said, that, without pronouncing any opinion upon the particular services of these two noble lords, in their capacity as commissioners of the land tax, he still was of opinion, that, as they both received large pensions, and particularly as lord Glenbervie held the office of surveyor-general of woods and forests, the country had some claim to their services in the office alluded to, without being obliged to grant them such specific remuneration as was now sought by the proposed resolution of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

did not conceive, that merely because persons enjoyed pensions for their former public services, therefore the country had a right to their future labours for such a space of time as ten years, without being bound to render some remuneration for their trouble and responsibility. They had already sat and performed the arduous duties of commissioners, without having received hitherto any remuneration. As their labours were likely to be brought to a close in another year, the Committee would, he trusted, see the propriety of acceding to his proposition. It was an additional recommendation with him to bring forward the present proposition, understanding, that it was the intention of the last administration to have submitted a similar one to the consideration of that House. He begged to be understood as adverting to that point with no other view but this, that he felt more strongly the propriety of making a proposition, which was also supported by their authority.

admitted the very great political services of lord Auckland, but he could not recognize the claims of lord Glenbervie, to enjoy at the same time both pension and remuneration.

took a view of the first appointment of these noble lords, when the extent of the duty was not understood. It became very laborious, and he believed the country was much benefited by their able and arduous exertions. He contended that both the noble lords had a full claim from past services to their pensions, and therefore he could not accede to the objection, that having pensions for former services, they were not to be remunerated for future trouble.

had no notice whatever of such a proposition until it was actually moved in the committee. From what had passed, he did not regret the opposition he made to it; its principle was wholly unjustifiable, and likely to be perverted to very pernicious purposes. It went to establish new offices, to which emolument was attached, without the consent of that house, and in some cases, in a manner wholly evading direct and positive statutes. For instance, lord Glenbervie might be, as he believed he was, a member of that House in 1799—he was then appointed to a duty from which no emolument was known to accrue, but now after ten years a remuneration of 6,000l. was required for him, amounting to a salary of 600l. a year. If such a salary was in contemplation at the time of the appointment, the House would have more duly considered, before it voted such grants; at all events, that noble lord would have been obliged, on accepting the office, to have vacated his seat. By the present proposal of remuneration therefore for past services, new offices were created, and a positive statute evaded. With respect to the merits of the noble lords, however there was a marked distinction. Lord Auckland had discharged great public duties in a most exemplary manner, for which the country was highly grateful, whilst, though much was heard of great remunerations to Lord Glenbervie, very little was known of his public merits.—The House ought to pause before it acceded to these demands made every session of parliament, for increasing the salaries of civil officers, at the time that it felt itself wholly unable to add to the scanty subsistence of its meritorious military and naval officers. It should not heighten the grievances of the latter by favouring others, when it was unable to help them. He hoped therefore that the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have no objection to let the resolution stand over until the next committee of supply.

thought the resolution might then pass, and that the discussion could take place on the report, which might be deferred until Tuesday next.

After a desultory conversation it was at length agreed that the resolution itself should be postponed until the next Committee of Supply on Wednesday next.

, then moved, that a sum not exceeding 100,000l. be granted without deduction to the governors of Queen Anne's bounty, to be applied by them for the relief of the poorer clergy. In bringing forward this resolution he felt he had no apology to make, but for the period of the session at which he submitted it to the consideration of parliament. The delay arose altogether from a wish on his part to obtain all the information he could upon the subject, before he should submit any proposition to the House respecting it. He was now in possession of the report of the governors of Queen Anne's charity, respecting the disposition of the sum granted last year by parliament, and upon that he felt fully warranted in proposing a similar grant in the present session. The right hon. gent. then detailed to the committee, the steps taken by these gentlemen in the distribution of last year's grant, by affording relief in the first instance to the incumbents of livings under 50l. improved value, then under 60l. and so in succession. He was sure it would be the wish of the Committee that those who had the cure of souls, should have a competent provision. It was desirable before any final arrangement should be proposed, to have a number of accurate and authentic returns, as well with respect to the exact stipends, as to the state of residence, the population, the proportion of the population to the revenue, and the number of livings in each class, under 50l. 60l. 100l. and 150l. improved value. There was much difficulty in ascertaining exactly all these particulars, respecting each parish, but it appeared from some of the returns, which had been procured, that, in some parishes, particularly in the populous towns of Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Coventry, the population was out of all proportion to the revenue, not amounting to more than 8d. per head. But the most important of the objects, which he looked for from providing for the poorer clergy, was that it would promote the residence of the clergy, an object which he feared would not be accomplished by the act of last session, without the adoption of other accessary measures. The total number of benefices, in England, was 11,731, and out of these 4,112 had resident clergymen, and in the remainder being between six and seven thousand, or nearly two-thirds of the whole, the clergymen did not reside. Of those, however, who were returned non-resident, several were strictly resident either in their own or their friend's houses, thought not legally resident in parsonage houses; and many others who performed the duties were resident in adjoining parishes. Upon the whole, however, it was clear that non-residence prevailed in above a moiety of the whole number of benefices. This was a state of things which the Committee would agree with him, ought if possible to be corrected; but it would be matter for future consideration, whether the remedy should be sought in the enforcement of strict residence, or in the adoption of some new regulation, as to pluralities; and as to distance at which residence shall be legal. When the Committee considered the benefits that had resulted from the application of Queen Anne's bounty and of the grant of last session, he was persuaded, that it would cheerfully accede to his motion. On the question being put,

expressed strong doubts with respect to the propriety of this grant. The higher clergy, he said, had received all the advantage of the increased value of the first fruits and tenths, and he saw no reason why they should not be called on to contribute to the improvement of the inferior livings. The present session was too far advanced to enter into any extended enquiry or arrangement of this kind; but he would recommend it to ministers to arrange some plan during the recess, that might provide for the better payment of the poorer clergy, without imposing any additional burdens on the people. He thought such a measure would at present be obnoxious, as the taxes were already too much increased. The pay of the army and navy remained unincreased, and he had no doubt that it would be very unpalatable to the people to have additional burthens imposed on them on the ground of providing for the clergy, when it was considered that the higher orders of that body were so well paid, and in a situation so well able to afford an increase of livings to their inferiors.

thought the object a very proper one; but mentioned, that in the county in which he lived, some of the clergy had talked of collecting tythes in such a way, as to make them a fourth or fifth of the rents of the kingdom. He hardly thought a time when such doctrines were maintained a proper one to load the country with this burthen, when it might be borne by the church revenue.

was of opinion, that it would have been but handsome in the higher clergy themselves to have come forward in aid of their poorer brethren. If the first fruits and tenths had been in the hands of the crown at this time, they would have been amply sufficient for this purpose; and even if there were a legal difficulty as to the construction of the act of Anne, the higher clergy might perhaps have been expected to make a voluntary grant for the relief of the poorer class of their own body.

thought the act clear against any claim on the church property. And it would be injurious to disturb that law now, as even a great many of the lay impropriators had purchased upon the faith of it. He did not consider the House as pledged to continue this grant; but he thought it ought to be continued.

concurred in the object, but rather thought there might be a disposition of church property applicable to it. He complained of the little accomodation in churches in great towns for the poor, to which he ascribed in a great measure the alarming increase of meeting houses and sects.

was for a new valuation of benefices for the increase of the first fruits and tenths, or a tax, instead of this, should be imposed on the higher clergy. They all agreed that the inferior livings ought to be raised, the difference was only as to means. The want of churches called more loudly than any thing else for parliamentary interference. He did not think they really made use of the means they had. The cathedral of St. Paul's was almost unoccupied. The aisles might be converted into places of worship for the lower classes of the people, without defacing in any degree its elegance.

was glad that no objection had been made to the object itself. The public was very much indebted to the right hon. gent. for the proposition he had brought forward, when they considered the habits and poverty of the clergy and how useful a body of men they were. It was desirable they should be enabled to bring up their families respectably, with all due economy, no doubt, but so as to enable their sons to fill up their places in the church, to whom alone they could look for a valuable succession of inferior clergy. He lamented the want of churches and the want of attention to the accommodation of the poor. He was desirous that churches should be erected by the public; but if not, by individuals. He did not approve of the idea which had been thrown out that the rich and the poor should attend at different hours. One of the chief objects of public worship was to bring them all together. Even in those countries where it was reckoned pollution for one cast to mingle with another, they all met together at the temple. This grant would increase the comforts of the poor rather than detract from them. The spreading of Christianity was the way to encourage charity. Before Christianity the name was unknown; and here where Christianity prevailed in the purest shape, charity must be prevalent in a high degree.

contended in favour of a new valuation of benefices. The church gained by every improvement in the country, without any risk, and it was too hard that the people should be called on to give them so much more from the taxes. The church was already sufficiently endowed, and parliament, he contended, had no right to create a new fund out of taxation. The act of queen Anne, he contended, implied that the whole of the first fruits in their improved value, were to be applied to that fund.

entered his protest against this doctrine, and argued that no doubt could be entertained on the subject of the statute. He denied that conformably to that act a valuation could be made, or consistently with justice such a measure could be resorted to.

was surprised to hear the doctrine advanced by the hon. gent. He referred to the act of queen Anne, and the act of the 26th of Henry 8. By that of Henry 8, the first fruits and tenths, that had before that time gone to the pope, were appropriated by the crown. No increase had since taken place in the valuation, though times had very much altered. It was in the power of the crown at any time to renew the valuation, and this privilege, along with the fund itself, had been transferred by the act of queen Anne to improve the poorer livings of the clergy. If a new and fair valuation were now made, there would be no want of means to augment those livings without burdening the people. It was evident that the act of queen Anne did not mean to confer a benefit on the high, but the poorer clergy; but if no new valuations were to be admitted, the superior clergy, it was unquestionable, would alone reap the advantage.

supported the opinion of his hon. and learned friend (the Solicitor General) and contended that parliament had no power, after the act of queen Anne, to make any new valuation, as the amount by that act was fixed.

, with all due deference for so high an authority, had still great doubts on the point.

thought it a very serious subject, and contended that a proper distribution of the church revenue would have answered the purpose. He ascribed the increase of sectaries and meeting-houses to the negligent or improper conduct of some of the clergy in the great towns. Those in the country who performed the greatest part of the duty were the least adequately remunerated.

The Resolution was then put and carried.

, on account of the urgency and importance of the other business which the House expected to come on, would very shortly state the nature of the bill it was his wish to introduce. He did not complain of the existing laws not punishing sufficiently the crime of bribery and corruption in the election of members of parliament, but what he complained of was, that too much difficulty existed in proving them. The object of his bill would be therefore to remedy this evil, and to provide for the indemnification of witnesses, whom it might be necessary to examine; and also to do away that clause which secured petitioners in election cases from being interrogated.—He accordingly moved for leave to bring in a bill to amend the acts on the subject of bribery and corruption.

would not now enter into the discussion on the merits of the bill; but he took this early opportunity of protesting against its principle. It proceeded on no alleged case to warrant legislative interference; and nothing could be more mischievous than to legislate without due cause on so delicate a subject as the representation in parliament and the election of its members.—Leave was then given to bring in the bill.

rose and said, Sir; It is a heartless task, to address you on an exhausted subject; the arguments in favour of the petitioners have been so often urged, are so abundant and unanswerable, the objections so illiberal and unjust, that it becomes wearisome to repeat demonstration, and useless to notice that which has been so often refuted. But whatever may be the private conviction of gentlemen, as to the wisdom and necessity of this measure, the prayer of the petitioners having been again, and again, rejected; it is incumbent on those who are friends to Catholic emancipation, however painful to themselves, or embarrassing to you, once more to urge the cause of millions.

It was the opinion of a most enlightened statesman, that "no other christian country for so long time and without intermission, had been subject to such successive calamity, and insult, as Ireland," whose inhabitants, had been distracted and divided by a contrariety of interests frequently and artfully fomented, whose government had rarely been conducted on wise or honest principles, its favours even being so conferred as to preclude gratitude; favours but too often accompanied with contumely, and seldom yielded but in the moment of danger, and alarm—a country where there has been no violence of power, no artifice of fraud, omitted, to blast the character, and ruin the misfortunes of her people: a country with which gentlemen are as unacquainted as they are with Siberia, or the interior of Africa. Their scanty knowledge too is derived from the most polluted sources, from partial authors and hired libellers, for few persons have dared to write, or speak the truth. But you are sick to death of this subject; you are anxious to hear no more, being resolved not to afford relief, while I am conscious that vain is my appeal to your justice, or to your wisdom. Your hearts are hardened, your minds infatuated, as if it were decreed that you were to expiate the crimes of your ancestors, by the ruin of the Empire. The popery laws were in their commencement, unnecessary and unjust, in their progress, severe and merciless—in their duration, and to this hour, oppressive, insulting, impolitic. They were made in violation, of solemn compact of the great charter of the civil and religious liberties of the Catholics (the treaty of Limerick,) at different periods of profound peace; by an insolent faction, over a plundered, unoffending people. The reasons assigned for enacting this unparalleled code, "the fruitful source of still increasing mischief," were, principally, the temporal powers of the pope, the attachment of the Catholics to him, and to the Stuarts, and the state of Europe, which at different periods excited the jealousy, and alarmed the government of this country. On these pretences, the Catholics were subjected to several new pains and penalties, inflicted at one moment for alledged offences, which they had not committed; at another, from an affected dread of possible misconduct, frequently from the visitings of a guilty conscience, haunted by the fears of merited retaliation, and often in consequence of the struggles, and to promote the views of political factions contending for the ministry. Read these statutes. Look to the periods when they were passed. Ireland perfectly quiet—the Catholic powerless and prostrate! Yet at every relaxation of this disinheriting, disqualifying, barbarous, and barbarizing code, however at first insignificant or progressively important the concession, the constant cry on the part of the intolerant was, that the church and state would thereby be greatly endangered, the country ruined! yet notwithstanding such prophecies, and affected fears, the prosperity of Ireland rapidly advanced with the improved state of the Catholics. Much of this code, it is true, has been repealed, but repealed as it were, in order to perpetuate what remains. The principle of conferring civil rights and political liberty on the Catholics as a body, has been fully and repeatedly admitted by the concessions which have been already granted, and which only could have been dangerous, as they conferred influence and consideration on the Catholic population, who even by the most uncandid, could alone be supposed capable of abusing them. But the disabilities which exclude the highest rank and fortune, which affect those who are the most distinguished for their professional talents, for their loyalty and patriotism, who are beloved and admired for their mental endowments and virtues, for their upright discharge of every social and public duty—and ever renowned for their heroism and valour, those disabilities degrade and materially injure the humblest individual, who has in fact no security so long as those who profess his religion, are on that account, considered unworthy of holding places of confidence and emolument. While the principle is most injurious to the prosperity of Ireland, and of the Empire, for in every walk of life, it most powerfully tends to repress the impulse of ambition, and the exertion of talent, from the mortifying recollection, that all the avenues to high and honourable station are for ever closed against them, all the rewards of exalted virtue, and of the most brilliant mental endowment for ever denied them. Some opposers of this measure object to political power being granted to the Catholics, from an alledged apprehension that were they admitted to a part, they would usurp the whole. The Catholics by their oaths disclaim this disposition, declaring that they seek only to participate, not to monopolize, and in fact, they do not possess the power, even had they the inclination, for of the united empire, they do not constitute the physical strength; so that the Protestants would always retain in their hands, the means of effectual resistance. Other gentlemen consent to admit the Catholics, provided they take what are called the qualification oaths. Of the four so designated, the Catholics already take, or are willing to take three, those of allegiance, of abjuration and of qualification as to property. Of the oath of supremacy, they take a considerable, and the most material part, for they abjure the doctrines of excommunication, and deposition of princes, that of the absolution from oaths, that no faith is to be kept with heretics, or that any foreign, potentate has any temporal power or jurisdiction within these realms—and they only reject that part which calls upon them to renounce their spiritual communion with the see of Rome, that is, in other words, they refuse to abjure their religion; and what they swear in Duigenan's oath of there existing no danger to your Protestant state from them as Catholic subjects they corroborate by the answers of the most eminent catholic universities of Europe to the doubts of your government, as to the principles of their religion, and the power of their spiritual chief. As to the declaration, they cannot sign against the tenets of their religion, nor admit that as Catholics they are idolaters, and therefore doomed to eternal punishment. But they have already by this same Duigenan's oath, given the state very rational security, for by it they swear to every thing that ought to satisfy you, except indeed to the infallibility of the Protestants, and to their vicegerency here on earth! Was that oath framed in the plenitude of malice, in the hope that it might be rendered so unpalatable, that the Catholics could not subscribe to it, and thus subject themselves to every imputation of disloyalty, or with the concealed intention of still treating them as dangerous and unsafe, even after they had submitted to this most severe ordeal. But it is evident that you are resolved to doubt all their professions, however strong and solemn, yet can there be a more convincing proof of the conscientious delicacy of the Catholics, as to the nature and obligation of an oath, than their having for so long a time, permitted their temporal interests to be essentially prejudiced, precluding themselves from the state, from office, and situation, merely because they refused to qualify, and how can they believe you serious in calling upon them to take these oaths as a security, when notwithstanding the many pledges they have already given, such as few governments have ever exacted from subjects, you still treat them as disloyal and unsafe. Surely this their refusal to qualify from a religious scruple, ought to be considered as our best security for their strict adherence to the letter and spirit of those oaths, by which they are already bound, not to monopolize, but to protect the property and privileges of the Protestant community, not to overturn, but to defend the state.

The member for Bedford has congratulated the House on the objection of the coronation oath, being no longer urged; but the noble viscount's (Castlereagh) forcible appeal, as to the deference due to the pious scruples, supposed to exist in the illustrious and exalted personage he alluded to, proves that the objection is still relied upon, for these scruples can only result from a certain construction put upon the coronation oath. Let us look to the period when this oath in its present shape was framed. William the 3rd, who first took it, did not consider himself as thereby prevented from giving the royal assent to the act in favour of dissenters, as to the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, which had been deemed necessary for the security of the church; and which by being in existence at the time of the formation of this coronation oath, might have been considered as constituting an essential part of the revolution system. This example is conclusive for this part of the argument, as it proves the construction of the oath by those who framed it, and of the king who first subscribed to it. Many other examples could be given at different periods of our history, to shew that this oath was not considered as preventing the king from granting civil advantages to his subjects of any description. In those reigns, during which much jealousy was harboured, and considerable severities exercised against the Catholics, when neither the monarch nor the parliament can be suspected of partiality, or of much liberality of sentiment, the coronation oath was not considered as a bar to relaxation of religious disabilities. In the reign of Anne, when Scotland was united to England, the queen was not considered as violating her Protestant coronation oath, when she swore to defend the presbyterian church of Scotland. And this after objection taken, and the point discussed. In the reign of the two first Georges, there were acts in favour of dissenters, quakers and Jews. Yet these princes had all taken this same coronation oath. On a parity of reasoning, there is nothing to prevent similar acts in favour of Catholics and to any extent It is rather late to interpose this case of conscience, between our gracious sovereign and his people. His reign having been distinguished by tolerance and benevolence towards his Catholic subjects, not only of Ireland but of Canada. And should their prayer be now rejected, as contrary to the coronation oath, the violations have been already frequent and conspicuous. But are gentlemen ignorant, that at the period of the formation, or rather new modelling of the coronation oath, Roman Catholic peers had seats and voted. That Catholics were then eligible to the House of Commons, as also to civil and military offices. It was the statutes of the 3rd and 4th of William and Mary, and the 1st and 2nd of Anne, which incapacitated them. How then can the coronation oath be considered as pledging the king to continue disabilities which did not exist at the time of its formation? He has not sworn that in order to defend the church, he would resist every measure conducive to the happiness and benefit of his people. Besides on what a sandy perilous foundation would this argument rest the church establishment. Were this mode of reasoning admitted, it would follow that any concession obtained by the subject from the crown, or that any alteration of any kind, in the constitution since the revolution, were so many infringements of this oath, which does not militate against the liberties and privileges of the subject, but was framed by freemen to protect them against, not to establish tyranny. But should this construction be erroneous, let the oath be revised, and rendered more consistent with the true principles of the constitution, and the happiness of a free people. We have lately heard of the existence of Jacobins and levellers in this country, I should have no hesitation in looking for such persons amongst those who urged the objection as to this oath; for the argument tends to excite jealousy between the king and the people, by holding out the chief executive magistrate as the only remaining bar, to the first hopes and expectations, of so great a portion of his subjects. I may be asked, whether I would have a Protestant king and a Catholic parliament? This is another phantom of the brain, for if all the Irish commoners, members of this House, were of that persuasion, there would still remain 558 Protestants against 100 Catholics. Gentlemen, however, well know, that a very small proportion of the Irish members would be of that religion. As to the Peers, I admit, that there exists considerable difficulty indeed. The chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland, in his statement a few nights since, observed, that it was much the custom in this country to live on puddings: if I am correctly informed, it is no less that of Scotland to live on oatmeal, and we Irish certainly cannot deny the charge of the potatoe, the extraordinary qualities of which have been elaborately discussed by learned commentators, whose observations have been fully corroborated by the uncommon population of that country. It therefore would be hazarding much, to answer for the consequences, of the ad- mission of (I think they are seven,) seven sturdy potatoe fed Catholic peers, among 16 rawboned Scotch lairds, filled with oatmeal, and 400 dainty pudding-crammed English barons! You are repeatedly informed that the Irish are discontented. Can such a disposition exist without a cause. Are not the people in all countries what their governments make them? If they feel happy and content, it is because the system observed towards them is liberal and kind. When they complain and resist, they have been ill treated and outraged^*. Look to the Hugonots in France of your own religion, ever discontented; Why? because they felt themselves insulted, stigmatized, and oppressed. Such were your ancestors, the Britons, when they formed a plot to murder their Danish tyrants. Such the Saxons, until they became amalgamated with the Normans. Such the presbyterians in Scotland, until they had completely emancipated their religion. Such the people of England, previous to the death of the first Charles, and the revolution. Such the Sicilians at the close of the 15th century. Such the Anglo Americans. So is man, so has he ever been in all countries! By the Revolution of 1688 in England, the people were protected in all their rights as citizens, and had a complete and equal interest in the constitution, whereas the severe and jealous policy of the Irish Revolution dispossessed of property, disqualified and outraged several millions of the inhabitants.—In England, the people triumphed over a faction; in Ireland a faction over the people. In England the religion established, was that of the people—in Ireland, though the religion of the people (the Catholic) was by treaty solemnly sanctioned—that of the state was Protestant, and professed by the very few, while ultimately the Catholic religion became proscribed. The Revolution of Ireland, which did not take place till three years after that of England, namely, in October 1691, was the establishment of power of the smaller number, at the expense of the civil liberties and properties of the far greater part, and of the political liberties of the whole. The fundamental principles of your Revolution, and the stipulations of the treaty of Limerick, are at this hour violated in the persons of the petitioners.

