ABSTRACT
Lord Grey himself laid before the Lords a petition from the more liberal elements in the University of Cambridge advocating the admission of Dissenters to the colleges and to the degrees. Indeed, Grey virtually committed the reconstituted Government to a contrary course in acknowledging a widely signed entreaty to stay at the head of the Ministry. After the Dissenting activities out of doors have thus been sketched the course of the troubled Parliamentary Session of 1834 becomes more explicable. On February 20th were introduced certain Government proposals for altered arrangements in regard to the Irish tithe which, after being cast and recast during an anxious Session, were doomed to extinction at the hands of the Lords. After Daniel O’Connell had been appeased by the private promises of the Irish Secretary the miscarriage in the Cabinet of the manoeuvre for a less stringent Coercion Bill led to Grey’s innocently introducing the original Bill.
