§ Lord Wharncliffebegged to draw the attention of the House to a subject which he conceived of great importance. His attention had been arrested by an account in one of the morning papers, quoted from the Freeman's Journal, of a requisition to the high sheriff of the county of Mayo, calling upon him to convene a meeting to address her Majesty on the resignation and recal of her present Ministers. The requisition was signed by the lord-lieutenant (the Marquess of Sligo.) The next signature was "John Archbishop of Tuam," and the third name was "Thomas Tuam." This did appear to him to be gross assumption on the part of the Roman Catholic archbishop, and he must say, it did appear to him, that the conduct of the Protestant bishop was most extraordinary. He should like to know, from the Government, whether they would allow a Roman Catholic archbishop to assume those titles, which, by law, they were under a penalty for using?
§ Viscount Melbournesaid, it was a matter for the Irish Government, if they thought fit, to take it under their consideration. But he could not help saying, that if the Protestant bishop concurred in the requisition, he did not think it would have been a wise thing in him to have withheld his signature on the ground that the other individual had assumed the title stated.
The Earl of Wicklowcould not hear what had fallen from the noble Viscount opposite, without expressing his total dissent from the whole of it. The mode in 1236 which the Irish Government was led and dictated to in that country was well known, and it was well known that the noble Viscount here, at the head of the Government, ought to exercise his authority over it. The new bishop was the son of the Lord Chancellor of that country—a person just appointed by the noble Lord himself; and a greater affliction could not have been imposed upon that country, proceeding from that mean subserviency to an individual to whom the noble Lord considered himself indebted, than the appointment of that individual.