^* In 1704 the Hugonots destroyed in the course of a few months in Languedoc 4,000 Catholics, 80 priests, and at the same time they burnt 200 chapels.

At the Union the governments of both countries, perhaps, with more of shameless effrontery, than candour, confessed that the reiterated complaints of the Irish were fully justified, who were thus, after centuries of misrule, promised redress from an imperial parliament. The most defective part of Irish policy, has ever been found to consist in the unnatural and unprecedented proscription of the people. The noble viscount (Castlereagh) declares that it would be a happy circumstance, for Ireland, and for the empire, that sectarian interests did not so much prevail. Mr. Pitt, aware of these feuds, designed to infuse new health and vigour into the state, by erasing from the statute book, the principle of exclusion. The noble viscount would not say that something might not have passed at the Union, some extraneous circumstances, calculated to excite the expectations of the catholics; but he is positive that no direct pledge had been given, and he admits that the Irish government were glad to have the concurrence of the Catholics on that occasion. Might he not have added, that this measure could not have been effected, had the Catholics been hostile, and will not his lordship confess that they would have been decidedly so, had they expected that the Union was to bar their just claims and expectations. And does he not recollect that while lord Cornwallis in the most positive manner declared, that the principle of exclusion did not form a part of the measure of Union, the servants of his government, and his most active partizans were at the same moment occupied in diffusing Mr. Pitt's speeches, which were spread throughout Ireland, particularly in the most catholic counties, by means of post office expresses, on which speeches there could be but one construction by any jury, namely, that that minister was favourable to emancipation, and desirous to hold out the strongest expectations to the Catholics of the total repeal of the penal code after the Union. Therefore the Catholics may fairly be considered as deluded, and cajoled. They were induced not to oppose their national degradation in the hope of finishing that justice here, which the discussions at that period taught them to expect. But says the noble viscount, and another late secretary of state (Mr. Canning) "there has been no opportune moment, for considering their claims since that event. "No opportune moment! to appease the discontents, and to avail ourselves of the united energies of a brave and high spirited people? What! not when Buonaparté was over-running Holland, Switzerland, Italy! not when he had in one day annihilated the power of the house of Brandenburgh!—not when on the banks of the Niemen, he threatened the ruin of the Russian empire! Not when twice in possession of the Austrian capital! or now, when on the eve of being the undisputed master of Spain, Portugal, and the whole continent of Europe! Did none of these events following each other in rapid succession since the Union, and most of them during the administration of these gentlemen—did none of these afford in their judgment, an opportune moment for union and conciliation? What are the political resolutions they yet expect? or do they wait for the convulsions of nature? The light hon. ex-secretary (Mr. Canning) says he is not prepared to give the triumph to Catholic or Protestant—to giant the victory to either side." To talk of triumph, where battle is humiliating, and victory disgusting!—where liberty would mourn and despotism exult!—where the elevation of France, and the subversion of the empire, would be the disastrous result of so unnatural a contest!!!

These discussions on the Catholic claims have been peculiarly remarkable for the variety of ways in which they have been resisted. Every species of argument has been successively urged and resisted, and every accusation, however illiberal, false, and ridiculous, repelled. Formerly the press teemed with libels, and even within the walls of parliament every ungenerous invective was uttered. But it has of late appeared to be the wish of gentlemen to oppose this measure by their silent unexplained votes, rather than by courting discussion. Even the renowned champion of intolerance (the member for Armagh) has been shamed, or counselled to silence. We sometimes indeed hear of his productions, but only to blush for and condemn them. But the right honourable and learned member for Oxford has now entered the lists in a more formidable, because a less tangible shape, for whilst he refrains from stating charges which might be repelled, he insinuates every thing. It was doubtless his duty to have obeyed the wishes of his constituents, by submitting their opinions on this question to the House^*, but as from extensive information, and superior talent, one naturally expected sentiments of generous liberality, it was impossible to avoid feeling surprized at the satisfaction he expressed in resisting the prayers of so many millions of subjects. The learned judge at the same time that he professed his reluctance to say any thing on so painful a subject as that of the religious dissentions of Ireland, observed that "from what had happened in the memory of the youngest, it surely could not be deemed safe to legislate for that country, forgetting all that had passed." Thus he seemed disposed to quarrel with that beautiful sentiment, that "oblivion was patriotism, and concord salvation." Had the early and faithful friend of Ireland permitted himself to dwell on the sufferings of that people—had not his forbearance and moderation restrained his indignant feelings, had he not stifled his ardent and generous passion for his country, his powerful eloquence must have excited the sympathies of every man, who was capable of feeling for the wounded honour of an insulted and long oppressed people! but with great judgment, with true generosity, he suppressed the tale; convinced indeed that "oblivion was patriotism, and concord salvation." The learned judge professes his willingness to forgive! ere he assumes the attributes of mercy and offers pardon, let him recollect who were the aggressors, and that forgiveness is the grand privilege of the injured!

His allusion to those late events, which he reminded us were fresh in the memory of the youngest, must have referred to the disturbances in 1798. Does he mean to insinuate that they originated in religious animosities? His political divinity Mr. Pitt, declared positively that they did not.—The Catholics may with the most perfect truth be absolved from having created that rebellion. Many Catholics it is true, were concerned, for when any country is in a convulsed state, amongst that religion professed by the great mass of the population, will many of the rebels necessarily be found; so it certainly was in Ireland. But as proofs that it was not a war of religion, on the part of the Catholics, all the leaders (I mean those of rank and situation in the country) were Protestants, Presbyterians, and Dissenters, not Catholics. The most Catholic counties were the least disturbed. The Catholic nobility and gentry, were armed in their different counties, and conspicuous for their Zealand loyalty, as were the clergy and hierarchy, in their exertions and exhortations to bring back the deluded to their senses, and to protect their Protestant countrymen. Of two thousand Catholic clergy, not more than twenty joined in the rebellion, and these were amongst the lowest orders, many of them previously reprobated characters, and disgraced by their ecclesiastical superiors for their conduct at that period; nay, the very men who put down that rebellion, were in a great proportion Catholics, namely, the Irish yeomanry, and militia. I will not dwell on the outrages committed, but notwithstanding all statements to the contrary, I assert, that the King's troops, and many of those who acted in the name, but who abused the authority of government, were much more violent and ferocious in their conduct, than were the most unprincipled and sanguinary among the infuriate rabble. This rebellion therefore has not in the slightest degree invalidated their claims, or proved the Catholics as such, unworthy of that confidence, to which the Parliament of Ireland, and the King, had so frequently declared them entitled. When the learned judge gave the sanction of his name to a charge so unfounded, it might have been expected that he would at least have stated the question fully, and thus have administered some antidote to the poison. Instead of ascribing those ever-to-be-lamented disturbances solely to religious causes, he might, and surely ought to have stated, that but a little previous to that period, a political fever, occasioned on the part of the French government by an infatuated perseverance in despotic rule, by a distrust and contempt of the people; and greatly heightened by the intemperance and crimes of one of the most polished nations of the earth, suddenly burst forth in France, destroying the proud and "time-honoured" establishments of other days; in its violence spreading "wild havoc" through the ranks of every family, the most ennobled as the most humble, breaking all the endearing ties of private life, and leaving the pall of mourning at each man's door. For peace, confidence, and order, substituting civil broils, distrust, and universal alarm! and finally extending its baleful influence to almost every country in Europe, desolated, and levelled all around! This pestilential disease unfortunately reached Ireland. But has the learned judge forgotten that at that awful period, the person of the sovereign was not deemed safe in the capital; that the constitution even of Britain was suspended!

^* This University makes but an ill requital.—She had some of her early founders from Ireland—and if Nicholson, Usher, Ware and Bede be not fabulists, the Irish not only hospitably received, and educated the children of Britain, but assisted her to establish her own schools and colleges—in return she destroyed those of Ireland, and banished the Irish student; but such ingratitude is not new in Irish story.

What causes can now be assigned for confirming the existing disabilities? The usurped authority of the Pope, over the weakness, or ignorance of christian princes is abolished!—Perhaps, in contemplating the fate of this once formidable power, you will be disposed, in lamenting the instability of fortune, to learn humility even from the afflictions of your enemy! The Stuarts are extinct! and here I cannot refrain from observing, that had the second James not been as contemptible a general, as he was an ardent polemick, the loyalty of the Irish Catholics would now be proverbial, and held out as an example worthy of imitation. They had suffered much by their conscientious attachment to that ill fated house; and they continued to be persecuted on that account, long after their connection and intercourse with the exiled family had ceased. As to the state of Europe, is it such now, as it was at the close of the seventeenth, and beginning of the eighteenth centuries? Have you now to apprehend on the part of the sovereign of France, a descent in these islands, for the purpose of substituting a Catholic for a Protestant King? Buonaparté, it is true, meditates your subjugation, but has he hitherto achieved his conquests by means of the tiara, and the thunders of the Vatican? Can he (as Louis 14 formerly) seek to accomplish the downfall of Britain, through the affections of the Irish people for an abdicated sovereign, whom they considered as a martyr to his, and to their own religion? Can he anticipate the respect, gratitude and cordial support of the Irish Catholics. He who has mocked, insulted, dethroned, and enchained the spiritual head of their church? Can you now, as then, inflame, and direct several of the most warlike states of the continent, against the formidable and still encreasing power of France? Are the courts of the Hague, Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid, disposed and able now to make common cause with you against the occupier of the Bourbon throne? Is Buonaparté so very defective in his combinations, so wretchedly contemptible in his means, that you can now afford to dissatisfy several millions of your fellow subjects, and to perpetuate their discontents?

But admitting the enacting of the penal code to have been justifiable, nay necessary at the periods alluded to, or at least circumstances to have been then such, as to have enabled your ancestors, to persecute the Irish with impunity, does not the state of Europe at the present day imperiously urge and command you, to conciliate and unite? Do you hope to contend successfully with Buonaparté, while you suffer one fourth of your people to feel, that they have not a common interest in the struggle. Will you suffer your bigotry to cut the very sinews of your strength?

But who are the opposers of this measure? not the people of Ireland, for they are the petitioners, not the Protestants, who, I verily believe, could be polled in its favour, for happily the spirit of tolerance is abroad, even though the people of England and Scotland were to be excited to an infatuated and illiberal resistance of the Catholic claims, it would still be the bounden duty of the Irish members to persevere in their efforts to obtain this, and other important objects, and were they but as much distinguished for unanimity, as, unfortunately for their country, they have hitherto been for their dissentions, no measure beneficial to Ireland could be resisted by the clamour of a mob, or by the still more disgraceful prejudices of parliament. Doubtless many most respectable individuals in both countries, are on principle averse to the measure, but they are not dangerous, for however contrary to their own opinions, they would not continue hostile to any arrangement calculated for the immediate advantage of so great a proportion of their fellow subjects, and eventually of the empire. The real opposers of emancipation, are the bigots, the persecutors, the monopolizers of allegiance,—"the only attached!—the only loyal!" they who would trample the people in the dust, while subsisting but on their spoils—they would war with the whole Catholic world, they, would proscribe a creed professed by the most dis- tinguished statesmen, the profoundest philosophers—the most enlightened divines; by a Ximines, a Condé, a Bossuet, a Fenelon, a Paschal.—They would anathematize a religion adorned by every virtue, and every talent! But let them beware that they do not dismember the empire, for let them learn, ere it be too late, that the connection between the two countries cannot be maintained by Protestant monopoly, or by Catholic proscription, but by "the permanent interests, and permanent affection of the people, firmly cemented by a common interest." They call for the Veto! Would they grant emancipation, were this ceded? I am sure they would not—many of them have declared that they would not.—I have no doubt that as a measure of state, it would be injudicious to exercise this power, supposing it could be obtained.

The noble viscount, and the learned civilian, have alluded to the influence of the Catholic Hierarchy in Ireland over the body of the people. It had been observed by his lordship that this influence was stronger even than the law, or the government. There is no doubt that it forms the only connecting link between the government and the people, and is exerted most conscientiously for the advantage of both. Any arrangement, therefore, tending to shake the confidence of the people in their clergy, by inducing them to believe that they were not selected as at present merely for their clerical fitness, but from their subserviency to the government, would be fatal, for it would immediately stop that channel of information, as to the state of the people, which is now afforded by the Hierarchy. Besides, how is it possible, that the Protestants, who accuse the Catholics of being idolaters—of not keeping faith with heretics, of not being bound by the sacred obligation of oaths; how is it possible that a sect thus hostile, could be competent to select the bishops of that religion, which they have indelicately described as calculated only for knaves, and fools. On the contrary, would it not be their duty, (if sincere in their opinion) to appoint persons the least likely to uphold the Catholic Church? nay rather calculated to undermine its foundation? and thus by a side wind, would the Protestants insidiously attempt to effect that now, which their ancestors had failed to accomplish by ages of persecution. But why ask for this Veto? Has there been any instances of an improper appointment of a bishop by the See of Rome, even in those times, when the pope was in direct hostility to this country and the cause of the pretender openly espoused—by him. In modern times when every illiberal accusation has been brought against the Catholics, and every disposition evinced to represent their tenets and conduct most dangerous to a Protestant government, has there been found any instance of an improper appointment? Have not the Hierarchy been at all times conspicuous for their fidelity to the government, and for their exertions to impress their flock with respect for the laws, and attachment to the state? nay, have they not within our memoreis been even accused of acting as partizans for the government against the people? But if this controuling power in the government as to the appointment of bishops, be deemed so necessary, that the emancipation of the Catholics (admitted by the highest authorities to be advisable) cannot with safety to the state be granted without it, why did you not arm yourselves with that power, which but a few years back might have been easily obtained from the pope? If this objection be urged in sincerity now, where was the political foresight then? You cannot be ignorant that such an arrangement can never originate from a Catholic flock. In the reign of Louis the 14th, who had some of the richest benefices in Europe to bestow, there were twenty seven French bishops^* in possession of very considerable temporalities conferred upon them by the crown, but at the same time they were not enabled to fulfil any clerical functions, the pope not having conferred on them the spiritualities. Any arrangement likely to facilitate the attainment of the object of the petitioners, and such as would satisfy the government is most desirable, but they cannot consent to renounce their communion with the ancient chief of their church, and this they consider a point of faith, nor can the Pope's spiritual faculties, over the catholic clergy, be altered, or abridged, but by his consent. But this clamour for the Veto is but a stalking horse of modern date, a salvo for weak consciences, a new pretext for continuing persecution, the last retreat of the bigot, the hypocrite, and the monopolizer. The Catholic clergy positively deny any temporal power of the Pope in this realm, and this their declaration is corroborated by their conduct both in ancient and modem time, and by the answers of the universities already alluded to. It has been argued as if it were necessary to guard against a foreign influence in Ireland: none such exists. There may indeed be an Irish party for Ireland, which can be deprecated only by those who are not disposed to counsel wisely or fairly by that country. The chancellor of the exchequer has declared that the Catholics are not to be conciliated, as they cannot afford the security which he deems necessary for the protection of the church establishment, to which he proclaims them in hostility. Is it just, liberal, or even decent to bring this accusation against the Catholics, that nothing will satisfy them but the church property, when they disclaim in the most solemn manner, any such intention. The right hon. gent. has also to explain how far it was judicious in him, considering his high official situation, to give it as his opinion, that it was impossible to conciliate or attach to the state one fourth of the population of the empire.

From ministers who commenced their career by throwing the firebrand of persecution amongst the people, who have for ever tarnished the national character by violating the sacred rights of neutrals—who in the south by their weak and inefficient measures, have rendered unavailing the heroic valour of British islanders—who have lavished the blood and treasure of the empire, on the most rash, ill-advised, and disgraced expeditions—who while they admit, and as it were by stealth apologize for a gross insult and provocation, offered to the flag of an independent power, yet betray a dastardly reluctance to have recorded a full, public, and manly retractation. And thus untaught by the experience even of their own times, would once more rashly provoke the vengeance of the western world! From ministers who would insinuate disaffection in a great portion of his Majesty's subjects, by arrogating to themselves peculiar loyalty and attachment, at the very moment when they are committing the monarchy with the people, and the people with this House.—From ministers, whom I cannot but consider as in direct hostilities to the liberties and most valued privileges of the subject, I expect no redress of national grievances, but rather look for additional insult and aggression. To such men, all appeal is vain! But, I do look forward with sanguine hope, to the enlightened wisdom of the parliament for redress. The hour may not yet have arrived, far distant it cannot be, when the majority of both Houses must see the wisdom and necessity of complying with the prayer of the petitioners. But why procrastinate? Recollect you have not the same excuses for sanctioning this code, that your ancestors might have had for enacting it. You are not smarting from wounds received in rebellions wantonly provoked. You are not clothed in the spoils of the vanquished. You have not turned your arms against those whom it was your duty to protect. You are placed in the enviable and proud situation of having to heal those wounds which you did not inflict, to redress those wrongs of which you were not the authors: the atonement too is light. The only reparation sought at your hands is an equal participation in the blessings of the constitution. With what justice can you arraign the conduct of Buonaparté to the different states of the continent? It is true he has plundered and oppressed. Do the annals of the Eastern world contain no accusation against you? But I will not justify outrage by outrage; nor remind you that his aggressions were only against his enemies. How can you hope to obtain credit for the sincerity of your motives in your crusade against France in behalf of the oppressed nations of Europe while you are acting as tyrants at home? or with what consistency can you call upon the Irish to assist you in the cause of liberty, at the very moment that you deny them, as subjects, the enjoyment of its blessings?

^* At this moment there are several bishops, both in Italy and France, perhaps to the amount of between thirty and forty, who cannot perform their episcopal functions, notwithstanding their appointment were by Buonaparté, the pope having refused to grant them the bulls of spiritual jurisdiction. Cardinal Fesche, (uncle to the emperor and archbishop of Lyons) although two years and a half nominated to the archbishopric of Paris, has not been able to discharge the duties of that station. De Prades, bishop of Poitiers, and much in the confidence of Napoleon, has from the same cause not ventured to officiate as archbishop of Mechlin. Stronger proofs cannot be adduced to show that the spiritual power of the Catholic Hierarchy can be derived but from the supreme head of their church. In fact these bishops have acted precisely in the same manner now, as their predecessors in the 17th century in the reign of Louis the 14th. They only enjoy the revenues of their different sees, without presuming to perform their ecclesiastical duties as bishops.

