
" Yet, yet, I deemed, by that supporting hand,
Propp'd in her fall might Freedom's ruin stand ;
And purg'd by fire, and stronger from the storm ;
Degraded Justice rear her reverend form."

&. riiaodler, Frinter, BiioKingnair