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.

It is not very easy to determine what influence the “Emancipation,” as it was rather absurdly called,[135] if it had been granted at that time, might have had in quieting the prevailing discontent.  With one large party it would probably have increased it, for there was quite as great an inclination to insurrection in Ulster as in Leinster or Munster; and with the Northern Presbyterians animosity to Popery was at least as powerful a feeling as sympathy with the French Republicans.  A subsequent chapter, however, will afford a more fitting opportunity for discussing the arguments in favor of or against Emancipation.  What seems certain is, that a large party among the Roman Catholics of the lower class valued Emancipation itself principally as a measure to another end—­a separation from England.  Pitt, meanwhile, hopeless of reconciling the leaders of the different parties—­the impulsive enthusiasm of Grattan with the sober, practical wisdom of Fitzgibbon—­pursued his own policy of conciliation united with vigor; and one of the measures which he now carried subsists, unaltered in its principle, to the present day.

There was no part of the penal laws of which the folly and iniquity were more intolerable than the restrictions which they imposed on education.  To a certain extent, they defeated themselves.  The clause which subjected to severe penalties a Roman Catholic parent who sent his child abroad to enjoy the benefits of an education which he was not allowed to receive at home, was manifestly almost incapable of enforcement, and the youths designed for orders in the Romish Church had been invariably sent to foreign colleges—­some