nce of Wales declined to remove the existing
Ministry from office, though even this decision was not taken without
some hesitation and some negotiations with the Whigs. The Catholics,
however, fully expected that the royal influence would now be exerted
in their favour, and that the Whig Ministry would speedily come. The
Prince of Wales had long been in close connection with the Whigs. As
early as 1797 he had expressed a desire to go over to Ireland as
Lord-Lieutenant, carrying with him a policy of conciliation to the
Catholics. In 1805, when Fox and Grenville had introduced the Catholic
question into the Imperial Parliament, the Prince, while stating that
considerations of obvious delicacy prevented him from taking an
immediate and open part in its favour, had given the Whig leaders the
fullest authority to assure the Catholics of Ireland that he would
never forsake their interests, the 'most distinct and authentic
pledge' of his wish to relieve them from the disabilities of which
they complained, and to exert himself in their favour as soon as he
was constitutionally able to do so. It is easy therefore to imagine
the consternation and the indignation with which, in 1812, the
Catholics found that the Prince Regent had changed his principles and
his policy; that, after a short and perhaps insincere negotiation with
the Whigs, he had resolved to maintain in power a Ministry which was
constructed for the main purpose of maintaining the Catholic
disabilities; and that his own opinions were rapidly verging towards
this policy.

The situation in Ireland was becoming very dangerous. For some years
after the Union a great apathy prevailed, and there is no reasonable
doubt that, if events in England had been favourable, Catholic
emancipation would have met with no serious opposition in Ireland, and
could have been carried with every reasonable limitation and
safeguard. The most competent English officials calculated that at
least sixty-four of the hundred Irish representatives would vote for
it, and that a decided preponderance of Irish Protestant opinion was
in its favour. On the other hand, the Catholic bishops and aristocracy
had fully accepted the policy of an endowment for the priests and a
veto on the appointment of bishops, and the most Conservative elements
in the Catholic body still exercised an ascendancy over their
co-religionists. The question of the veto had been mentioned in the
Commons, by Sir J. Hippisley, in 1