Next to the
restrictions on trade, nothing had made such an impression on his mind
as the iniquity of the penal laws; and those he proceeded to repeal,
encouraging the introduction of bills to throw open the profession of
the law to Roman Catholics, to allow them seats on the magistrates'
bench and commissions in the army, and to grant them the electoral
franchise, a concession which he himself would willingly have extended
by admitting them to Parliament itself. But these relaxations of the old
Penal Code, important as they were, only conciliated the higher classes
of the Roman Catholics. Most of the Roman Catholic prelates, and most of
the Roman Catholic lay nobles, proclaimed their satisfaction at what had
been done, and their good-will toward the minister who had done it; but
the professional agitators were exasperated rather than conciliated at
finding so much of the ground on which they had rested cut from beneath
their feet. So desirous was Pitt to carry conciliation to the greatest
length that could be consistent with safety, that he held more than one
conference with Grattan himself; but he found that great orator not very
manageable, partly, as it may seem from some of Mr. Windham's letters,
through jealousy of Fitzgibbon, who was now the Irish Chancellor,[134]
and still more from a desire to propitiate the Roman Catholics, for whom
he demanded complete and immediate Emancipation; while Pitt, who was,
probably, already resolved on accomplishing a legislative Union,
thought, as far as we can judge, that Emancipation should follow, not
precede, the Union, lest, if it should precede it, it might prove rather
a stumbling-block in the way than a stepping-stone to the still more
important measure.
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