Is it at the present formidable conjuncture when we have been most unsuccessful in our external objects, when we are hunted from all the courts of the neighbouring continent, and on the eve of being shut out from every port in Europe, is it at such a moment, and in such a state of formidable and still encreasing combination that we deem it advisable to perpetuate quarrel amongst ourselves, and to alienate the affections of one third of his Majesty's subjects. And all, to support, as it has been well described, that "unparalleled code of oppression which has been kept in force, not from a bigotted principle of religion, but from pride, arrogance, and a spirit of domination." I would solemnly exhort you to renounce your prejudices, and embrace your real interests, to consider the relative importance of Ireland in the scale of the empire, to reflect that one storm had already arisen in the west, which in its violence had nearly swept away all the greatness and glory of this once-happy island. That contest, too, was nursed in the cradle of despotism, fostered in the bosom of presumption, continued in the rage of obstinacy, and concluded in degradation, submission and defeat. The experiment is not to be repeated. Ireland once separated from your empire and you are undone. This is not a time to flatter or to lull you into a feeling of dangerous security! Have you learnt nothing from the desolation which surrounds you? Posterity will scarce believe that at a crisis awful as the present, discussions such as these should engage us!

began by stating that his situation was such that it would have been impossible for him to go into a division on that question, had he not the opportunity of expressing those considerations which operated decisively upon his mind, and which he hoped would not be thought unreasonable by the House—that he might lose much, and could gain nothing by any part whatever he could take; but that he knew the sentiments of the great landed proprietors in his own county, and the subject was of such extreme consequence to both countries, that no private considerations ought to with-hold him from his parliamentary duty. He then expressed his regret at differing from so many of his friends near him, and particularly from his right hon. friend who had introduced the petition, with whose opinions he had generally coincided for so very many years, particularly in all those great measures brought forward by him in the parliament of Ireland, from time to time, tracing and treading in the steps of the English constitution, till in the year 1782 he had formed a constitution for his own country; which, as he ever should think, was the best suited, that could be imagined, to the internal happiness of Ireland, and best calculated to render her a firm and powerful support to Great Britain; that all those great constitutional points obtained by Ireland from 1778 to 1782, mentioned in his very able speech, were principally of his own acquirement; and that if he were now advocating the cause of the Roman Catholics in his own country, and amidst the applauses he used to receive in a former senate, their cause could hardly fail. But he lamented that those times bad really passed away like a dream—that that constitution, and the incalculable prosperity that accompanied it, were now forgotten. But, as his hon. friend (Mr. Hutchinson) had pressed the claims of the Roman Catholics upon the ministers of that time, he regretted much that the leaders of the Roman Catholics had not come forward then and assisted those who used their utmost efforts to preserve it. He said surely they did not prefer any little points of their own to the welfare of their country, if they did he pitied them indeed—he pitied them that they had lost the objects of their wishes, perhaps for ever—he pitied them extremely if they had to regret and attribute to themselves their own disappointment, and the loss of the Irish constitution; a petition from them at that time, would have saved their country. He then paid some compliments to the brilliancy of Mr. Grattan's speech—said the instances in which he differed from him were broad and plain; that his business would be not to question the illustrations, or sully the innumerable little gems that lighted up that argument, but to state the laws as they affected Roman Catholics in such a manner, that the House might the more readily decide how far it could meet the prayer of the petition. But though he differed materially from his right hon. friend, he requested he might not he thought inimical to the Roman Catholics—that he had ever been their friend, so far as parliament had hitherto relieved them, and was ready to be so still, so far as the principles of the constitution would admit. He then stated to the House their present situation, as contrasted with what it had been before the late repeals—wished indeed, that the act of 1793 had not made so many reservations of seats on the Bench, in the three courts of law, and the various other offices of rank and emolument—said he wished to share with the Roman Catholics all official and ministerial power, except that he office of Chancellor seemed particularly attached to the reformed church—said the oath in the act of 1793 ought to be simplified, as being too lone and too obscure for ordinary comprehension.—Did not see why that act might not be amended hereafter in these respects. For though that act was intended as a boundary line, a ne plus ultra, never to be passed; yet if the spirit and purport of the act were retained, he did not see why the reservations might not be done away, and the oath made more intelligible, by an act to amend the former. But he then appealed to the House that such an alteration for the present was absolutely impracticable—every one knew the difficulties that were in the way—besides, if this House had the power, yet it was not prepared to say what ought to be given; nor did the Roman Catholics appear agreed what they ought to accept of—much less had it been settled what arrangements ought to be made. No good result therefore could be expected from the going into a Committee, whatever mischief it might produce.

So much for the participation of offices, honours, and ministerial power. He now begged leave to make some observations on that part of the petition which extended to legislative power, and here he particularly differed from his right hon. friend. His right hon. friend surely could not be right, when he considered religion merely as a concern between man and his Creator, and thought that if we were all Christians, religion had nothing to do with the constitution; and that according to natural rights and original principles, and the circumstances of these two countries, the Houses of parliament ought to be partly Protestant and partly Catholic. This (he observed) was not the constitution of England, and no people possessed of such a constitution, would go back with his right hon. friend to natural rights and original principles. He then thought him wrong in considering the oaths taken by members, as penalties on the Catholics of Ireland, and in confounding the acts which imposed them with penal statutes. He himself rather considered those oaths as tests ascertaining the principles of an elected member, before he was allowed to take his seat or vote. Did the right ton, gentleman consider the oath of allegiance as a penalty? If so, it was only a penalty upon those who had no allegiance, and did not apply to the Irish Catholic. Did he consider the qualification oath as a penalty? If so, it was a penalty upon every man who had not a freehold property sufficient for a seat in Parliament. For his own part he found himself bound to those constitutional principles to which he had pledged himself as often as he had taken his seat in parliament. For what member could doubt that, when he took the oaths at that table, he pledged himself to a Protestant constitution? or that those oaths were considered by the parliaments which enacted them, as the best means of preserving and handing down our constitution to posterity unimpaired? Under that solemn obligation he called upon members seriously to consider what was then required of them by the petition. Instead of continuing to be themselves the guardians of that constitution which they were bound to protect, they were required to commit that sacred duty to persons of a different description, by admitting them to seats in that House, men, however excellent in themselves, yet of those religious principles against which our ancestors had protested at the Reformation; and which principles those who managed the Revolution of 1788, no inconsiderable men, and the succeeding parliaments, took every possible means to guard against. For upon this part of the subject the question was, whether those against whose religious persuasions we had protested, could make a constituent part of our Protestant legislature. One would think that to state the question fairly, which he hoped he did, was sufficient to shew how impossible it was for parliament, under its present obligations, to accede to that part of the prayer of the petition. He had no ill-will to any one because he differed from him in religious opinions—he did not complain of the Roman Catholics for wishing to be members of both Houses—he did not condemn them if they desired to partake of all the rights of the constitution, without religious distinctions; but how it were possible to preserve a Protestant constitution without religious distinctions, was more than he could comprehend. But he said, an argument had been uniformly urged by the advocates for committee, namely, that by granting the prayer of the petition, you would unite a divided people; you would add four-fifths to the strength of the country. But that, even as a supporter of the petition, he should be sorry to have used that argument. For the penal laws had been repealed in consequence of their good conduct, and their good conduct had always induced him to be their friend. But, if in Ireland they were now a divided people, the prayer of, the petition could not be granted with safety.

'I here had been a speech indeed by an hon. member, under the gallery, suggesting the danger that might arise from them in case of invasion, and describing them in such a manner, as he hoped did not apply to the Roman Catholics generally, or to any county in Ireland, except that of the hon. member. That for his own part he thought very differently of the Roman Catholics,—that to the great mass of the Roman Catholics, the elective franchise had been of the greatest consequence, it had been the means of preserving them in the possession of their farms, and he was happy to think it had been of the greatest service to them. The Roman Catholics, as a body, are now growing in wealth, independence and consideration, in consequence of the late acts in their favour—adopt their interests and encrease their comforts. While suffered to live in peace and protected by the laws, they will ever be, as indeed they are, good and faithful subjects, and ready to defend their country. Let your care therefore be directed to the mass of the Roman Catholics, and to their happiness, and to trust to their good sense for patriotism and allegiance.

But (he said) the question seems hitherto to have been confined to Ireland, how far Ireland would be benefited or injured by such a measure. He wished to know the sentiments of Great Britain. The English members, perhaps, say the British or the united parliament never yet has interfered upon this particular question, and ask themselves, with respect to legislative powers, "shall we now or ever interfere—why should the peace and settled principles of this country be disturbed? why should its religious establishments be alarmed? The acts so much complained of by the Roman Catholics of Ireland were acts of the Irish parliament—the statutes by which they were repealed were Irish statutes—they were internal regulations for that country—Great Britain was not affected by them. But the prayer of the present petition goes to the heart of the legislature—the very structure of the Houses of Parliament is at Stake." How far then (he said) the people of this country, who under their present constitution, the admiration of all other states, have enjoyed such blessings, peace at home, and triumphs abroad, will admit of such alteration in the representation itself, I refer to you.—How long any minister who should propose such an alteration, or lend it his countenance, could hold his situation in this country, I refer to you. For you know and feel that the constitution is Protestant, not only theoretically, but practically and substantially; that the church is intimately connected and interwoven with the legislature; that the church, as such, sends her members to the House of Lords; that the beneficed parochial clergy, as such, vote for members of the House of Commons; that the monarch himself, before the crown is placed upon his head, pledges himself to protect the rights of the established church. Which, as Blackstone calls it, "is an original contract between the King and his people." So far as attacks have ever succeeded against the church, they have equally affected the constitution; that the Roman Catholics of this country in their attempts against the church, had twice nearly overturned the constitution; that the dissenters and republicans had once overturned both; and that before the Hanover succession, the only periods of religious peace had been, when uniformity was enforced; though during the reigns of the present royal family, the constitution had been so strong as to bear with toleration almost unbounded; that it therefore seemed to him to have been for the sake of peace, that one religion, and one only, should be established. How then could he be persuaded, that to introduce another religion into competition with the established church, was the way to reconcile parties? He said he spoke no new language in saying the church and constitution must stand or fall together; that he was supported in this by one of the greatest men this country had ever produced: and should conclude with his words. "The constitution and church establishments of England were so far beyond the suggestion of human contrivance, that we ought to thank God for both: treat them with reverence, and never separate them."

.—In offering myself to your notice, I rise, Sir, under a considerable degree of difficulty and embarrassment. Trusting, however, to the indulgence of the House, for having ventured to obtrude myself upon its attention when so many gentlemen more competent than myself to throw light on the subject, are naturally anxious to deliver their sentiments; but from the importance of the interesting question now before the House, I cannot help feeling some anxiety to state shortly the reasons which induce me to support the proposition of the right hon. gent. for going into a Committee, to enquire what relief may be just or necessary, wise or politic, to concede to the claims of the Catholics of Ireland. In the course of the debate I have heard no argument that appears to me to have any weight against the proposition for going into a committee; for those gentlemen who have opposed this question, hare contented themselves wholly with resisting altogether the Catholic claims. Now, let us go into the committee, and enquire fairly how far it is practicable to comply with those claims, or whether it may be wiser to reject them after a full and fair statement of the case on both sides.—Had this been done in the first instance, you would have avoided all this protracted and useless discussion. You would have heard what the Catholics had to offer on their parts; you might have stated what you require on yours: and whatever the result might be of your inquiry, even though it should be to refuse the claims, the Catholics would not feel they were indignantly thrust from your bar without a fair, a candid, and dispassionate hearing: they would, on the contrary, feel that you had given to their case a full, impartial, and deliberate consideration. They would be satisfied that your decision was the result of a candid and dispassionate investigation, and you would not send away from your bar four millions of loyal people disgusted at the rejection of their petition, without hearing what they had to propose, or stating what you required of them. They would say, "You have attended to our petition; you have patiently and impartially examined our claims: you are of opinion that we have no case; at least you have heard us, and we bow to your decision." And I appeal to the good sense and moderation of the House, whether this would not be a wiser course to pursue, than to dismiss from your bar those claims unexamined, and thereby excite the discontents of so many millions of your fellow subjects. I really think, Sir, it would be a more dignified conduct on your part, to approach the Catholics, and say to them, "We are ready to concede what you wish, provided you are willing to concede what we ask of you, as a reasonable security to the stability of our Established Church." With respect to the Veto, about which so much has been said, I am unwilling to give any opinion; but I own it appears to me a novel proposition, calculated rather to embarrass the question, and throw new difficulties in the way of its discussion, than to answer any good purpose; for I question much whether it can do any service to the Protestant government, or produce any improvement in the appointment of the Catholic bishops; and I much question also whether, in all events, it is a point to which the Catholics can accede, consistently with their religious scruples. Be that as it may, I am for conciliating the Catholics, but not without providing for the necessary guards and securities of the Protestant establishment. Both should be regulated at the same moment; mutual concession will produce mutual conciliation.: the Catholics, I am sure, will cheerfully meet you halfway; and if the discipline of their church forbids them to consent to the Veto, sure I am that they will readily acquiesce in such measures as may be devised by the united wisdom of parliament, to guard against the nomination or controul over their prelacy by any hostile or foreign power. From the experience of the last century, and the high and honourable testimony borne in the course of this discussion to their exemplary characters, you can have no danger to apprehend from the prelacy: but strange as it may seem, the opposers of this question appear to found their chief apprehensions of danger upon that reverend class of men; for no man has presumed to call into question the loyalty of the Catholic laity,—to impeach the fealty of the Catholic gentry,—or of any class of the Catholic people,—which they have testified by their valour and sealed with their blood, in your cause, in every al- ter of the globe, and which they are again ready to testify in defence of these countries,—against the hostile aggressions of the common foe; and you have it in your power to redouble their ardour in your cause, and fortify your securities against the dangers that surround and threaten you, by conciliating their affections and uniting them with you by equal interests, in defence of those constitutional blessings in which they claim a common share as their birth-right,—and which without their assistance you cannot effectually defend. Have you any thing to fear from the Catholics of England? Has any man ventured to call their loyalty into question? Or is there a gentleman who has spoken of their character, that has not borne the most honourable testimony to their unshaken loyalty, their unimpeached morals, and their social virtues? But even those considerations out of the question, the comparative paucity of their numbers would leave you little ground for apprehension. But look to Ireland, where the Catholic population out-numbers the Protestant as four to one. Does the government of that country express any fears on this account? Is the Protestant establishment there in any danger, according to the sentiments of the Protestant inhabitants? on the contrary, have you not seen the change which has taken place in the Protestant mind of that country? Is it now the desire of the Protestant inhabitants of Ireland, that their Catholic neighbours and fellow-subjects should any longer remain under disabilities on account of their religious tenets? On the contrary I will venture to assert, because I have it from the best information, and I am borne out by the most respectable testimony in the course of this debate, that if the Protestants of Ireland were to be polled upon this question, nine-tenths of them would vote in favour of. the present claims of their Catholic countrymen. And indeed, can it be supposed for a moment, that the Catholics, after a century of proscription, now seek a sanctuary under the constitution, only for the purpose of subverting it? Or that they will be less loyal under a system of mildness, of lenity, of protection of indulgence, of liberty,—than they were under one of penalty, of persecution, of proscription in their native land? "What have you witnessed in the character of the Catholic, that can lead you to believe he is less fond of the liberty you prize, less warm in his de- votion to the constitution you venerate, than any amongst you? Born and educated in the same land, protected under the same government, nurtured in the same political ideas with yourselves, whence can you justify (certainly not from his conduct) the monstrous conclusion, that he is that venomous reptile, who would sting to death the bosom that had cheered him to life?

As to the objections that have been urged on the alledged inexpediency of the present time, it is in my mind at once the most futile and the most dangerous, and of all others the most fatal to measures of wholesome reform: it shuts the door against political truth, and would be equally a bar against the introduction of any improvement in the state of nations, moral, political, or scientific. It is an argument always dangerous in its tendency, and indefinite in its extent. One set of gentlemen say, "The measure of conciliation might be a good thing of itself,—but the time is unfit for it." Another set of gentlemen say, "That however feasible it may be in the abstract, it is a dangerous innovation upon the principles laid down by the wisdom of our ancestors, which should be our guide in a matter of such serious importance?"—as if any one set of men, in any one era, legislating upon the best judgment they could form of the future by the present and the past, were to arrogate more wisdom than all subsequent generations, and this too upon subjects, where the subsequent generation must be infinitely more competent to judge, having all the advantages of practical experience upon the subject before it. Such an argument is directly subversive of all the great principles on which human wisdom is founded, and might be equally well applied against the revolution, the constitution, the reformation, and the introduction of Christianity itself, which were all innovations upon the systems that preceded them. From such reasoning as this, therefore, it Would follow that all improvements are to be rejected; and when such arguments are allowed any weight, it must shew to the world what slender hopes there are for our amendment, or even of remaining as we are, and exhibit us in the ridiculous view of being determined to reject all lessons of experience,—to shut our eyes against the light of truth hourly reflected upon us by the experience of surrounding nations,—to sling to our errors, and risk all their consequences. I wish gentlemen to bear in mind the wise observation of my lord Bacon; "Time is the greatest innovator; if time shall in its course alter things for the worse, and council and wisdom shall not alter them for the better, what shall be the end?"—And what shall be the end, if year after year, we persist in the same obstinate refusal to listen to the complaints and supplications of four millions of our fellow-subjects, entitled by their birth-rights to the same rights as ourselves, and which without their zealous co-operation we shall be unable to defend or retain?

I could wish to have said a few words on the subject of the pledge given to the Catholics of Ireland, to secure their support to the measure of Union. But that has been argued already, and so ably, by hon. gentlemen near me, as to render any thing from me upon the subject quite unnecessary. I cannot, however, agree with the noble lord opposite to me (Castlereagh) as to the effect produced by the frequent agitations of this question. I think the speeches of those able and eloquent advocates who have supported the Catholic cause must have made a forcible impression; and I am convinced from general observation, that the more it is discussed, the more clearly it is understood, the more are ancient prejudices dissipated, the more are its friends increased, and the number of its disinterested opponents diminished. But is it matter of wonder if, after what the Catholics of Ireland were taught to expect at the Union,—if, after having repeatedly since urged their petitions,—if after the frequent discussions their claims have undergone from that time to this, yet without obtaining any thing more than they got from the Irish parliament, in which they were forbidden to hope any longer, that they should feel impatient and irritable from successive disappointment to their most anxious hopes? Now, Sir, peace with the people of Ireland is that which is the most anxiously to be desired, because most pressingly demanded by our situation, and most essential to our common safety. I do most earnestly deprecate any conduct towards the Catholic people of Ireland, that may place them in a state of disgust and hostility towards us. I deplore the animosities, the heart-burnings, the divisions which the rejection of this committee will inevitably excite; and that must necessarily follow from, our suf- fering the last remnant of those penal laws that continue to disgrace our statute books, to oppress and degrade any longer our Catholic fellow-subjects. If any man still harbours a sentiment of distrust to the fidelity of the Catholics; if any man doubts their loyalty, let him look to the history of their conduct through a century of the most galling oppressions, while that loyalty was goaded by a thousand insulting motives, and stimulated by countless provocations, which might have roused the most insensible to resistance and rebellion:—but to which they submitted with unexampled fortitude and patience:—virtues which, as evinced by them, have been sometimes urged as arguments against their emancipation; because proofs of that passive obedience and non-resistance charged on their religion as a tenet which rendered its professors unfit for liberty.—Does any man doubt their attachment to the British empire, or their zeal and valour in proof of that attachment? I refer him to the annals of British triumph in every quarter of the globe for the last half century. I refer him to our scenes of military operation during the present war in Asia, in Spanish America, in Portugal, in Spain, in Holland, in Germany, in the Mediterranean;—and I refer him to the history of your naval victories in every part of the world.—There he will find that some of the proudest trophies that adorn our standards or blazon the pages of our history, were won by Irish Catholics. And if he will look at home, and ask who are amongst the bravest defenders of our security,—that recruit our armies for abroad,—that crowd the ranks of the Irish militia at home,—and that contribute so numerously to manning of our fleets?—He will find the same answer,—Irish Catholics. These are the men, whose valour can afford us a strong arm in the hour of adversity and danger:—and against such men we perpetuate a system of unjust and prescriptive laws, and refuse even to enquire into the nature of their petition, or how far it is practicable on any ground to redress the grievances of which they complain!—Redress those grievances,—reciprocate with your Catholic fellow-subjects the sentiments of mutual confidence and affection,—which alone can render you strong, and impregnable. If the Catholics of Ireland have adhered to you with fidelity and valour under so many causes of disgust and disalfection;—how entirely you can make them your own by kindness, by redress, and conciliation! How much more effectually can you avail yourselves of their energies, if you grant their petition. Ireland would then become a new sinew of strength in the body of the empire. She will be added, in all the vigour of her zeal and her power, to your national resources. You would no longer have to consider her as a conquered country; you would no longer have to complain, that Ireland is the most vulnerable part of the British empire. I will not trespass longer on the time and patience of the House. I have endeavoured to argue shortly the two broad features of the case before us, viz. the justice and the policy of the measure, and have endeavoured to shew my reasons for thinking it is both wise and expedient to consult the one, and to acknowledge the other. In God's name, then, let me conjure the House to concede this question, not as a matter of triumph to any party, but of safety to all. I can assure the House that I am not actuated on this occasion by any feeling of hostility towards his Majesty's ministers, but I do bring with me feelings of affection for the Catholics of Ireland (arising from a sense of the justice of their claims) and of anxiety for the welfare of my country; and I therefore implore the House to go into the committee, and at least let the claims of four millions of his Majesty's loyal subjects be fairly, temperately, and impartially discussed. Conciliation to the Catholics would be strength to you, and the affection of the people your surest defence.

