ABSTRACT

When Lord George Bentinck first threw himself into the breach, he was influenced only by a feeling of indignation at the manner in which he thought the conservative party had been trifled with by the government and Lord Stanley. He is his personal friend and political leader, deserted by a majority of the cabinet. There was also another reason why Lord George Bentinck was unwilling to assume the post of leader of the conservative party, and this very much influenced him. Sprung from a great whig house, and inheriting all the principles and prejudices of that renowned political connection which had expelled the Stuarts, he had accepted in an unqualified sense the dogma of religious liberty. The application of the principle, however, in Lord George Bentinck's mind was among other things associated with the public recognition of the roman catholic hierarchy by the state, and a provision for its maintenance in Ireland in accordance with the plan of Mr. Pitt.