p the
sword of defiance into its scabbard. The government boasted that they
had suppressed the Association. But such a boast, as it has been justly
observed, was as if a man should boast of his victory over a highwayman
to whom he exclaims, when the pistol is at his breast, "Down with your
pistol, Sir, and you shall have my purse and my watch:" the robber would
have the best of it, and so had the Association.

REJECTION OF MR. PEEL AT OXFORD.

The University of Oxford had elected Mr. Peel as a champion to the
Protestant cause; and when his mind underwent the change it manifested
on the subject of Catholic emancipation, he could not in common decency
or honesty retain his seat as member for that University. Under these
circumstances he addressed a letter to the vice-chancellor, announcing
his new views of policy by which he was to be guided, acknowledging that
his resistance to the Catholic claims had been one main ground of his
election by the University, and tendering his resignation. Mr. Peel,
however, was proposed as a candidate at the new election, trusting that
he might skill sit as the representative for Oxford in parliament. But
in this he was disappointed. He had for an opponent Sir Robert Harry
Inglis; and though the united influence of the Whigs was pushed to its
utmost limit in behalf of the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Inglis, who was
supported by the dignitaries of the church, and by the parochial clergy,
was elected. Mr. Peel was subsequently returned for the borough of
Westbury; and in this character he brought forward those measures which
for twenty years he had repudiated as dangerous and ruinous to the
best interests of the country, and which even now he was convinced were
pregnant with danger to the constitution.

THE TRIUMPH OF CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION.

On the 5th of March Mr. Peel moved "that the house resolve itself into
a committee of the whole house to consider of the laws imposing civil
disabilities on his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects." He commenced by
stating, that, he rose as a minister of the king to vindicate the advice
which an united cabinet had given to his majesty to recommend to the
consideration of parliament the condition of the Catholics, and to
submit to the house measures for carrying such recommendation into
effect. He was aware, he said, that the subject was surrounded with
difficulties; which difficulties were increased by the relation in which
he himself stood