. Sir, I shall detain the House by a very few words. I can assure the House there is no gentleman who has spoken in favour of the Catholic claims more anxious to conciliate than I am, and if I thought what is now required could be safely granted, I would be as zealous for it as the warmest friend of Ireland;—and not only for the complete emancipation of the Catholics, but of every sect in the country debarred of constitutional privileges on account of religious opinions: no man is more anxious than myself to keep power from the hands of bigotry and intolerance. But then the difficulties which have been stated against the question I am not competent easily to surmount. It has been said that the Veto proposed for the adoption of the Catholics as a preliminary to any entertainment of their claims, is a mere stalking-horse to embarrass the question; if so, I shall be the last to uphold it. But, Sir, I find it comes, in the first instance, in the shape of a proposition from the clergy of the church of Rome themselves:—and if they now retract, what security have we that they will accede to any proposition made by us, or any pledge offered for them by their friends? This, Sir, is my objection to go into a Committee; and my opinion is, that there never was a time more ill chosen for carrying forward this question. For let me ask, if we should go into this committee, would it not be with an opinion that the Veto was indispensably necessary; and have we any assurance whatever that this Veto would be conceded? What then would be the result of your leaving that chair, Sir, to let us resolve into the committee, why we should have the intolerance of the Protestant conflicting with the obstinacy of the Catholic:—and after discussing, as we have already done for successive days and nights, we should come out of the committee worse and more exasperated than we had gone into it. If any adequate and satisfactory security can be given for the liberties of this country tinder this concession, no man will be more ready to vote for full emancipation than myself, because no man more abhors every thing in the shape of intolerance: but until we have some authentic assurance that such security will be given, and until we have some explanation as to the nature of that security, I see no good purpose on earth, that can be answered by going into the committee, and therefore cannot vote for it.

Sir, unwilling as I am to trespass upon the patience of the House, yet I feel it my duty not to give a silent vote upon a question which I deem to be of the highest importance to the empire at large. This subject has already been so fully and ably discussed by my right hon. friend who opened this debate on a former night, that it would be presumption in me to attempt to throw any new light upon it, particularly after the manner in which it has already been illustrated by the several hon. members who have delivered their sentiments on this side of the House, with all of whom I perfectly coincide in opinion, except the hon. member below me, the member for Sligo. To say nothing of the illiberality of withholding the benefit of the constitution from so large a proportion of the population of Ireland, as your petitioners represent, in a political point of view, it may be of the most material con- sequence that the prayer of this Petition should be immediately attended to in the fullest extent; and if ever there existed a moment in which a doubt could have been entertained on the policy of this measure, that doubt must now vanish from the minds of all thinking men, when the whole continent of Europe, if not already united against you, is at least under the controul of the most implacable and formidable enemy this country ever had to contend with. It is obvious from the character of Buonaparté, whose gigantic projects can only be realized by the subjugation of this country, that he will turn the vast resources which he possesses, and which may be said to be almost unemployed, against the most accessible and vulnerable part of the empire. I need hardly say I mean Ireland. Even if it should be contended that the superiority of our marine can, for a long time, disable a power who has at his command an extent of coast from St. Petersburgh to Constantinople from becoming a formidable naval one; still, Sir, from the disastrous turn of affairs in Spain, which has placed that unfortunate country at the foot of Buonaparté, is it to be expected he will long delay at least an attempt to invade Ireland from that quarter; and if ever such an attempt could wear a prospect of success, it must do so from its being made from Spain, from whence one leading wind will convey the enemy to the Irish coast, whilst our fleets might be detained in harbour by the very wind which enabled him to put to sea. It is a singular fact, that there has long existed among the lower order of Irish a traditional belief, that if ever that country can be subdued it will be by a force departing from the shores of Spain. With respect to the latter country, it may not be too strong an opinion to hazard, that had the object of the present petition been granted two years ago, the affairs of the peninsula might now wear a very different aspect from what they unfortunately do at present. I have not the smallest doubt in my mind that by those means you might have increased your army to any amount you pleased, and it may be no wild speculation to suppose, that 100,000 Irishmen, professing the same religion, and believed by the Spaniards themselves to be descended from the same original stock, would be received with greater cordiality and confidence, than an army supposed to consist of avowed enemies to the Catholic religion—an idea which must have made considerable impression on their minds. The few indulgences which have been shewn to our fellow subjects professing that religion, could Buonaparté have dictated a line of conduct more likely than any other to hasten the accomplishment of his views, it would be that which has been pursued by his Majesty's advisers with respect to Ireland. To those who would resist the claim of four millions of brave and loyal subjects to equal participation in civil rights, thereby depriving them of the greatest inducement to unite against the common enemy, the ground of an imaginary danger to the established church, is almost too contemptible and absurd to notice. There are others, who professing (with the noble lord, and the right hon. gent., his late colleague) to acknowledge the equity of their claims, and the policy of eventually acceding to it, would have you believe the present moment is not a time when such a concession would properly be made; to those, Sir, I can only say, the sooner a measure, the expediency of which is not denied, is adopted, the better. Every day it is delayed is a day lost. I shall, therefore, Sir, give my vote for going into a committee.

—Sir, as one of the representatives for Ireland, I cannot give the vote which I intend upon this question, without shortly declaring the principles by which I am actuated. Although I feel as anxious as any member of this House to conciliate the affections of my Catholic countrymen, by ceding to their wishes every thing compatible with the actual security of a Protestant constitution, and although no man more earnestly desires to extend to them what they now ask, under proper guards, yet, when I know the great influence which the Catholic clergy, and particularly the hierarchy, hold over the minds and conduct of their flocks; when I feel the vital necessity that exists now more than ever, for guarding that influence from foreign intrigue, and when I consider the late resolutions of the general Catholic committee in Ireland, refusing to give to the government any controul whatever over the appointment of the Catholic bishops, I for one can never consent to give the Catholics a share in legislation or power, so long as they adhere to that principle. But even if we were to grant what the Catholics now ask, by a total repeal of the remaining restrictions over them, with a view to their perfect conciliation and contentment, I do not think we should be at all successful. In fact, Sir, I have no hopes of satisfying the great body of the Catholics, by any concession we can make on the present question, consistently with the security, and indeed the existence of a Protestant establishment. That which, they now claim is calculated only to gratify the ambition of the comparative few—and the want of which cannot be felt by the great majority; with whom, therefore, that want can be no grievance. There are other grounds of discontent infinitely more prominent in the minds of the Catholic population of Ireland, that are at the same time so interwoven with the very existence of a Protestant establishment, which, unless you are prepared either wholly to surrender or most materially alter, you do nothing to the purpose of general conciliation: I mean the system of tythes, equally felt by other sects. But on all other subjects the Catholics of Ireland at this moment enjoy every privilege and protection necessary to their freedom, prosperity and happiness, as well as every other sect of dissenters in the country. They have the free exercise of their religion. They have a college endowed at the public expence, for the education of their clergy: all the sources of learning, of science, of commercial and professional avocation, and wealth, are open to them, as well as to the rest of their fellow-subjects, with the exception only of the legislature and of those high offices in the power of the state, which is is impossible for you to transfer to them, so long as they acknowledge a foreign influence over their minds and principles. And in as much as the Catholics under this system have acquired considerable property, and as their strength must increase with the strength of their country, it is for the interest of the Catholic as well as of the Protestant that we should look with a jealous and vigilant eye towards every chance of foreign influence over so numerous a portion of the population of the country; more especially at this moment, and in the present situation of Europe. For there is no man who knows the influence of the Pope over the Catholic mind of Ireland, and reflects that the present Pope is under the immediate power of Buonaparté, nay, that he holds his office and his very existence at the discretion and mercy of that man, who looks to the subversion of this empire as to the last achievement neces- sary to crown his ambition, and confirm his domination over the world;—I say, Sir, it is impossible for any man who reflects on these things, and knows the avowed designs of that conqueror upon Ireland, not to look with alarm at the means now in his power of influencing in his favour four millions of his Majesty's Catholic subjects. It is for these reasons, Sir, that I cannot consent to give political power or influence to the Catholics, by yielding this measure, unless his Majesty is invested with as complete a controul over the appointment of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, as he holds over every other sect of dissenters, and totally independent of all foreign influence whatever. I am far from thinking, Sir, that there are not very many persons amongst the Catholics of Ireland who are men of the firmest loyalty and most exalted truth, to whom it is desirable to concede every privilege of the constitution, consistent with our security, and I know that they are as much interested in that security as we can be: but so long as the Catholics acknowledge a foreign influence over their religious discipline, and refuse to his Majesty any controul or interference whatever in the appointment of those ecclesiastical superiors who hold so absolute a sway over their minds and motives, I think it impossible for us to concede this measure. It is therefore with themselves to remove the impediment. Beside, Sir, as I before observed, with a view to the perfect conciliation and contentment of the great body of Catholics, there are other points still more necessary than this to concede: and more especially a modification of tythes, which forms by much the most general ground of discontent in that country: and convinced I am that you would do infinitely more towards conciliation and tranquillity in Ireland by an effective regulation on this head, than by any thing you could do to gratify the ambition of the higher orders.

At this protracted period of the debate, and late hour of the night, I shall not enter so much into detail on this question as I should have done if I had sooner been called upon by the chair. [Mr. Parnell had risen repeatedly to address the House in the course of this and the last night's debate.] I shall confine myself principally to the new obstacle which has arisen in the way of carrying the object of the petitioners. In respect to the Veto, the necessity of it rests alto- gether upon the degree of danger that is to be apprehended from foreign influence; for my part, I cannot see this danger in the light that many do who have spoken on this subject. I cannot agree with those who conceive it possible for the Pope in any way to subvert our establishments. History proves to us, that long before the period of the Revolution, all the political influence of the Pope, with respect to this country, had ceased. His power afterwards became absolutely insignificant; and during the whole of the question between the Houses of Stuart and Brunswick, it was notorious that the Pope could not stir one Roman Catholic in Ireland. I therefore feel no hesitation in saying that I cannot consent to the doctrine laid down by the right hon. mover of the question before us, that an arrangement to exclude foreign influence is absolutely necessary, but on the contrary, I am prepared to vote the prayer of the petition, without connecting with the concession any qualification^*. I feel the more ready to do so, when I consider the nature of the securities that we already possess for the preservation of our establishments. Besides those that have been mentioned in the resolutions of the bishops, and by members who have preceded me in this debate, I desire the House will well consider the nature of the security we should obtain by doing that which we are required to do. What effect would the act of imparting the constitution to our Catholic countrymen produce, in securing their support in the preservation of that constitution? Could we adopt any measure that would be more effectual in attaining the best possible security for the church and state? How could we give the Catholics a stronger motive to protect our constitution, than by giving them a full participation in the rights of it? I have always considered the great beauty of the constitution to consist in this, that it provided by its own excellencies and the advantage it confers for its preservation and security. If this be true, what occasion is there for seeking any new security for it by coupling with the grant of it, any stipulation concerning the Catholic prelacy? Of this power of the constitution to allay discontent, and to acquire for its support, the history of this country affords some striking examples. Wales for many years after its reduction by Edward I, was ruled by a form of government, something between hostility and government. The people were sometimes composed, never pacified. Wales was in perpetual disorder, and kept the frontier of England in perpetual alarm. To curb the rebellious spirit of the Welsh, fifteen statutes of penal regulation were passed, but with no good effect, till at length the eyes of your ancestors, as a great statesman has said, were opened to the ill-husbanding of injustice, and a complete representation in parliament was conferred upon them by Henry 8.—From this moment the tumult subsided, and it has been eloquently described—"peace, order and civilization, followed in the train of liberty: when the day-star of the British constitution had arisen in their hearts, all was harmony within and without." So would it be in respect to Ireland, if a complete representation were bestowed upon the Catholics; if this day-star of the constitution were suffered to rise in their hearts, all would then be peace, order and civilization, and harmony would every where prevail. The cases of Chester and Durham furnish fresh instances of the power of the constitution in attaching those who enjoy it to the zealous support of it. If then the doctrine contained in these examples avail any thing, why not apply it with respect to Ireland? If animosities of the most violent nature and of long continuance were converted into the peaceable connection that has subsisted for centuries between England and these dependencies, why should not a similar way of governing Ireland be attended with similar advantages? Why should not the hostility which now exists be converted into a union of mutual amity and affection equally profitable and beneficial to both countries? And with such examples, why should we not depend upon the power of the constitution to secure itself, instead of suffering ourselves to be led by an imaginary danger to desire the problematical protection the Veto would afford us? What the noble viscount (Castlereagh) said in the last night's debate in respect to the connection between the Irish Catholic prelacy and the Pope at distant periods corroborates the truth of the doctrine which I have endeavoured to maintain. He has said that when all the penal laws were in force this connection was more intimate than it has of late been since the partial repeal of those laws. But no other satisfactory reason can be given for this alteration, except, that in proportion as you have suffered the constitution to be enjoyed by the Catholics, they have acted upon feelings and principles more consistent with the principles of that constitution, and with views more of a domestic, and less of a foreign description. As to what the noble viscount said of Ireland being the only Catholic country in which the government has never interfered with the power of the Pope, the same doctrine will shew why it is not necessary in Ire- land, whilst such an interference might have been essential in other countries. The governments of those countries to which the noble viscount has alluded were despotic, and consequently weak. No operating principle existed within them to interest the people of them to support their government. Every foreign influence must, therefore, necessarily have been highly dangerous, and for this reason the rulers of those countries insisted upon and obtained a controul over that influence. But the different character of our government renders the example of these countries wholly inapplicable to our situation. We have a form of government which provides for its own security; we fear no attack upon it by those who live under it; foreign influence could never prevail on a people that fully enjoy the British constitution to conspire against it; and therefore, no necessity exists on our part, similar to that which did exist in those countries, to controul the influence of the Pope. With respect to the Veto, this great advantage has resulted from the Petition now before us, that a vast deal of misrepresentation and misunderstanding has been done away. And it now turns out, that those who have desired it, have not sought for any such measure as that which they were supposed to seek. It has been distinctly avowed by the noble viscount, in explaining the resolutions of 1799, that the government of that day did not wish to obtain the patronage of the Catholic prelacy; he has said the government would have been most unwilling to charge itself with the power of exercising such a patronage, and that such a patronage was wholly unnecessary. The right honourable gentleman below me (Mr. Ponsonby) in his admirable speech, has also disclaimed all idea of seeking any patronage for the crown in the proposed arrangement. If then this discussion has been productive of no other good than that of producing this explanation, it will have served an excellent purpose,—because it was upon a supposition that such a patronage was desired, that the Catholics felt it to be their duty to oppose as they have done the measure of Veto. Had they not been deceived, they never would have adopted the course they have done; for it appears from some of their own resolutions, and from the opinion that is known to prevail among them, that there exists no substantial difference between that opinion, and the opinion of those who think some arrangement respecting the future appointment of their bishops to be necessary. The Catholics of the county of Kildare have said, in their resolutions of the 9th of May:

^* Had it not been for the lateness of the hour, Mr. Parnell would have read the following opinion of Mr. Fox respecting the influence of the Pope.—

"The Pretender being gone, and all other questions of radical difficulty removed as to him, we now come to another person—the Pope. I wish to know whether, during the last 200 years, the Pope has been a person to be feared? If he has, it can only have been in one way, by his oppression of the Catholics. Long before the period of the Revolution, all the political influence of the Pope, with respect to this country, had ceased. His power became afterwards absolutely insignificant, and during the whole of the question between the Houses of Stuart and Brunswick, it was notorious that the Pope could not stir one Roman Catholic in Ireland. But it is stated that the persons principally concerned in the Rebellion of 1798, were Roman Catholics. I have no doubt that the Catholics had their share in that Rebellion, but were they instigated by the Pope? What! by the Pope while he was in a state of servitude and humiliation? Did the Pope, while he looked to this country as almost his only support, wish to overturn our government, and prevail on the Irish Catholics to follow Messrs. O'Connor, Emmet, and M'Nevin? This fear of the influence of the Pope, when he has no power to do us harm, and when

he cannot do us good, even though he wish it, is perfectly absurd. It is an alarm which can be accounted for on no rational principle. Has the recollection of the proconsuls, sent by the Cæsars to govern this country, left such an impression upon us, as to make us dread every thing that comes from Rome? But it is said Buonaparté has obtained an influence over the Pope, the Pope governs the Irish priests, and thus Buonaparté will be able to attach to him the Catholics of Ireland.—Without canvassing the question of the inclination of the Pope to serve the views of Buonaparté, I shall admit that the French government will willingly employ his influence, so far as they can obtain it. That the great enemy of this country would be very willing to make use of such an engine, to serve his purposes in Ireland, I have no doubt. But how will he use his influence? If you will repeal these laws, you will have nothing to fear from that quarter; but if on the contrary, you persevere in your restrictions, the way in which the influence so much dreaded may be exercised, can only be this: the Irish Catholics will be told, "An equal participation of rights was held out to you, but instead of granting your just claims, instead of affording you the relief and protection you were promised, you are still stigmatized as outcasts. You have, therefore, now only to look to a Catholic emperor for assistance, and through him you may expect the emancipation which

has been denied you," This is the language which may be used, if you are determined to persist in your present system: but in the other alternative, what influence can the Pope have? Suppose he were to direct the priests to take care that none but Roman Catholic members were chosen for Ireland; and suppose this influence were so far to succeed as to bring a considerable proportion of Roman Catholics into this House among the representatives from Ireland, is it likely that Buonaparté would find many friends among these Roman Catholic members? If there were eighty members Roman Catholics, it would be an extravagant supposition, indeed, to say that even three of them would be so dead to all sense of honour and duty, so blind to the interests and happiness of their country, as to become the instruments of Buonaparté. Of the influence to be used in this way by the Pope, surely no reasonable person can entertain any serious apprehension. Is it possible to look forward to any future circumstances under which that influence can become dangerous? Great men, it is said, have long views, but some views are so long that my sight, I must confess, cannot reach them. It has been said of our system of government, Esto per-petua; but I should desire no better security for the power and the constitution of this country lasting for ever, than that they should continue until either a Pope or a Buonaparté could obtain a Popish majority in this House."—Catholic Debate, 1805.

"That a leading and perhaps solitary obstacle to our wishes appears to arise from an apprehension rather generally entertained by our Protestant brethren, of the future nomination of our bishops being open to the interference of a foreign and hostile influence.

"That however groundless and visionary such an apprehension may appear to us, from our long experience of the eminent virtues, constitutional attachments, and exemplary conduct of the venerable body of our clergy—and disposed as we may be to consider it as the last link of the broken chain of prejudice, still it behoves us to meet it with a calm and conciliatory temper—and to express our wishes and hopes, that in the event of the full concession of our claims, some means may be resorted to of quieting it for ever.

"That it appears to us, that a guard most effectual and permanent may be opposed to this apprehended influence.

"That on mature and dispassionate deliberation, some measure may be devised, which shall render all future episcopal appointment substantially domestic,—and that such an end may be obtained, by either vesting the nomination in the surviving bishops, or by the choice of the clergy of the diocese, in chapter assembled, or by some such proceeding as shall be found strictly compatible with the inviolability of our religion."

The General Committee of the Catholics have also resolved, on the 7th of May:

"That the secretary be directed to summon all the members of the Committee on the 11th day of May instant, to take into consideration the propriety of proposing to concert with the Catholic prelates in Ireland such measures as being perfectly consistent with the Catholic doctrine and discipline, may effectually and for ever prevent, as well the influence of the crown, as any foreign and hostile influence in the appointment of the prelates of our church in Ireland."

Those resolutions fully prove, that between the right hon. gent. who has brought forward this motion, and those who agree with him in considering a domestic nomination essential for the safety of the State and the Catholics, no such variance of sentiment exists, as to leave it at all doubtful that an arrangement may be accomplished. A circumstance of vast importance to the future prospects of the Catholics;—and one that takes away from the hon. gentlemen opposite all grounds for that vain triumph which they have exhibited, on the supposition of a schism between the Catholics and their firm and steady parliamentary supporters. It is a circumstance also that affords a complete answer to the question of a learned judge; why go into a Committee if you have no plan to propose? I say, the circumstances of the case are at present such, that if you did go into a Committee, there exists no doubt that a plan would easily be arranged to the satisfaction of all parties.

Pass this vote to-night, said Mr. Parnell, and adjourn the sitting of the Committee for a fortnight, and I will undertake to say, that you will find the Catholics ready to submit to you such an arrangement as will effectually provide against all the danger of foreign influence and French connection.

