We knew very well that if we put ourselves at the head of the Protestant cry of “No Popery,” we should be much more popular even than those who have excited that very cry against us.  But we felt that, in so doing, we should have left on the interests of the country a burden, which must end in bearing them down; and further, that we should deserve the hate and execration of our countrymen.  The noble Earl on the cross bench (Winchelsea) has adverted particularly to me, and has mentioned in terms of civility the services which he says I have rendered to the country; but I must tell the noble Earl that be those services what they may, I rendered them through good repute, and through bad repute, and that I was never prevented from rendering them by any cry which was excited against me at the moment.  Then, I am accused by a noble and learned friend of mine, (the Earl of Eldon) of having acted with great secresy respecting this measure.  Now I beg to tell my noble and learned friend—­and I am sorry that, in the course of these discussions, anything has passed which has been unpleasant to my noble and learned friend,—­I beg to tell him, I say, that, he has done that to me in the course of this discussion which he complains of others having done to him;—­in other words, he has, in the words of a right honourable friend of his and mine, thrown a large paving stone, instead of throwing a small pebble stone.  I say, that if my noble and learned friend accuses me of acting with secresy on this question, he does not deal with me altogether fairly.  He knows, as well as I do, how the Cabinet was constructed on this question; and I ask him, had I any right to say a single word to any man whatsoever on this measure, until the person most interested in the kingdom upon it had given his consent to my speaking out?  I say, that before my noble and learned friend accused me of secresy, and improper secresy too, he ought to have known the precise day upon which I received the permission of the highest personage in this country; and he ought not to have accused me of improper conduct, until he knew the day on which I had leave to open my mouth upon this measure.  There is another point also upon which the noble Earl accused me of misconduct, and that is that I did not at once dissolve the parliament.  Now, I must say, that I think noble Lords are mistaken in the notion of the benefits which they think they would derive from a dissolution of parliament at this crisis.  I believe that many of them are not aware of the consequences and of the inconveniences of a dissolution of parliament at any time.  But when I knew, as I did know, and as I do know, the state of the elective franchise in Ireland in the course of last summer,—­when I knew the consequences which a dissolution would produce on the return to the house of commons, to say nothing of the risk which must have occurred at each election,—­of collisions that might have led to something little short of civil war,—­I say, that knowing all these things, I should have been wanting in duty to my Sovereign, and to my country, if I had advised his Majesty to dissolve his parliament.