The name is absent

Byron’s Social Doctrine         25

Again he was pleading a cause which was temporarily
doomed to failure, for, at five A.M. on April 22, the House
divided, and the majority voted against the motion.¹² Here,
then, as in the first speech, Byron showed an Imderstanding
and sympathy for the oppressed, which was far ahead of that
of most of his contemporaries.

He was to lash out against the treatment of the CathoUcs
in Ireland again in The Irish Avatar, which appeared in 1821.
In it he alludes to his second Parhamentaiy speech:

My voice, though humble, was raised for thy right,
My vote, as a freeman’s, still voted thee free.¹³

Byron’s third and final speech in the House of Lords was
a short presentation of a petition signed by John Cartwright,
complaining of having been seized, along with six other per-
sons, by a military force, kept in close custody for several
hours, carried before a magistrate, and finally released after
an examination of his papers proved that there was “not
only no just, but not even statutable charge against him.”
Moreover, the petitioner had never received a copy of the
warrant against him, even though it had been promised.
Byron presented this petition, he said, not particularly on
behalf of this individual petitioner, but because the grievance
of which he complained had been and still was felt by num-
bers of people. Again he failed in his attempt to soften the
hearts of his colleagues, and his petition was not received,
because, among other unpardonable wrongs, it “contained no
prayer.”¹¹

It is not only significant that Byron opposed the majority
of the members of the House of Lords by speaking in behalf
of oppressed people, it is also worthy of note that the two
really important issues on which he spoke were later given
the consideration they deserved, for the policy of tolerance
which he advocated was adopted by the House.

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