I should wish, Sir, to enter fully into the general merits of this question, hut I shall not now attempt to do so, after the extended discussion that has taken place. As to the claim of right, I am prepared to contend for it, and will not relinquish it. I must however, for the present, content myself with asserting that the Catholics have a right to complete equality of law. But if the House will not concede to them what they ask as a matter of right, I then call upon you to make the concession on a principle of gratitude.—What does the English nation owe to the Irish Catholics?—What did it acquire by the surrender of Limerick?—Those who suppose that by that event a garrison town was only given up to king William, know nothing of the case.—It was the surrender of a large disciplined army; so large, that 14,000 men belonging to it took advantage of the treaty to enter the French service. It put an end to the third campaign that William was obliged to fight to conquer Ireland. By it the Catholics abjured the sovereignty of their lawful king, James 2, and acknowledged the English title of William 3. By it the Catholics gave Ireland to England, and confirmed to the people of England the rights and liberties belonging to the revolution in 1688; for till the Catholics submitted to William, no one can say the constitutional arrangement of 1688 was secure. What did the Catholics do for England in the contest between the houses of Stuart and Brunswick? They adhered to their engagements entered into at the surrender of Limerick;—they stood by England in both the rebellions of 1715 and 1745;—they stood by her again in the content with her American colonies; and in respect to the rebellion of 1798. I declare, that if it had not been for the loyal exertions and example of the leading Catholics and of the Catholic clergy, Ireland could not at that time have been preserved for England. I appeal for the truth of what I say to no less authority than the report of the committee of the Irish House of Commons, drawn up by the person the most capable of forming a correct judgment on the transaction, the noble viscount opposite. But if, Sir, the House will not concede the prayer of the petitioners even on a principle of gratitude, then I say they ought to concede it on another principle—a feeling of compunction. You have governed for a century the Catholics of Ireland by statutes unexampled for their inhumanity, unwarrantableness, and impolicy; adopted to exterminate a race of men, already worn down, and crushed by a series of calamities greater than ever one nation had an opportunity of inflicting on another; sanctioned by a people who owed their liberties, and by monarchs who owed their throne to a solemn covenant that no such statutes should exist. May I not then ask, whether the English nation, legislature, and King, have not a duty to fulfil to the Roman Catholics of Ireland greater than that of justice?—a duty of compunction, repentance and atonement. If the faith of a solemn treaty made with them has been broken, it is not enough that it has been in part re-established—it ought to be religiously fulfilled. If they have been ruled with tyranny, it is not enough that the tyranny should be relaxed—it should cease altogether. If they have been driven from the pale of the constitution, is it not enough that they should be allowed to pass its barriers—they should range free and uncontrouled through all its rights.

.—Sir; after the very able and eloquent speeches of the hon. members who have preceded me in the support this motion, it will be quite unnecessary for me to trespass at any length on the attention of the House, in the declaration of my own sentiments. I disclaim most heartily all those principles of bigotry which go to exclude any one class of loyal subjects from a participation in the common rights and privileges of their country, merely on account of their religious creed, and upon this ground I have always voted in favour of what I think the just claims of our Catholic fellow-subjects. To my understanding, every prejudice and misconception towards their principles and tenets urged by their old opponents, have been so fully and fairly answered, and so completely refuted, that I was led to imagine little if any objection could now remain to granting their request. But I lament extremely, that just as every thing was brought to a point, a new difficulty should have started to defeat the expectations of the Catholics, and prevent that cordial union of all his Majesty's subjects so indispensable to our safety in the trying hour of danger, and that we are now to be told it is impossible to concede to the Catholics of Ireland a repeal of the last vestiges of degrading restriction under which they have so long and so patiently suffered, unless they can give us full and satisfactory security against the operation of foreign influence upon their fealty. In my mind, Sir, this is a mere pretence of those who oppose the Catholics, to throw difficulties in the way of their success: for, Sir, I ask, what stronger security can you demand than the inviolable honour and faith of the Irish Catholics, in their fealty and attachment to you under all the hardships, severities, and persecutions heaped on them by your ancestors? Can it be supposed that they will become less faithful—less attached to you—under a system of paternal kindness, of confidence, and a full participation in the rights and privileges you enjoy, than they have been under a system of jealous preclusion and unnatural hostility, so long excited against them. If you will not accept the most solemn oaths of those old, tried, and faithful, but maltreated allies, backed by their conduct for the last century, and supported by their own interest embarked with yours, as a security against all foreign Influence, of whom are you to seek that security? What better can they offer you than their conduct for the past, as an earnest of their fidelity for the future? Upon what other principle can you form a judgment of the characters of mankind, individually or nationally? By what other means on earth can they convince you of their own integrity and of your error? What bad principle or mal-intention, religious or political, have you ever imputed to them, that they have not completely refuted? What oaths,—what pledges of their loyalty have you ever demanded, that they have not cheerfully given—that they have not verified by their conduct, and, where occasion has offered, sealed with their blood? Upon what ground, then, do you justify your distrust? Or do you prefer the risque of piquing the Catholics, by your ungenerous and unwarrantable suspicions, into a real attachment for foreign influence, rather than by a liberal confidence, amply warranted by their conduct, to secure for ever their alliance and affection?—more especially at a crisis when that alliance is indispensable to your security—to your existence? Do you imagine that your wily enemy will not rejoice in your impolicy, and use every means in his power to heighten the disgust you excite by your rejection of the Catholic claims? What stronger cause for triumph could you afford to Buonaparté, than in thus casting from you the affections and attachments of that body of men who alone can aid you in counteracting his designs upon your country. Will he not rejoice in this instance of your folly and imprudence, in neglecting to secure while you can the fidelity and affections of the people of Ireland, which it is your best interest to use every means in your power to procure? In every point of view, whether of policy, of reason, or philanthropy, it is our duty to concede to the claims of our Catholic fellow-subjects. It is what they have every right to expect, and for which they have every fair claim upon your justice. It is alledged that the power of the Pope, urged by Buonaparté, may exert an influence over the minds of the Irish Catholics hostile to us: but in my mind an influence infinitely more hostile in the minds of that people, will be created by our repeated and inexcusable resistance to their supplications.—I have no doubt of the propriety of your requiring from the Catholic every reasonable security on this head, nor of his readiness to give you that security by every means short of a departure from the essential tenets of his religious faith.—This, however, is a sacrifice which you neither can nor ought to expect. But I ask, how is the Catholic to know the nature of the securities you demand, unless you define them? Or how are you to know whether be is prepared to give or refuse those securities, or what others equally valid he is ready to propose, unless you go into the enquiry, and give him an opportunity of explaining? These points I conceive will best be answered by going into a Committee, and upon these grounds I shall give my support to the motion.

.—Sir, I should not rise to say one word upon this subject, but for the charges I have heard this night from some hon. members on the other side of the House, of cruelty and injustice from the Protestants of Ireland against their Catholic fellow-subjects.—Sir, the accusation is unfounded: no part of the conduct of the Protestants towards the Catholics has been dictated by religious intolerance; and refer to the whole course of the present reign, to shew whether it is the disposition of a Protestant government to persecute the Catholics,—but on the contrary, whether the whole reign of his present Majesty has not presented one continued series of relaxation and indulgence to them? I refer Gentlemen to the successive repeals, within the last thirty years, of all the penal statutes which imposed upon the Catholic any injurious restrictions, and I ask whether there exists at this moment a single penal statute affecting the Catholic in his liberty, his property, his education, or the free exercise of his religion? Will any man say that a Catholic cannot go into a court of justice for the maintenance of his right, with the same impartiality that a Protestant does? Can he not purchase property under the same security and protection that a Protestant can? And is he not therefore as much interested as any other man of any class of people in the security of the constitution and of the country? Sir, I am sure the Catholics of Ireland would shew themselves a loyal and a faithful people, if the safety of their country was in danger. Now, with respect to the question before the House, I think it should be the policy of every free country to admit of no foreign influence over any of its subjects. The Catholics of this country, so far back as the reign of Edward the First, refused to admit any such influence as the Catholics of Ireland now acknowledge; and therefore. Sir, until the Catholics of Ireland change their sentiments, I will not vote for a measure which, so long as such foreign influence does exist, I believe to be dangerous to a Protestant state. I shall therefore vote against going into the Committee.

.—Sir, The hon. gent. who has just addressed you, says the Catholics ought not to come to us again with their complaints, because many of their grievances have been already redressed.—What, Sir! is the justice that has been done them to be charged against them as a debt; and have people no right to complain of their present wrongs, because they formerly have been oppressed to a still greater extent? Such a sentence shews more than volumes in what light the Catholics have been considered, and are still considered by some; namely, as persons who have no rights, and to whom every thing that is left, is left as mere matter of favour. The hon. gent. particularises; he asks you, do not the Catholics come into a court of justice on equal terms with the Protestants, and do they not enjoy quiet possession of their property? And is it in a British House of Commons that such questions as those can be asked? What, Sir, would he have us to consider it as a possible case, that men could be, at this time of day, nonsuited for their religion, or plundered of their property for an article of faith?

Sir, that such sentiments can even now be uttered, convinces me (what I have thought before) that the main ground on which this question ought to rest has not been sufficiently insisted on; namely, the ground of right. For of absolute and indefeasible right do I maintain that it is, that every subject, when he has discharged every civil duty to the state, may claim the enjoyment of every civil privilege. I maintain that to grant the most perfect religious toleration is not only the first dictate of political wisdom, but the first law of political justice. It is moreover not only the first mark of benevolence to man, but of piety and submission to God.

It will be said, perhaps, why this praise of toleration; it is at least quite unnecessary, for where are the enemies of toleration? Sir, if it is about things, and not about words that we are now occupied, I answer, without hesitation, you are the enemies of toleration, you who have hitherto refused to grant the prayers of the Catholics, and now refuse even to hear then. That you are not the enemies of toleration is an answer you have in common, not only with all those who have merely held intolerant principles, but I verily believe with every persecutor that ever dyed his hands in blood. There is in the character of intolerance something so revolting to the understanding as well as the heart of man, that I question if any one ever yet owned it, I will not say to others, but even to himself, that he was intolerant. When Trajan, instead of punishing the Christians in a mass, sent only Ignatius to the wild beasts as an example, no doubt he thought himself the pattern of toleration.—When Philip drove the Moors out of Spain to perish in the deserts of Africa, it is recorded that he piqued himself on his clemency towards them, and when Louis revoked the edict of Nantes, he feared that he was even criminally tolerant. But why take the examples from Pagans and Catholics only? Did not the first Protestant parliament in Scotland make it death to say the mass? I dare be bound the teachers of those days, who instigated this execrable law, did not the less for that claim to be the ministers of mercy. Thus, our forefathers, who passed those laws against the Catholics which have so long disgraced our Statute book, no doubt were all professors of toleration; and thus the opposers of this motion would boast of their toleration; though they seek to keep the Catholics under injurious privation and ignominious distinction, purely on account of their religion; for to their political conduct or principles there is neither complaint or objection, and every political pledge that can be devised they have offered over and over again.

Thanks to the genius of the age, such enormities as intolerance has formerly led to, cannot now be repeated; possibly also the general humanity of those gentlemen might so far correct their bigotry, as at any rate to prevent them from being the abettors or authors of such cruelties. But still I must say their principles have nothing to do with toleration. Their system may be called suspended persecution, mitigated severity, or what you will; but toleration is of another family; the fruits may resemble, but they spring from a different root. Their system, like some poisonous plant, removed to a milder climate and more genial soil, may be so far dulcified as to become seemingly innoxious, but restored to its native shades will bear poison again—this is a wholesome root, and grow where it will, its fruit will be wholesome. Let the true principle of toleration be established, and let the dark ages come again, no persecution will ensue; but let the principles of the right hon. gent. get into harsher hands, and in a less enlightened age, and men will again be led to torture and death for religious opinions. The difference is this, one suspends the exercise of severity, the other abhors the right of interference.

What then is true toleration? For the answer, we are not, as some would have us, to look merely to the etymology of the word; for then must we say, that a religion would be tolerated even if its professors were enjoined never to go out but with gives and fetters on. Then we must admit that the Hugonots were tolerated in France when each man was allowed to pray in his closet, and was hanged only when he associated with two or three others for the sake of religious communion. Then must we admit that the Catholics of Ireland were tolerated when they were deprived of every civil right, and that they are tolerated now when only some of the former invidious distinctions remain.

But, it is said, what now remains is of little moment, and it is even asked, of what they complain? Sir, they complain indeed of those privations which take away from them almost every pursuit of laudable ambition, but much more do they complain of the light in which they are regarded by the laws. Feeling themselves to be as good and as loyal subjects as any Protestant whatever, they complain that they are marked out as objects of suspicion and jealousy. They complain that this induces such sentiments regarding them as have been expressed by the last hon. speaker, treating them as persons deserving less privilege and respect than their fellow subjects. Let any man put it to his bosom how he would feel under similar circumstances, be the distinction itself ever so trivial. It is not the thing—it is the intention—it is the effect—degradation in the minds of others and humiliation in their own, the more painful the less it is merited.

But what is then the principle of true toleration? Sir, we have an answer from the highest authority so express, that it would seem to have been made for the very occasion, and in anticipation of the errors into which religious zeal would lead human blindness. Memorable words! which, though they may have been quoted for sinister purposes, proceed not the less from divine wisdom and immortal truth: "Render to Cæsar what is Cæsar's, and to God what is God's." What is it then that Cæsar or the state can at the utmost claim? It will claim perfect obedience to every civil institution: perfect perform- ance of every civil duty. Equal contribution to every burden of the state—inclusive of that which is to support the religious establishment, because a religious establishment is essential to the civil welfare of the state. But all this done and performed, the state has no more to ask—the rest is God's—and any farther claim, whether by injunction, inhibition, direct penalty, or privation for non-compliance, is intolerant, impolitic, unjust, and above all, most unchristian.

But setting aside the consideration of justice and religion, one cannot but stop a moment to contemplate the impolicy and absurdity of the thing. The state demands of its subjects every act which may contribute to its safety and welfare. Well, this is done and performed. Next it demands an opinion, and subjects those to a privation who do not comply. Why; can a man comply? Is his opinion in his own power? He may, indeed, consent to be a hypocrite, and thus thousands of hypocrites have been made, but no convert was ever thus made from the beginning of the world, nor will there till the end of it.

In the attempt, however, you are very likely to make a bad subject, and thus many bad subjects are made. I think, Sir, I feel in my own bosom, every principle and sentiment that belongs to a good subject. There is no duty to my country I would not fully perform, no sacrifice for which it would call and from which I would shrink; not only because I love my country for its own sake, but because it confers upon me more civil rights than any state ever yet conferred on its subjects. But thus could I not feel were I an Irish Catholic; I could not, in the same sense, be a good subject. I should, indeed, not be a rebel, because, viewing the evils of resistance, I should submit,—nay balancing the other good belonging to my country against this its injustice to me, I might still prefer it to any other country. But that unchecked love, that entire devotion to it which I now feel, I could not feel as an Irish Catholic under their present oppression.

Here we have an answer to that question so often asked with regard to Ireland. Whence comes it that the Irish have always manifested a more restless and lawless disposition than any other nation equally civilized? Is it any thing in the soil or climate? No country more favoured under heaven. Is it the want of law? No. Of police? In few countries have so much attention been paid to the police. Is it any thing in the native genius or character of her inhabitants? I think, Sir, if a prince were asked over what sort of people he wished to reign, he would answer, (if he knew what he was about) "Let me have a people of strong affections and ardent character, unbounded in their gratitude and devotion to those they love. Such are the subjects to make me the happiest of princes, and who under me shall be the happiest of people. My reign shall be glorious as it is happy; and as to foreign invasion, it will only be mentioned as a subject of derision." Have I, Sir, entirely failed in describing the Irish character, and do we not feel that something like this picture might be realized? The fault then, is not with the people; nor is it with their governors; for we see (though doubtless there have been exceptions) that frequently the attachment of the nation to their governors has been (as I believe is now the case) both warm and general.—No, Sir, the cause why the people of Ireland are more restless and more lawless than any other, is this: that whereas in every other country the religion of the people is protected by, and in alliance with its laws, here it is proscribed by the law; and thence arises such a collision of duties, of interests, and of feelings, as cannot fail to perpetuate that perturbed state till the fundamental cause is removed.

Here, Sir, I must observe that it is easier for an English Catholic to be a good subject, than an Irish Catholic. I hope I shall not be understood as detracting from the merits of that excellent body of our fellow-subjects, the English Catholics, whose exemplary patience,—whose patriotism triumphing over the sense of their wrongs, excite an admiration which it is not easy to express. May they soon receive, I will not say the reward, but the justice to which their conduct has so long entitled them! But such conduct has been easier for them, than for the Irish Catholics. Doubtless an act of injustice, whether done to a small or a greater number, is the same; but the sensation it excites is different. The general feeling, that the minority must submit to the will of the majority, weakens the sense of whatever wrong they may suffer. But the Irish Catholics have not this salvo for their feelings;—they form a prodigious majority of the people, and Ireland exhibits that strange phænomenon, where a small minority of the people have attempted and succeeded, not only in dictating a religious establishment foreign to the religion of the mass, but in imposing penalties on the majority for non-conformity.

Sir, when we are condemning the Irish for those ebullitions of resistance which have occurred, with all the melancholy consequences belonging to them, we ought to take these considerations into account.—If we do, I think, that in reviewing the history of Ireland, in observing how they have been treated;—originally wronged,—always oppressed,—often deceived,—twice confiscated within a short period,—we shall be less inclined to wonder at the restless state in which Ireland has remained, than to wonder that there should still continue there so much attachment to this country as there does. Be it our happy task to improve and to justify this attachment;—to try that new experiment with Ireland, of ruling them by their hearts, and of reconciling their laws to their religion.

If I were to address separately any class of persons who oppose this motion, I think it would be those who oppose it chiefly on religious grounds; for I think, if one could for a moment induce such to divest themselves of those ideas and opinions with which they are now encircled, as it were, in an atmosphere of prejudice; if one could get them for a moment to view the case as a subject entirely fresh and new, it would be impossible for them to continue their opposition.—That persons can have made religion the parent of intolerance,—that persons meaning sincerely can have extracted persecution out of Christianity, is one of those things which, seeing it before our eyes we cannot deny, but which, if we would account for it, confounds both our reason and imagination. History tells the horrible extravagance to which such perversions have led, and present experience shews that they are not wholly extinguished.—Whence does this solecism arise, that from a religion, the essence of which is humility and love, any thing can grow that is so insolent and uncharitable? It comes from this wretched imperfection of the human mind, which leads men, in pursuing an end that is good, to forget the means by which they pursue it. They love their religion, and would support it. But religion will not thus be supported,—it wants not such aid, but abhors it. Such aid may injure, but cannot benefit the church; and there is something in the nature of the thing that makes it so.—Hence the season of power has always been the season of corruption in the church; while the day of distress has been the harvest of virtue, and the triumph of Christianity. Have these meddling Christians so weak a sense of the truth they profess, as to think it cannot defend itself; or if they will undertake its defence, would not their victory be a little more clear and honourable without the aid of a constable?—Do these presumptuous worms think that God cannot support himself without their disabling statutes! Sir, these persons do inexpressible injury to the cause they would support; not only by the discredit they bring on religion, and of which its enemies have always been ready to take advantage, but by teaching its professors to lean in any degree on foreign aid, and less on what is their only true and legitimate support, purity of doctrine, purity of life, and an humble zeal in the discharge of its ministry.

It seems to me that some of those persons have either forgot or too little studied their church history, when they would represent the difference between the Catholic and Protestant religion to be so essentially extreme and irreconcilable. I suspect, if they were to come to a fair examination of the matter, they would be surprised to find how much they had been misled by the misrepresentation and exaggeration which it was for a considerable time the policy of this country to favour and extend. A policy which (whether or no it could be justified at the time) has now neither excuse nor pretext. Such persons would find that the difference is really not as wide as they imagine: that the original breach was occasioned rather by corrupt practices, than erroneous opinions;—that it was rendered absolute rather by political than religious causes; and that the first reformers, so far from deeming the differences irreconcilable, had laboured hard to produce reconciliation. That the ignorance and darkness of the times should produce, in religion as in every thing else error and corruption was to be expected. But are we to fasten on the Catholics, as an inherent sin, all those errors and corruptions, or are we not to make the same allowance for the Catholics on account of the times, as is made for every thing else? As well might we fix on our constitution all the tyrannies of Henry the 7th and 8th, as on the Catholic religion all the abuses then defended. In common justice, we ought to try them by their tenets as now professed, understood, and exemplified in their conduct, if this is done, we shall find them maintaining no practice, and holding no doctrines (whether free from error is another question); but none which are incompatible with the true principles of good subjects or sincere christians.—Why then, when every motive of religion or policy prompts a reconciliation, shall we declare interminable war with them, not only to the great danger of the state, but great injury to the cause of Christianity? I verily believe that no man could render either a greater benefit to the state or a service more acceptable to God, than he who should do any thing to heal those deep wounds which Christianity has received in the contests of its disciples, and in any degree to approximate those who worship and love the same master. It is here impossible not to notice a former publication made in this view by a worthy bart. (sir J. Hippisley), as well as his able speech in seconding the motion now before the House. The execution is as honourable to his understanding, as the purpose is to his heart; and for it I think he deserves the united thanks of the christian world. But it is said the restrictions left on the Catholics are not intended either for the purpose of punishment or to bring them over, but for that of self-defence.

