" Sydney Smith humorously described
"those Irish Protestants whose shutters are bullet-proof; whose
dinner-table is regularly spread out with knife, fork, and cocked
pistol; salt-cellar and powder-flask; who sleep in sheet-iron nightcaps;
who have fought so often and so nobly before their scullery-door, and
defended the parlor passage as bravely as Leonidas defended the pass of
Thermopylae." Crime was rife and to remedy the serious state of affairs
a stringent Coercion Bill was introduced by the government. Mr.
Gladstone voted silently for the bill which became a law.
The other bill introduced was that upon the Irish Church, and proposed
the reduction of the number of Protestant Episcopal Bishops in Ireland
and the curtailment of the income of the Church. This bill Mr. Gladstone
opposed in a speech, and he voted against it, but it was passed.
It was in the following session that Mr. Hume introduced his
"'Universities Admission Bill,' designed to enable Nonconformists of all
kinds to enter the universities, by removing the necessity of
subscribing to the thirty-nine articles at matriculation." In the debate
that followed Mr. Gladstone soon gave evidence that he knew more about
the subject than did the author of the bill.
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