Self-defence against whom? Against those who offer you every pledge of security that you can devise for their political principles. Who draw the distinction between their religious and political duties so clearly, that you cannot by possibility misunderstand them. Who exemplify their political principles by their conduct:—who, if you still doubt their sincerity, refer you to their conduct in peace, in war, in rebellion; who recruit your armies and man your navy; who illustrate the Catholic practice by the victories they have achieved for you and the blood they are shedding in your defence. Are these the persons against whom you are maintaining penalties on the ground of self-defence? Self-defence! and by what means? By taking from them the sword? No: you leave them the sword, and take from them the feather of distinction, the soldier's pride and honour; that which cannot add to his strength, but must confirm his attachment. But the absurdity is not less in other points of view. A regiment shall consist entirely of Catholics, a ship shall be entirely manned by Catholics; of these persons you have no fear, amongst whom, if there were any dark principles in their religion, which could render it dangerous, such danger must more probably exist; but the officer, the man of enlightened education, with whom such danger must at any rate be less; he who has moreover stronger motives, both of interest and of honour, to be faithful to the state he serves, it is of him you will be jealous, against him you will guard; he shall not be trusted beyond a certain rank; and, you say, whereas we have 50,000 Catholics fighting in our army and navy, for further security against the evil designs of such, be it enacted that no Catholic shall become member of a corporation, or become a director of the bank!

The argument, that Catholics cannot be trusted on their oaths seems now to be less relied on than formerly, but as it has not been wholly abandoned, I will not pass it over, for it is, not only of an absurdity which no invention could surpass, but of a malice fit only for the devil. Thus it stands: the Catholics cannot be trusted on their oath. What then? Do you exterminate them? This would be intelligible, and almost be just. Do you deprive them of the protection of the laws, of which they would be unworthy? This also would be intelligible, and would be just. Do you disqualify them from taking an oath, which seems the necessary consequence of such an opinion concerning them? No one of these things you will do, but you will put them to the test of an oath, whether they are of a religion or not which disregards an oath.—But, Sir, the wickedness of this argument shall not escape under shelter of its absurdity. Those who, from the sophistries of the most wicked persons in the worst ages, never adopted by the Catholics at large, and now disclaimed by all, can conclude thus of three fourths of Ireland and three-fourths of Europe, should excite something more than contempt, and their argument should only be mentioned, that it may be trampled under foot with abhorrence.

Of the King's conscience we also hear less now than formerly. It is, indeed, Very clear, that without the utmost disrespect, to his Majesty that could not be considered as a case of conscience, which has already been so often broken through.—But we will suppose (what this House ought not constitutionally to admit the knowledge of) that his Majesty has a strong opinion against conceding further to the Catholics. If so, his Majesty will do his duty. But let us do ours. If we think they ought to be conceded to, it is our duty to give that advice. We are here to counsel, and not to flatter. Some gentlemen would delay such advice till what they call a favourable moment: that is, till we suppose it would be acceptable. Such a mode of acting would obviously destroy all the uses and functions of this House. But is indeed such delay within our power? Are we sure the times admit of it. Are we sure that we shall not want the cordial union of every man in Ireland, before the period to which they would delay a measure which alone can produce it? Are we sure that foreign devices, working on internal discontent, may not, before the time to which they would delay its remedy, produce mischief perhaps irreparable? Are we not sure that the slower it arrives, justice becomes the less grateful? Do we not see that even now; that which would but a few years ago have been gratefully accepted, with the conditions annexed, is refused under those conditions? Have we quite forgot our dear-bought experience with America, when avarice led the way, and pride would not retreat, from claims in themselves unimportant? As concession was delayed, those claims rose higher, till at last concession could not keep, pace with them, and in the end we could not purchase her friendship even by the concession of all.—May this not be the case with Ireland, and may we not delay our justice till it shall be too late!

It would seem, Sir, as if every motive which can act on the human mind all combined to urge us to the same conclusion.—

"Can love allure us, or can terror awe?"

Do we long to join with our brethren in Ireland in the strongest union of affection? Do we dread the loss of Ireland,—that which must now be the loss of England also? Do we like peace and safety better than commotion and danger? Do we love justice? do we love religion?—All, all these motives urge us to the same point: Justice to and friendship with the Catholics.

To such reasons it would seem impossible that any authority could give additional weight. Yet, as if that no possible ground might be wanting, we hare here a force of authorities, such as perhaps had never before concurred on any subject. The authority of every great man since the case has existed. That of Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt, who differing on almost every other subject, could not but agree on this. That of Mr. Burke, whose wisdom on late occasions, has seemed almost prophetical. That of lord Cornwallis, the pacificator of Ireland. That of a right hon. gent. present (Mr. Grattan,) who if any man ever deserved more than another to be called the patriot of his country, deserves that proudest of all titles.—And shall I omit to mention the authority of him, so long the pride and ornament of this House and country, of whose loss we are hourly trembling to hear, (Mr. Windham.) So lately and so fervently did he urge the cause of the Catholics, that it is impossible not to feel as if he were now amongst us, and pleading that cause to our hearts which he can no longer plead to our ears. He may be gone, and that voice on which we have so often hung with improvement and delight, may be heard no more! But let not what he said be lost upon us; let his precepts, and let his example live.—Never shall his memory die while virtue, genius, patriotism, integrity, courage, and all the qualities and attainments which can adorn or honour human nature, continue to be in estimation.

As to the Veto, I confess I have been extremely sorry to see that it is refused by the Catholics, not being, (as I think,) at all connected with any of their religious opinions. But I have been sorry rather because it would delay the accomplishment of that which they desire, than that the Veto appears to me of any great moment in itself; and my reasons are these:

First, I do not discover the danger of foreign influence, and secondly, I do not see how, if that danger did exist, the Veto would be an adequate guard against it.

I do not see the danger; for I think the separation between spiritual and temporal power is so perfectly drawn and well understood, that the former can no longer act on the latter, and I think the state of Europe is a proof of it. If it is objected that spiritual power in Ireland is more effective than elsewhere, I answer that this is precisely owing to the depression in which the Romish church has there been held; and that if you would reduce spiritual power in Ireland to the same nullity as to temporal matters, which it has fallen to every where else, you must let it alone, and not oppose it.

But if it were otherwise, and that the spiritual influence of the Pope extended over temporal matters to any considerable degree; still, from what we have experienced lately, we should rather consider that, as the power of a friendly ally, than of an enemy. While the present Pope continues no danger need be feared. Indeed it is impossible to mention this prelate without the highest admiration. Deprived of every comfort, subject to every indignity, exposed to every danger, assailed by every temptation; his constancy and resignation in suffering, and his courageous adherence to his duty, present a spectacle of virtue and religion which has not been surpassed in the christian history.

But it is said, another Pope may follow, nominated by, and a tool in the hands of our enemy:—I answer, that this may happen, but also, it may not happen. If it does, it remains to be seen whether such a Pope would have in Ireland the influence we fear. From the declarations of the Catholics, as well as the reason of the thing, there is good ground to believe that he would not, and thus the danger we apprehend may never arrive.

Sir, I will not incur a present and certain danger to avoid one that is future and contingent. Besides, I contend that when that danger arrives, it will better be guarded against than it can now; because, the existence of the danger being then apparent, all good men would join with us in adopting the necessary measures: and those things which are now resisted as a concession to our unjust apprehension, would then be called for by the Catholics as a security for their own independence.

But, if the Catholic clergy retaining a temporal influence over the people of Ireland, should ever be in a state to be acted on by our enemy, through the medium of the Pope. I imagine that the Veto would be but a feeble rampart to protect us. The civil laws of the country would be a much more powerful guard, and if they are inadequate to the case, much may be added as circumstances may require. If disused, the Veto is nothing; if put into action, it would be a perpetual cause of irritation, and that without, as I think, gaining a single point. In every view, domestic nomination offers, without those objection, a more practicable as well as a more effectual security.

Though I think the Catholics are wrong in refusing any thing which their religion does not command them to refuse, yet I think from all that has passed, they are entitled to much allowance. They have not been well treated, they may therefore naturally be suspicious and unjust. But let them, on the other hand, make a due allowance for the fears and prejudices of the Protestants. We also had once much to complain of, and if our suspicions and prejudices be not wholly worn out, in our turn we may be excused. Let the Catholics and Protestants but once meet for a moment in this temper and the thing is done. It is with us to set the example, for we are the strongest, and have therefore the least cause to fear. We have been last in the wrong, and ought therefore to make the advance.

Many and deep have been the disappointments of this country; great the successes of our enemy, and great is our present danger, but we have now in our power, and by the single vote of this night, to gain over Buonaparté a victory more important than he ever gained over his enemies.

Finally, if nothing can convince or persuade the opposers of this motion, let them at least recollect how vain their opposition must be. As well might they stop the tide of the Atlantic from flowing on the shores of Ireland, as stop the tide of opinion which prevails through that country, in favour of Catholic emancipation. All that they can do by their opposition is to delay it for a very little while, and to cause that to be the result of desperate conflict and painful victory, which they ought to owe to the justice and love of this country.

rose amidst a loud cry of question, question.—Sir; I am aware that the question has been loudly called for; and certainly I should have no wish to protract the discussion to any greater length, but for the desire I have to answer an observation made by the hon. gent. who spoke last. The hon. gent. in his speech, was very eloquent in recommending conciliation on the part of his Majesty's government, towards all classes of his Majesty's subjects. With his observations in this respect I perfectly agree; but I cannot consent to have it go forth that his Majesty's government have been in any respect inattentive to the interests of the subject, when the grievance came in a shape which could be removed with safety and prudence. The hon. gent. has not taken much notice of the prevalence of the disposition in the officers of the army and navy, to indulge the men, of whatsoever religion they may be, in the course they think best of worshipping the Deity. I can assure the hon. gent. I have seen that with great pleasure, and certainly there has been a very good reason for doing it; for as a means of conciliating the men, it was the best that could have been adopted. Nor has this disposition been less manifested on the part of his Majesty's ministers; and certain I am, painful as their duty sometimes is, if the hon. gent. was himself in the administration he would do the same—(a laugh). I would ask him, whether it is not always better to conciliate than to provoke; and whether the character of the British nation has not been rendered conspicuous throughout the world for this very disposition? Sir, no man will deny me that. I know that this has been the case on the particular services to which I have had the honour of being attached. In Sicily and in Malta we have always maintained the character of Great Britain. It has been by conciliating wherever we go, that England has so many friends, and so proud a name. But, Sir, with respect to the immediate question before us. We are now talking of personages, whose identity it is difficult to ascertain. The right hon. gent. who brought forward this question, talked to us about the Pope. Now I would ask any man to tell me who is the Pope? Why it is as difficult to find out who he is, as it is to tell us who is the King of Spain. We really know not who the one or the other is. Sir, in respect to what has been said of the Irish character, I have little to say. I lament as much as any man can the unfortunate commotions that have taken place in that country. Whatever may have been said to the prejudice of their loyalty and attachment, I cannot undertake to touch upon such a subject. I can only say, that if the hon. gent. had witnessed their conduct in the Mediterranean he would think very highly of them. I never saw an instance where they were called upon that they did not do their duty like other men and like sailors, as they ought. Always obedient and attentive to their duty. But these men were always protected in the pursuit of their religious tenets. Do you think I ever prevented a Catholic from going to chapel, in whatever port we happened to be? I always wished them to go. Sir, they are not merely men, but seamen; they know their duty, and I never found them in the least degree injured by going to chapel. I always thought they were entitled to. follow the course of their religion in which they were bred up.—(The cry of question! interrupted the hon. member, and he sat down.)

.—Sir, it will be unnecessary for me to trouble the House at any great length at this advanced hour of the morning. The arguments that have been brought forward to night, have not related so much to the expediency of the particular measures recommended by the right hon. gent. as to the general hardships sustained by the Roman Catholics, from the disabilities under which they labour; now, Sir, on that topic, and the particular manner in which those arguments have been brought forward, it might be inferred that they were applicable only to the members of his Majesty's present government. In the first place I must really beg to express my regret that gentlemen who have argued this question have not brought forward (at least in my opinion) any grounds strong enough to induce the House, not merely to do away all the disabilities which are complained of, but still less for adopting the motion proposed by the right hon. gent. and further, that they have not stated the distinct plan, or system, which it would be in their contemplation to name to the House, if it should be their pleasure to sustain the motion. I am sure that the right hon. gent. will agree, that unless this measure of removing the remaining disabilities of the Roman Catholics can be accompanied with the general good will and consent—unless it can be carried on with general approbation, and unless every species of opposition and violence, on the part of his Majesty's subjects to it, can be avoided, it would be much better that the question had never been moved. If this were not the case, the consequence must be such, as I am sure the right hon. gent. himself would deeply lament. Now, when I state that, I beg leave not to be comprehended amongst those who are stated to be hostile in principle, at all times and under all circumstances, to every thing like concession. I beg distinctly to disclaim that charge which has been brought forward by gentlemen opposite, and particularly by the right hon. gent. who has stated distinctly and positively that the administration which came in after the Grenville government, came in under a positive engagement to his Majesty, that they never would, under any circumstances, support this question. In disclaiming such an imputation upon such a subject, I have the additional voice of my right hon. friend on the bench below me, who has most forcibly and unequivocally stated, that no such pledge was given. Sir, for myself I have only to state, in answer to this general assertion, that it is not the fact, and I desire that I may not be included amongst those who entertain this doctrine, that under any circumstances, such a pledge could be given. I say, Sir, I desire not to be included amongst such men; and I beg it be understood that my objection is to the period the right hon. gent. has brought forward this question. I own that there are obstacles which, under my apprehension, do intervene, and which may be inexpedient to his own object in bringing forward the subject. Now it has been stated by several gentlemen, that the Veto, and other measures of that description, which it might be supposed necessary to require, as concessions on the part of the Catholics, form a most important branch of this discussion. I, for one, think it most material to the present question, not only not to lose sight of the Veto, but to ask the right hon. gent. whether, if we consent to go into this committee, he means to state to us any proposition which he is prepared to submit to this committee. I now ask him, does he mean to state any proposition, which he is ready to propose to the committee, upon which they may be likely to meet with the concurrence of the Roman Catholics of Ireland? I am sure he is not, and that he entertains no such idea. The right hon. gent. seems not to have considered the importance of this proposition, I would ask him, does he concur in the opinion lord Grenville has delivered upon the question of the Veto? Lord Grenville has stated, and in his opinion, he is supported by my lord Lansdowne and my lord Grey, "that circumstanced as the question of Catholic Emancipation is in England and Ireland, it is his (lord Grenville's) opinion, that any, motion grounded on the Catholic question could, not at this time be brought forward in either House of Parliament, without great and permanent disadvantage to its object."

Does the right hon. gent. concur in that opinion? Does he agree in opinion with my lord Grey, and my lord Lansdowne, that that doctrine is true? If he does not, I must say for one I am inclined to take their authority as of some weight in the consideration of this subject. Sir, their opinion is not to be set at naught—it is in my opinion of the highest importance to the question. If such distinguished characters as they, with all the information they possess—if they state deliberately,—not rashly, nor unadvisedly, but in the most authentic and unequivocal form,—if they state that the subject cannot now be discussed—that the petitions cannot be brought under consideration without permanent disadvantage to the objects they seek—am I not justified in stating that the right hon. gent. with a view of bettering the condition of the Catholics, would not have acted more wisely in abstaining from bringing the question forward. Now I am not stating the opinion of lord Grenville upon the Veto, as the only ground upon which I would oppose the present motion. I am not disposed to enter into the question whether it would or would not be an efficient safeguard, but I am disposed to concur with lord Grenville in the opinion he has delivered upon its merits. An hon. gent. has said that he is glad that that is the only objection, and that if the Veto is arranged the concession would be made. Now I beg leave to differ from him; my lord Grenville also differs from him, for he states, and most truly, that that is a most important object to consider; but it is not the only one that is important. It is only one of the many objections to be removed, before we can grant any thing permanent. I therefore must agree with lord Grenville, and assure the hon. gent. that the Veto is not the only objection, but there are others which remain to be removed before any permanent concession can be arranged. Now, Sir, a great deal has been stated by the hon. gent. who spoke last, upon the subject of disturbances in Ireland, and the necessity under which we labour, of granting all the concessions asked, with a view to the permanent tranquillity of that country. Now, I must say, but certainly with great diffidence, that I cannot concur with the hon. gent. in his opinion that the source of the partial disturbances which have agitated Ireland, are to be attributed to the cause he assigns. I will venture to state that the late partial disturbances in that country are not to be traced to the disabilities of the lower classes—for they have none. I do not believe that the disabilities under which they labour, were the cause of those disturbances. I do not think that the state of society in that country warrants the hon. gent. in ascribing those disturbances to that cause; but I would ask the hon. gentleman, who began the debate this evening, when he talks of the tyrannical hardships that country labours under, does he look to some measure within these few days in this House, in which that country (repeal of the Insurrection Act) was concerned? I would beg the hon. gent. to advert to those measures. I believe this House will be disposed to concur in the declaration so properly made by an hon. gent. behind me, (Mr. M'Naughten) that the present reign is not one of persecution or tyranny, either in a civil, military, or religious point of view; and I trust also that the declaration made, and the measures introduced within these few days, by a right hon. gent. near me, the secretary for Irish affairs (Mr. W. Pole), that it is not the disposition of the present government of Ireland to impose any restrictions upon the people of that country, much less to persecute them; but, on the contrary, to extend to them every degree of liberty and protection which the laws can afford to the rest of their fellow-subjects, (alluding to the bill for repealing the Irish insurrection and arms acts, and Mr. Pole's speech on that occasion). Now, Sir, an hon. gent., who sits opposite to me, in discussing the question, as far as it was to be attributed to his Majesty's present ministers, has thought fit to state that they had been the cause of great discontent amongst the Catholics of this country, and that the reason was the bigotry of the present time would not suffer them to open their eyes to the petition of the English Catholics,—and that my right hon. friend had dashed the cup of expectation from the lips of the English Catholics. I wish the hon. gent. would say whether he has not heard that the very ministers who preceded my right hon. friend, did not withdraw this measure, although they thought it essentially necessary, (Hear! hear!) and which they withdrew for no other reason than to retain their places, (Hear! hear! from the ministerial benches,) and for no other reason than to keep their places? I do not say that a government may not very properly withdraw a measure if they find it inexpedient, but if ministers think a measure to be indispensably necessary, either they ought not to withdraw it, or they ought to withdraw themselves. (Hear! hear! from the Opposition benches) An hon. gent. has also stated that Mr. Pitt, at the time of the Union, did hold out such expectations to the Catholics, and that those expectations were buoyed up for so long a time, that it was utterly impossible, by his own declaration, for him, or any of those with whom he acted, ever again to. return to office, unless they were permitted to bring forward the question of Catholic emancipation. Now upon that subject I can say, that at the time lord Melville was in office no such pledge was made, and certainly his lordship came in afterwards without any declared intention of bringing forward the Catholic question. He came forward with no pledge that that measure should be carried through, still less as an engagement for the retention of his office.

Now the right hon. gent. who brought forward this measure has stated that great progress has been made in the public mind, in the removal of its objections to this measure. To a certain extent I am ready to admit, the objections of some may be removed, but I am not prepared to say to what extent they are answered; but I am prepared to assert that the, public mind is not in that state which could render it possible to carry forward the measure with that general feeling of conciliation and concurrence that would make it at all advisable to pass it at this time. This is the extent to which I am prepared to state that proposition. The right hon. gent. has stated that in the year 1805, when this question was agitated, there were petitions from Oxford and London, against the Catholic claims; and from the absence of similar petitions on the present occasion, he would wish it to be inferred that this is a convincing symptom of conciliation on the part of the public. Upon this subject I can only say that the strongest answer that can be given is the positive instructions the university of Oxford has given to one of their representatives to oppose it in every stage. A great deal has been said upon the subject of the benefit that would arise from this question being discussed fully and amply in the Committee. Now, Sir, before I can accede to that proposition, I should wish, at least, to have heard what are the propositions to be submitted for their deliberation.—What proposition is the right hon. gent. prepared to bring forward? Is he prepared to remove all the disabilities of the Catholics without any modification? I know my lord Grenville does not think so, and would be the first to raise his voice against it. What is he prepared to do? All I can say upon this subject is, that as far as I am acquainted with the sentiments of the public in this country, there are great numbers of persons who are decidedly hostile to such a proposition. And I venture to predict, that should the right honourable gentleman obtain his purpose—if it were carried by a majority, I will even suppose—at this time,—and in such a temperament of the public mind, it is not likely that the proposition would be attended with beneficial consequences to the country. I cannot doubt of this; and I say again, as I said before, those hostile circumstances do exist, and I feel they do exist, it will be extremely unfit to bring forward this measure, or make it possible that it can be discussed, with any prospect of success, opposed as it must be by the hostile feelings of the public, and therefore, I, for one, cannot assent to the motion.

Now, if the right hon. gent. states that unlimited concession is the object sought for by the petitions, I think he is mistaken: for, if he thinks every Catholic is as sanguine as these petitioners, I can safely say that there are many Catholics who would even object to unlimited concession. I believe there are many Catholics (and allow me to say, that I will not attempt to question the general loyalty of the whole body) but I believe there are many Catholics who think that some such measure as that contended for by my lord Grenville, would be highly beneficial and necessary. I know perfectly well that the English Catholics do not agree in perfect unanimity with the Irish Catholics; we know that, and we all know that the Catholics of Ireland are not upon terms of the warmest cordiality amongst themselves, and even differ from their own bishops. Now, under all these circumstances, is the right hon. gent. prepared to come forward—is he prepared to state that unlimited concession is what he seeks—will he venture to make that proposition to the Committee? If not, we now remain in ignorance of what he proposes to do, should the House agree to his motion.

I have thus stated the outline of the feelings I entertain on this subject, and I have pointed out the principal grounds which press themselves upon my mind, as to the inexpediency of bringing forward the Catholic claims for discussion.

commented on the singular line of argument pursued by Messrs. Dundas and Ryder, who after two days debate, and a fortnight's preparation, had not attempted to bring forward a single argument of their own, or to answer one of those adduced by the supporters of this motion. They had only justified their votes on the opinions expressed by lord Grenville in his letter to lord Fingal, which they had for that purpose misstated. He denied that it was said in any part of that letter "that unless the Veto on the appointment of the Catholic bishops was conceded to the crown, Catholic emancipation could not be granted."—It was true that lord Grenville lamented the failure of the Veto, as being the readiest and simplest security which could be afforded against foreign interference, and as being justified by the practice of the Catholic church in other countries; but he expressly stated, that all he thought necessary was, that some effectual security of this nature should be provided, and that the forms of that security, and details of the arrangement, were matters of minor importance^*.—By acceding to this motion of going into a Committee, the House would in effect only pledge itself to the declaration just made by Mr. Dundas, viz. that there were circumstances under which the legislature might safely admit the present petitioners to the rights and privileges of the other subjects of this realm. Such a declaration would in itself dispose the minds of all parties to that spirit of mutual conciliation and concession by which alone this great measure could advantageously be carried into execution.—He deprecated the idea that frequent discussion was prejudicial to the Catholic claims. On the contrary, the most bene- ficial effects had resulted from the debates which had taken place in 1805 and 1808.—The cause of general toleration had gained ground, unfounded prejudices had been removed, and the liberality of sentiment evinced, not only by the supporters, but by many of the opponents of this question, had tended to conciliate the minds both of Protestants and Catholics. The increased support which this question had received in this and the other House of parliament was great, but its progress was still greater in the public mind. For these reasons he should willingly and cheerfully give his vote for entering into a Committee on the Petition now before the House.

^* "To the forms indeed of these securities, or to the particular details of the proposed arrangements, I attach comparatively little importance. A pertinacious adherence to such details in opposition even to groundless prejudice, I consider as the reverse of legislative wisdom. I look only to their substantial purposes; the safety of our own establishment, the mutual good will of all our fellow subjects, and the harmony of the united kingdom."—Lord Grenville's Letter to the earl of Fingall.

.—Sir, it is not my disposition at this late period of the debate to go much at length in the observations I have to make upon this question; I trust, therefore, the House will permit me to claim their indulgence. Sir, the right hon. gent. who spoke last on the other side of the House (Mr. Dundas) has not thought proper to say any thing upon the real merits of the question before us. He has merely confined himself to a series of complaints against my right hon. friend, for not having slated the precise grounds upon which we are to go into a committee. Sir, I maintain that the right hon. gent. and the rest of his colleagues are not entitled to ask upon what stipulated grounds we call upon them to enter into a great political arrangement for the benefit of a large proportion of his Majesty's subjects in Ireland, and to discuss, when in the committee, with what qualifications such an arrangement can be accompanied. We say, that we ask you for the repeal of the remaining laws against the Roman Catholics of Ireland, as a most necessary and indispensable means of preserving that portion of the British empire. We ask, I say, for this as a pressing necessity; and when you go into a committee, we are ready to go into a committee. We call upon them to enter into such an arrangement as the wisdom of the House may suggest. At the same time I protest against any right on the part of the right hon. gent. and those gentlemen on the other side of the House, to demand any declaration on the part of the Roman Catholics with respect to that arrangement, as they seem disposed to refuse any condition. Sir, it is not the first time in the course of this session, that his Majesty's ministers have abstained from answering every syllable of argument which comes from this side of the House. I am, therefore, not surprized that at the end of a long debate, the right hon. gent. has preserved, with respect to every argument upon this question, the most dignified silence; and that he, as well as his colleagues, have answered only in the words of my lord Grenville, and grounded their arguments upon the sentiments of one of the most distinguished friends of the Catholics. Now, Sir, I do not concur in the view that my lord Grenville has taken of this measure.—I do not think that the necessity for conceding the Veto exists, and in that opinion I am borne out by the sentiments of a large proportion of the Catholic advocates. I confess I cannot agree with that noble lord, nor with the right hon. gent. who grounds his opinion upon that of his lordship, that it is a necessary and an indispensable concession on the part of the Catholics with a view to a political arrangement; but that the Veto, in my opinion, must be considered as a very immaterial collateral part of the question. The relief of the Catholics goes to the relief of the laity; it does not go to the relief of the hierarchy of Ireland. It goes to the relief of 4,000,000 of his Majesty's subjects from certain political disabilities, and affords to them the enjoyment of certain political privileges, from which they have been for ages excluded. The question is not whether their hierarchy shall be recognized as a constituent branch of the constitution, but whether you will admit the Catholic people of Ireland to a political arrangement with England. The happiness, or unhappiness,—the importance, or humility of the Catholic hierarchy, who are one moment to consider themselves as a degraded and contemptible set of men, who are only disposed to act rightly when it suits them, and who upon all occasions are the promoters of sedition and discontent amongst the people, is not the question now. But, Sir, though this is not the question for consideration now, it is not fit that this calumny should remain unanswered or unrefuted. Sir, I know the Catholic Hierarchy of Ireland well; I know the principles and motives by which they are actuated, and I will venture to assert, that in consistency of morals, erudition, and knowledge, it may be compared with any religious establishment in the world,—I know they are actuated by a sincere spirit of religion; and if, upon this occasion, they shrink from entering upon any terms with the present government, it is what we must naturally expect, after the manner in which they have been treated. Is it possible that they can enter upon a treaty with men, who have boldly avowed their determination to degrade their hierarchy? Can you wonder that they shrink from holding intercourse with their destroyers? And they do so not upon very slight grounds: they do it upon the specific declaration of the ministers of the crown, who have said, that they wish to destroy the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland, for this was the declaration of my lord Redesdale.—Sir, no man will deny that this has not been the spirit in which all his Majesty's ministers have spoken of that respectable body.—To break down and destroy the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland has been their cry. Sir, when it has even been declared by a noble lord nearly connected with the government, that he thought it his duty to destroy that body, can you be surprised that the Catholic hierarchy should shrink From entering into a treaty with such men? But they do not ask you for temporal rights or immunities;—they are satisfied with the moderate circumstances in which they are placed, and all they require of you is, that in your political speculations you do not wantonly sport with their feelings;—that you do not question their unimpeached and unimpeachable loyalty, or injure the moral reputation of men who have always evinced a strong and anxious adherence to their duties. Sir, it is not my duty to argue the question abstractedly;—I think it has been already discussed so ably and so fully upon the score of policy and necessity, that I do not wish to argue whether it be right to grant the Catholics what they want, or whether it is their duty to make any concessions; but I will say this, of the character of those persons who would be benefited by the emancipation, that they are men who are ready to make any concession, or give any security that can be required for their own personal conduct: I mean the higher orders of the Catholic body, to whom, by the removal of those obnoxious laws, the doors of preferment would be open in the army, the navy, and the legislature.

I would put it to the common sense of gentlemen who are adverse to the Catholic claims, whether it would be necessary to insist upon the right of nominating Catholic bishops, for the purpose of securing the benefit of their assistance, and of preserving the loyalty and attachment of such men, should they obtain a command in the army and navy? I would ask whether in common sense, the Catholic gentleman, when he looks to the command of a 74 gun ship, considers the relief of the Catholic clergy, or the supremacy of the Pope, as an object of political consequence, to which he is bound to look? Let that gallant officer (captain Parker) who has not long since declared, in terms becoming the liberality of his profession, that he never would prevent a Catholic from worshipping his God according to the rites of his own religion, say whether he thinks a Catholic captain or a Catholic admiral would not be actuated with the same zeal and loyalty for the service as a Protestant? or whether he would look for promotion, as an object by which he might be enabled to pull down the fabric of the established Protestant religion, for the purpose of setting up the Catholic hierarchy in its place?—Because to that extent we must suppose the objection goes, unless you deny the influence of the Catholic clergy. Now I do not attribute such motives to my lord Grenville, as have been laid to his charge, namely, a wish to model the Catholic clergy to a peculiar form, for the purpose of securing the allegiance of the Catholic laity of Ireland. I perfectly agree that we are bound, in the establishment of a great country, to consider in what hands the power of the country may be placed. In the present instance, I have no hesitation in saying, that whether we look to the state of the country or the state of men's minds, it would be inconsistent with the doctrines of the Catholics, to give any effectual influence to the crown in the nomination of their bishops. I do say that such a measure would be attended with the most mischievous consequences to the country.—I know it would be converting the Catholic clergy from being quiet and inoffensive subjects, and pious and devout teachers of their flocks, into a restless and dissatisfied sect;—it would be converting them into intriguing political instruments for every person, who look by their means to the promotion of their political objects. Sir, to convince the House of this, I would only refer them to the situation of the Protestant clergy. Are we to suppose the Catholic will be more scrupulous as to the means of obtaining patronage, than the Protestant minister: It is the reproach of our church, that the minds of our clergy are too much employed in political objects, to pay due attention in matters essential to religion. Do you think that the Catholic clergy, placed under similar circumstances, will be more scrupulous than they are on the present occasion? Then I ask the House whether they do not conceive, looking to the general interests of religion in a doctrinal point of view, that by granting of this power to the crown, political influence would predominate over religious allegiance? I would ask them, whether there is any thing surprising in the disaffection such a power vested in the hands of the crown would produce in the Catholic laity, and whether it would not be very much to be apprehended that they would resort to other means of freeing themselves from a disgusting yoke? You would have a higher clergy brooding over its insults and grievances, and consulting with each other on the most effectual means of reuniting itself with the parent stock.

With respect to the sentiments my lord Grenville has delivered upon this subject, they are in my mind liable to many objections. I agree with his lordship, that foreign influence ought to be guarded against, but I think that might be done by other means, than by interfering with the principles or doctrines of the Roman Catholics. Nor indeed can I agree with his lordship, that the necessity of having a guard of this kind is so strong as his lordship seems to think. In evidence of this, I refer the House to the edict of the Catholic bishops, in which they have declared a determination, that during the time the Pope is a prisoner, they will abstain from all communication with him. The Catholic clergy have determined that they will acknowledge no power in the Pope unless he is spiritually free, and therefore they have rejected every political interference of that power with their consciences. With respect to the opinion of the Catholic laity upon this subject, I must beg leave to read a resolution unanimously agreed to by the General Catholic Committee of Ireland.

But, Sir, really, when we talk of the power and the influence of the Pope, we are talking of phantoms that do not exist. The power of his holiness is more in imagination than in reality. Great as was once the political power of the Roman see, it is now but a shadow. Have we not seen within the last year the Pope stripped by the over-reaching hand of Buonaparté of his last slake in Europe? Have we not seen that bold and daring usurper declare him to be no longer a temporal prince; and have we not beheld that power, once so successfully employed in throwing the states of Europe into convulsions, stript of all its splendor and consequence? The last struggle of that unfortunate power was the cause of its immediate downfal. After the battle of Asperne, Buonaparté seized the occasion of victory to extinguish for ever the last remaining vestige of the Pope's temporal significance. Now, Sir, I have addressed the House thus much upon these collateral points, upon which the Catholics have been so misunderstood. I shall now, with permission of the House, advert to some other observations introduced in the course of this debate. The right hon. gent. (Mr. Dundas) has asked, why did the late administration, if they conceived and knew that the relief of the Irish Catholics was a necessary measure,—why, he asked, did they withdraw it, or not withdraw themselves, if they thought it to be absolutely necessary? I think that question comes rather with a bad grace from the right hon. gent.; for although he has disavowed the more violent feelings of his colleagues, he has no doubt coupled himself with them. Now what is this question of time, which gentlemen on the other side so cogently urge. They rest their arguments upon the most futile and ridiculous grounds, but their real ground for refusing the Catholic claims has a more culpable foundation. That men are sometimes to be found capable of doing injudicious acts, without the imputation of premeditated ill-will, I am willing to admit; but that men like his Majesty's ministers, who take occasion of poisoning the ear of the sovereign against his subjects in a question like this, and who are content to enjoy the sweets of office, by misrepresenting the real interests of the throne and the country, I am disposed to hope, are rarely to be found. Upon such principles as these have the right hon. gentlemen been induced to give a pledge to his Majesty, that they never would propose any measure for the relief of the Catholics. This, in fact, is the only answer they can give to the petitions of the Catholics: "We are pledged, we are sworn, not to give you those rights and immunities which the rest of his Ma- jesty's subjects enjoy, and we should forfeit our places, if we proposed any measure of relief for you." (Hear! hear! and a cry of explain! explain!) I must say, that with respect to the late administration, they acted consistently with the conduct of men who were anxious to unite the hearts of all men in support of the British constitution; for finding it was impossible to continue in office without compromising their principles, they preferred their duty to their places, and gave up a power which it was impossible to maintain with honour to themselves, or satisfaction to their country. Sir, there are other considerations in this question, which ought to induce the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer to weigh well the principles upon which he justifies his conscience in his opposition to all Catholic objects. The right hon. gent. says he cannot, consistently, with the opinion he has formed of the Catholic people of Ireland, grant them the prayer of their petition.—Then, I ask him, is he prepared to disband the Catholic soldiers and sailors, with which the army and navy of Great Britain are filled? (Hear! hear! hear!) I ask him whether he means to discontinue their services, as men that are not to be trusted? (Hear! hear! hear!)—I ask him whether, in the state of this country, and the difficulties with which it is surrounded, he can man an army without the aid of the Roman Catholics of Ireland? (Hear! hear! hear! hear!) Sir, my right hon. friend has been told upon this occasion by a learned civilian (sir Wm. Scott) that the Catholics do not deserve these immunities, because if they were good Catholics they could not assent to those conditions which my right hon. friend proposed. That is what the learned civilian has stated. He takes upon himself in one sweeping sentence to condemn all the Catholics of England as well as of Ireland, and which men, the learned civilian, in the true spirit of his profession, contends it would not be considered as consistent with the principles of the law of this country, to grant such privileges, and, therefore, he proposes to exclude from all civil liberty, an immense mass of people, not on account of existing disabilities, but because they have not conformed to some obsolete doctrines of their own religion. The learned civilian says at this day, that because the Catholics have not maintained the doctrines of the council of Trent, they do not deserve to be free, they are bad Catholics and bad men. Now I ask the Catholics of England, whether that is the character they deserve? whether luke-warmness is the characteristic quality of their religion?—whether they feel a less ardent spirit than other men, in the cause they embrace, whether of religious or of civil freedom? Sir, I think they would say it was a foul slander upon their character. A right hon. gent. (the secretary for Ireland) in representing to the House the state of the Irish Catholics, was pleased to observe, that he could no where find a stronger principle of British feeling and British liberty than among the Catholic noblemen and gentry of Ireland. Then, Sir, is this an hour,—is this a period for the learned gentleman to take upon himself to say, that the Catholics of Ireland are unworthy of British freedom, and the blessing of British laws, because they do not entertain all the dogmas of the councils of Trent and Lateran, or abide by the superstitious notions of 500 years back? Sir, when I feel for the Catholics of England, it is not because they are eminent for their cordiality with the Catholics of Ireland, but because they are Catholics in the common cause, and because I think they do not deserve the stigma put upon them in common with their brethren of Ireland. Sir, for the Catholics of Ireland I will say, that no men understand the principles of British freedom better than they do:—no men better deserve the enjoyment of the British constitution. They are loyal, constant, and faithful: and as the right hon. gent. has truly said, amongst their nobility and gentry, there are to be found none who do not feel and appreciate the advantage of civil laws and liberty. Religious without being bigotted they are.

Sir, by what right does any man take upon himself to attribute dangerous motives to others, because he happens to differ in matters of faith? and upon what principle is he to legislate for a nation, of whose principles and opinions he seems to be in total ignorance? Sir, if his Majesty's ministers will not open their eyes to the situation of the Catholics, it becomes the imperious duty of this House to see why two-thirds of his Majesty's subjects in Ireland are to be excluded from the blessings of civil and religious toleration. Sir, I cannot conceive upon what principle of reason, of justice, or policy, a nation, whose conduct has been, for ages, unimpeachable, is to be thrown off, when they apply for a redress of their grievances, from those very persons who have insulted their natural rights, by a charge of not having violated those doctrines, which they affect to ridicule.

Sir, I am sensible that I have trespassed very long upon the indulgence of the House, I shall merely say, that with respect to the state of Ireland, gentlemen are extremely mistaken in the opinions they have formed, if they conceive that the Catholic laity of Ireland are much more interested in establishing the Catholic hierarchy than of possessing the advantages of civil freedom, and they are equally mistaken if they conceive that the Catholic clergy are become ambitious of any such object. They think of no such thing. On the contrary, I believe the Catholic clergy are disposed to remain in the moderate and humble state in which they are. That if the Catholic clergy were amply endowed, and it suited their doctrines to be placed upon some other foundation and footing than they are at present, I ask those right hon. gentlemen, whether it would not be an additional security and pledge for their good conduct? Sir, I know that by the policy pursued by the enemy, strong as he is in war, formidable as he is in policy, invincible as he is by the military means with which he threatens this country, he becomes more formidable by his own internal regulations. It must be to him extremely gratifying in the midst of conscious power and authority, that in his decrees, liberty of conscience forms the most prominent boon to his subjects. He has declared that it is consistent with the Catholic church of France, that all religious sects should be tolerated in the full exercise of their religious rites. That no religious sects shall be injured or molested in the pursuit of their doctrines, who swear allegiance to the state. Whilst he is pursuing a system which conciliates—a system which conquers for him beforehand, whilst he is not satisfied with tolerating, but actually establishing religion:—when the word of his decree is that the Calvinistical clergy of his dominions shall be tolerated in the full exercise of their religion:—when he says, I am not satisfied with toleration, but the Calvinistical religion shall be established: he does an act of wisdom worthy of his great mind; he sets an example to the ministers of this country, from which they ought to take warning. But, alas! in the wreck and ruin of the world, when every crowned head holds its dominions by the most tottering tenure, they pursue the same old system of intolerance and bigotry; they follow the same intolerant tyranny of the dark ages, amidst the light of truth,—they blast the hopes and expectations of an enlightened nation—they shut their eyes to the merits of a persecuted and long suffering people; and not until they have torn asunder every tie of consanguinity and affection between these sister islands, will they see their folly, their madness, and their wicked intolerance. When the dominion over Ireland is lost, their repentance will come, but it will come, alas! too late. They have refused every measure of conciliation.—Every act of concession that has been extended towards that unhappy country, has been drawn, not from their repentance, not from their affection, but from their terror, and the pressing calls of necessity. Ireland, Sir, has suffered now for centuries under a tyranny, from which she has now sense enough to rescue herself; and let me tell you she can rescue herself. I will now ask his Majesty's ministers, to what period they intend carrying this system? (Hear! hear! hear!) Can they define the period when they will hearken to the complaints of Ireland? Do they mean to postpone it till the French army is landed in Ireland? I trust they will not try so dangerous an experiment. They will then postpone it to a day when the sentiments of Ireland, sore with long disappointment, will join in unison against a power, which rewards her labours and sufferings with ingratitude and contempt.

But, Sir, amidst the gloominess of this subject, I am happy to perceive that many of the Protestants of Ireland feel a sympathy in the sufferings of their Catholic brethren. I am happy, I say, to see this: I hail it as a symptom of unanimity, which must be crowned with the most beneficial consequence to Ireland. Believe me, Sir, that when the Catholics hare the sense to see the wisdom of uniting with their fellow subjects, and that their best policy is conciliation with the Protestants of Ireland, this question is carried. That day on which the Protestants of Ireland agree with the Catholics, in demanding this concession of Catholic rights, as consistent with universal security—with the establishment of good government—the security of properly, and the maintainance of the church, this measure will be carried as triumphantly as those sentiments of hostility have been uttered by the right hon. gent.—as conclusive of his opposition to the demands of Ireland. (Hear! hear!)

(sir Thomas Plumer) rose amidst a general cry of question, question. Sir, I can assure the House it is not my intention to trespass on its patience but for a very short time.—I shall scrupulously confine myself to a very narrow view of the immediate question before us, viz. whether it is, or is not, fit to refer the petitions to a Committee, avoiding any of the more general discussions, which do not appear to me necessary for the decision of that question,—I am desirous of explaining the grounds upon which my vote will be founded (cry of question! question! from the opposite side.)—It is very possible that in the quarter from whence this clamorous interruption proceeds, I may already have incurred the imputation of bigotry and intolerance (Hear! hear! from the opposite side.)—If so, it is surely not very unreasonable to expect that I should obtain a fair hearing in my own defence, especially from those who affect to be such strenuous advocates for toleration, unless we are to understand by that term a freedom of thought and speech allowed only to one side of this great question.—Perhaps, however, these enemies to intolerance and persecution, whenever their own friends or tenets are the objects of it, may be reconciled to the suspension of it towards one of an opposite persuasion, if I assure them that the principles on which, I shall oppose the reference of these petitions to a Committee, are those which, have been publicly and repeatedly declared by some of the most zealous adherents to the cause and interests of the Catholics—I object, Sir, to this reference, because I am persuaded it can lead to no practical good, because circumstanced as this great question now is, and in the present state of feeling and opinions in both parties in England and Ireland, it is utterly impossible that any effect can be produced from the discussion of the subject other than to widen the differences which unhappily already prevail.—This is the opinion of one who certainly cannot be accused of bigotry and intolerance, who has uniformly stood forward as the warmest champion of the Catholics, who has recently avowed his unaltered sentiments in their favour, and whose successful elevation in the University of Oxford the right hon. mover of the question (Mr. Grattan) considered to be a decided proof of the change made in the public mind in favour of the Roman Catholics.—In a public letter, deliberately penned and promulgated to the world, the noble lord, to whom I allude (Lord Grenville), has in the strongest terms deprecated the present agitation of this question, upon the ground of the injury that it could not fail to produce to the measure which it was intended to promote, (viz.) the harmony and union of the empire.—An hon. gent. who spoke lately from the opposite bench, in answer to a similar observation made by my right hon. friend near me, wholly omitted to notice the words in the letter of his noble relation containing this opinion, to which my right hon. friend alluded. I shall put this point out of all doubt by quoting the words of lord Grenville's letter.—"Circumstanced (he says) as the question now is, both in England and Ireland, it is my deliberate opinion, that no motion grounded on your (the Catholic) petition could at this time in any hands, certainly not in mine, be brought forward without great and permanent disadvantage to its object."—"This opinion is founded not only on the present known dispositions of government and parliament, but also on the unexpected difficulties, which have arisen in Ireland, on the impressions which they may create, and the embarrassments which they unavoidably produce."

In another passage he says, "I see, therefore, in the present state of this subject, much unexpected embarrassment, and many difficulties, which renewed discussion, in the present moment, must, instead of smoothing, inevitably aggravate."—And again—"I must with equal explicitness decline to be myself, at this time, End under so many circumstances of such peculiar disadvantage to your cause, the 'mover of any such proposition.—I am satisfied that by this decision I shall best promote the ultimate success of that great work which I have long laboured to accomplish."—Does it not then unquestionably appear from these passages that the present motion is made indirect opposition to the most explicit and deliberate opinion of this noble lord.—Is this an opinion originating in a spirit of bigotry and intolerance? Or can we on this side of the House, who concur with one of the most tried and determined friends and patrons of the Catholics in deprecating a measure, which affords no rational hope of good, and from which nothing but mischief can ensue, can we be justly branded with the appellation of intolerant bigots, and decided enemies to the Catholics? Those who are pleased to indulge in such accusations must not forget that in them are involved the most zealous and strenuous supporters of their own cause and party, who must on their hypothesis be considered as having treacherously abandoned that cause, and enlisted into a decided opposition to it. But if this deliberate opinion of the leading supporter of the Catholics in the other House of Parliament be not sufficient, what will be said of the sentiments delivered in this House by one of their oldest and firmest friends in it, by the right hon. gent, who introduced the question upon the present occasion, with so much eloquence, ability, and zeal, as he has frequently done before in this and another part of the United Kingdom; will the gentlemen opposite impute bigotry and intolerance to him, or will they suspect him of being lukewarm in the cause of Catholics, or of having treacherously abandoned it.

And yet from what was stated by the right hon. gent. in the commencement of his speech, it will clearly and uncontrovertibly appear that he is himself another great authority against the propriety of the motion with which it was concluded; he has unanswerably proved that in the present state of things nothing but mischief could be the consequence of acceding to it.—It cannot be forgotten what were the principles which the right hon. gent in the very outset, with marked anxiety, laid down as those on which he proceeded, and the terms and conditions on which he thought the prayer of the Catholic Petition ought to be acceded to.—He stated, the plan of his motion to be directed to the attainment of two objects; the first of which was to put an end to any foreign influence and authority over the Catholics: the second, to communicate to the Catholics the franchises which they required. He stated those objects in this order, to shew that the first was of the highest importance, and was to precede and be made the indispensable condition of the second. His opinion on this subject was declared in the most explicit and decided terms. He stated the impolicy and danger of allowing great power and authority to be placed under the controul and influence of a foreign state, particularly at a time when that state is the captive of our natural and implacable enemy, with an intention declared by that hos- tile government to assume, in future, the exclusive nomination of his successors, and all the authority and influence possest by that foreign power would in effect be. given to our enemy, to be exercised by him in every way most injurious to the safety and tranquillity of the empire,—He observed upon the peculiar danger which would result from this state of things, in the event of a French army being landed in Ireland, and the authority and influence of the Holy See left to operate with augmented force, through the medium of a catholic hierarchy nominated by, and dependent upon it, upon all the hopes and fears of the mass of Catholic population, with a profest object too of coming to support the Catholic power and interest, in that part of the empire. He exprest his decided opinion that whilst such a foreign influence continued to prevail, a compliance with the prayer of the catholic petition was wholly inadmissible.—It was contrary to every principle of sound policy, and incompatible with a due regard to the interests and safety of the empire.—If, then, the papal authority and dominion still continues to prevail with unabated force amongst the Catholics in Ireland, if they have shewn no disposition to separate from and relinquish it, but, on the contrary, have evinced the most determined resolution to adhere to and support it, the right hon. gent. is, upon his own declared principles, a great and decided authority against any compliance, at this time, with the Catholic Petitions.

The noble lord, to whom I have before alluded, is also another authority on the same ground. Professing the same unabated zeal on behalf of the Catholics, he is still decidedly adverse to the grant of any further franchises, unless upon similar conditions. In the letter before quoted, he states the necessity of accompanying any such grant with various arrangements.—"I must beg leave (says he) to recall to your lordship's recollection, the grounds on which the consideration of these petitions has uniformly been recommended to parliament. That which you have asked, and which has been supported by the greatest statesman of our time, now no more, is not in its nature a single or unconnected measure. Its objects are the peace and happiness of Ireland, and the union of the empire in affection as well as in government. With the just and salutary extension of civil rights to your body, must be combined, if tranquillity and union be our object, other extensive and complicated arrangements. All due provision must be made for the inviolable maintenance of the religious and civil establishments of this united kingdom. Much must be done for mutual conciliation, much for common safety; many contending interests must be reconciled, many jealousies allayed, many long cherished and mutually destructive prejudices eradicated."

The noble lord mentions his own proposal of a Veto, and states as a reason for it, the alarm which might not unreasonably exist at any possibility by which functions of extensive influence might hereafter be connected with a foreign influence hostile to the tranquillity of the country: a danger, he observes, very much encreased of late by the captivity, and deposition of the pope.—The proposal, he said, was received in parliament as the surest indication of those dispositions, without which all concessions must be nugatory, and all conciliation hopeless.—The stability, he observes, of all the civil rights of the Catholics, both of those they already, enjoyed, and of those to which they seek to be admitted, essentially depend on the tranquillity and harmony of the country, on banishing from it every hostile influence, and composing all its internal differences.

Such are the principles, such the indispensable conditions, upon which any further parliamentary grant to the Catholics is to depend, according to the judgment of the two leading characters in this and the other House of Parliament, who have uniformly been most strenuous in their favour.—No one will suspect them of being hostile, or even lukewarm, in the cause of the Catholics. No one will impute to them unnecessary and groundless apprehensions and alarm, or ill-founded prejudices. With every friendly disposition towards the Catholics, with every feeling of earnest zeal in the promotion of their interest, they are compelled to acknowledge the danger to the Protestant establishment of the state, if their petitions were to be granted without effectually securing a compliance with those conditions on the part of the Catholics. With such a disposition of temper in the Catholics, it is admitted to be utterly vain and hopeless to attempt any plan of harmony and union in the empire by further concessions. The question then is reduced to a short issue, has there been manifested any such temper and disposition to part with ancient prejudices, to cast off the papal influence and authority, and accede to the arrangements thus deemed necessary for the common happiness, tranquillity, and safety of the empire?—Has any gentleman, who has spoken in the course of this long debate, ventured to give us any assurance or pledge of that nature?—Is there any the least hope or prospect of it?—The noble lord, in his letter above quoted, distinctly admits there is not, and on that ground deprecates the agitation of the question, and declines himself to be the mover of any proposition. Does the right hon. gent., who has undertaken that task, gives us any hopes on the subject?—Does he not decidedly prove the contrary, in the reception with which he states his proposition of a Veto to have been received?

The temper and disposition of the Catholics could not have been subjected to a milder test. The papal authority could hardly be said to lose more than it would gain by such an arrangement: as any abridgement in the entirety of the episcopal appointment would be more than counterbalanced by the public recognition of the Catholic episcopacy in Ireland, hitherto merely titular and unauthorized, and of the exercise of the papal nomination, subject only to the royal Veto. Yet even such an arrangement, though brought forward under the sanction of some of the leading interests amongst the Catholics, and with the express approbation and assent of their deputed agent, engaging too for the confirmation of his principals and employers, and though adopted and recommended by their principal supporters in both Houses of Parliament, was rejected by the unanimous resolution of the Catholic bishops, declaring their fixed determination not to admit of any change in their ecclesiastical, appointments; that in his holiness the pope, his captivity notwithstanding, the right still abides of giving communion and confirmation to bishops of the Roman Catholic church, and that such condition is become a landmark of the Catholic discipline and ecclesiastical peace throughout all the churches. The Roman Catholic church teaches (they declare) that of the christian polity a most essential part is the principle and tendency of an unceasing communication, in divine things, amongst all the faithful, of which communication even a temporary suspension is a misfortune to mankind, but the perpetual abrogation by human law must be considered by us as manifest oppression of conscience. (Mr. Keogh's Commentary on the Veto.)—The resolutions of the counties of Kilkenny and Lowth, in which the Veto was attempted to be carried, and of other counties and cities in favour of what is termed the independence of the Irish church, sufficiently testify the feelings of at least a considerable part of the Catholics of Ireland.

The Catholic inhabitants of the county and city of Kilkenny, in an address to the synod, state, that in their temperate yet firm disapproval of any innovation in the mode of perpetuating that divine hierarchy (which, covered with the glories won out of a rude and lingering struggle, they look up to as the last undestroyed monument of their faith and ancient national grandeur) they solemnly recognize the succession of those virtues by which their sainted predecessors were ennobled.

At a general meeting of the Roman Catholics of the county and city of Kilkenny, convened by public notice, on the 2d of February last, they declared themselves immutably attached to the decision of the Roman Catholic prelates of Ireland assembled in their national council, in Sept. 1808, against giving any controul, much less an effectual one, to the crown in the appointment of their successors.—That the power to be conveyed away to government by the measure of a Veto, would be a disgraceful barter of things spiritual for things temporal;—that it would, in process of time, eradicate the Roman Catholic religion from this country. That the plea of withholding their acknowledged and imprescriptible rights, in consequence of the Pope's authority over them and his subjection to a hostile power, is inadmissible.—To accede to such a measure is considered, by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, as wholly inconsistent with their religious tenets and faith, of which an inviolable attachment to the supremacy and dominion of the sovereign pontiff forms an essential part.—The captivity and fallen condition of the Pope, so far from affording an argument in favour of any diminution of his authority and power, is considered as aggravating the injustice and baseness of such a deprivation.—It is evident that the rejection of the petition of the Catholics, and leaving them as they now are, is a measure infinitely less unpopular and obnoxious amongst the Roman Catholics of Ireland, than to grant all they require under the new restrictions and changes, which are proposed to be introduced.—It is treated as a species of heresy and apostacy—and that if it were adopted Ireland would cease to be a Catholic country. That [to use an expression of their late agent] "We may as well pretend to pluck a beam from the sun as to touch a fibre of ecclesiastical jurisdiction."—Whilst those sentiments and feelings prevail, can there be the least hope entertained that the Roman Catholics of Ireland would be disposed to accede to the right hon. gent.'s project of abandoning the supreme head of the church, and adopting a domestic nomination, a project which I do not understand to be brought forward with any sanction but his own, and which is obvious in a stronger degree to many of the objections made to the former project of a Veto, as it takes away the episcopal nomination altogether from the holy see? and even if upon this one subject of episcopal appointment the foreign influence and authority of the Pope were to be relinquished, is there any the least reason to expect that the Roman Catholics are prepared at present to relinquish that influence and authority upon every other subject, and wholly to separate themselves from all connection with the see of Rome, in the manner and to the extent which the right hon. gent. has shewn to be essential to the tranquillity and safety of the empire, at least during the dependence of that see on the emperor of France, is an indispensible condition of a compliance with the petition of the Catholics.

Does it not incontestibly follow, then, from this state of the case, without entering upon the general question, how far it would be politic and just to grant any further political power and franchises to the Roman Catholics, even if they were ready on their part to accede to all the conditions and arrangements which are deemed necessary by their two great champions, the right hon. gent. and lord Grenville: yet circumstanced as things now are, in the decided and avowed determination of a great proportion of the Catholics of Ireland, and their ecclesiastical leaders, not to admit of any the least change in their connection and attachment to the sovereign pontiff, notwithstanding his present condition, and the prospect of his future dependance on France, a compliance with the petition of the Roman Catholics is, to use the expression of the right hon. gent., inadmissible; and consequently, to accede to the present motion of referring it to a Committee, could lead to no practical good, but must be productive of infinite mischief.—I trust, Sir, I have now shewn that the grounds upon which I oppose this motion are supplied to me by the most distinguished partisans of the Roman Catholics either in express terms, or by fair inference from the arguments and statements which they have advanced. The right hon. gent. opposite, who spoke on a former night (Mr. Ponsonby) has pursued what appears to me a most extraordinary line of argument. He has held out a menace, to alarm us with the apprehension that Ireland will be lost, if the petition of the Roman Catholics is not complied with. Such a representation of the wavering and precarious loyalty and patriotism of his countrymen I should have heard with astonishment and regret from any one, but particularly from one who has had such ample means of knowing their character and disposition, and to whose authority so much weight is on every account due.

This right hon. gent. will, I hope, excuse me if I should still hesitate, even upon his authority, to believe the allegiance of the Roman Catholics of Ireland to stand upon so slender a foundation. But if it were so; if all that has hitherto been done for them can be forgotten; if, after having been delivered from every penalty and restraint, and admitted to the full enjoyment of all the rights of person and property, and to the unmolested exercise of their religion, with every other blessing in common with the rest of his Majesty's subjects, by which, means they are admitted to be daily increasing in commerce, population, and wealth, they are still ready to cast off their allegiance, and submit to a foreign yoke, because, they cannot succeed in their petitions for a further portion of political power, upon terms different from those on which it is granted to any other subjects of the united empire: if, I say, such were really the temper and feelings of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, the only effect upon the present question would be, to produce a greater degree of caution in arming them with additional authority and power.—With the right hon. gent., however, the effect is directly the contrary.—With a singular degree of inconsistency, he is for abandoning the precautions and conditions recommended by his political friends, and proceeding to the whole of the petitions, without any previous or concomitant terms whatsoever, trusting entirely to the chance of what the Roman Catholics may afterwards voluntarily choose to establish in the way of arrangement to guard against the evils of a foreign influence, which the right hon. gent. himself concurred in proposing to obviate in a former year by means of the Veto.—So that the right hon. gent. recommends it as a measure of political wisdom and prudence, to make an immediate, irrevocable, and unconditional grant of all the power and authority required by the Catholics, whom he at the same time represents to be actuated by a spirit of zeal so infuriated as to supersede every civil obligation and duty, and with a blindfold confidence to trust that they who will not beforehand, to attain their favourite object, consent to the smallest sacrifice, will, when they have gratuitously obtained all they require, voluntarily adopt every sacrifice, and consent to every arrangement, however adverse to their feelings, habits, and opinions, which the protection of the Protestant establishment and the union and safety of the empire may require.—This we are told the generosity of the Irish people will induce them to effectuate, provided you! will place confidence and trust in them. (Loud cries of hear! hear! from general Mathews.) I can assure the hon. general that I have no intention or inclination to call in question the generosity of any of my fellow-countrymen in Ireland. I believe them to be a high-spirited and generous people;—I have already expressed my disbelief of the character given of them, or rather of the designs imputed to them by the right hon. gent., whose reasoning I am controverting. But personal confidence is not a ground to act upon towards great bodies of men in matters of great national importance, upon which the happiness, concord, and safety of the united empire permanently depend.—We cannot be justified in relinquishing the ordinary means of precaution which common experience and policy dictate, and with which the line of conduct recommend to the House by the right hon. gent. is directly at variance.

But what are the reasons assigned by the right hon. gent. for making an exception to that general line of conduct in this particular case, and how does it happen that he is in particular the adviser of such a measure, in opposition to those with whom he generally acts?—Have any circumstances taken place to justify such extraordinary confidence on this subject? Has the right hon. gent. become an advocate for it from any recent experience of his own?—Has he discovered, that on this subject men may be peculiarly trusted even without any positive compact, from the sincerity and good faith which they have been uniformly found to observe in all their communications respecting it?—Has not the direct contrary most lamentably and disgracefully appeared?—Has not the right hon. gent. been on this subject the dupe of this confidence?—Have not his own honour and veracity been called in question by it?—What was the degrading narrative, which occupied a great part of the speech in which this confidence is recommended to us?—A series of the most shameful and barefaced duplicity and falsehood, practised on the right hon. gent. and some of his friends by the deputed agent of the class of persons to whom we are to give this novel and extraordinary confidence, described by the right hon. gent. in luminous and forcible terms, equally to the entire and satisfactory vindication of his own honour and good faith, most unjustly and scandalously aspersed, and to the shame and confusion of those with whom he had to communicate.—Yet was Dr. Milner a man standing high in character and rank amongst the Catholics, and on that account selected as their agent. Yet was he dignified with the appointment of a Catholic Bishop in partibus, and of Vicar Apostolic by the See of Rome, and as the delegate of the Catholics, was placed in a situation of peculiar responsibility and trust. Notwithstanding all this, how was every honourable tie and principle disregarded and broken! When this Reverend Doctor authorised the right hon. gent. and others to tender the proposition of a Veto, it is probable that he was himself deceived into a belief that it would be ratified and approved by the Catholic Hierarchy and a great majority of the Roman Catholics in Ireland; for I cannot suppose he had the baseness, with a different impression, to hold it out solely for purposes of deception.—But when he found the Catholic voice in Ireland loud and general against this innovation in their Church, he endeavoured to shrink from this responsibility himself, and place it with the right hon. gent. and those who had been deceived by a reliance on his representations.—Is it possible to state a stronger instance, to shew the folly and danger of personal confidence in matters of this nature?—Repeated asseverations, and even written engagements, are found to have no binding obligation or weight. Distinctions are made between a solemn and a serious promise—and even the most grave and venerable characters do not scruple to fly from their words, and falsify their most deliberate declarations. It is not a matter in which any man or set of men, if he or they could permanently answer for their own opinions, can answer for those even of the present, much less for all succeeding generations. The Roman Catholics of Ireland are not (as lord Grenville has truly observed) a corporate body.—They speak through no common organ. Their various wishes and interests, like those of their fellow subjects, can be collected only from general information; and any opinions erroneously attributed to them, they, like all other persons, are fully entitled to disclaim. The binding obligation of a positive law, and a solemn test to be taken by each individual, must be resorted to for the purpose of giving a solid and permanent security for the observance of any arrangements which the tranquillity and safety of the empire require.—So far from its being a case in which any exception can, with any degree of prudence, be admitted to the ordinary course of proceeding in matters of state of great magnitude and importance, this is of all others one in which nothing should be left to future chance or uncertainty. If any facts or arguments were wanting to prove so plain and self-evident a proposition, they have been amply supplied, as I have shewn by the right hon. gent. himself.

But even if confidence could be received as a justifiable rule of action in a measure of great national concern, and if, after what has passed, it could be so in directing the conduct to be observed by Parliament towards the Roman Catholics of Ireland, still it is now wholly precluded by their own express, deliberate, and public declarations, hot to accede to any the slightest of the terms which have been proposed. They will not consent to any change in their ecclesiastical appointments;—they speak of their connection with the Pope in terms that preclude any the least chance of their being at present disposed to relinquish it. It is declared a land mark of the Catholic discipline and ecclesiastical peace.—It is matter of the highest and most sacred religious duty, which it would be schisma- tical and impious in them voluntarily to consent to violate, and to abrogate which by law would be, they declare, a manifest oppression of conscience. Their resolution is fixed and unalterable. They have publicly pledged themselves to the firm and unshaken observance of it, and nothing will induce them to depart from it.—Yet under these circumstances the right hon. gent. recommends his blindfold confidence,—a confidence that is, that the Roman Catholics of Ireland, like their agent Dr. Milner, will at once retract and unsay all their declarations and most solemn promises, and act in direct opposition to them.—This is the wise and prudent line of conduct prescribed to us by the right hon. gent. But what is the measure which the right hon. gent. advises parliament to adopt upon this wild experiment of confidence? A measure still more wild and extravagant, if possible, than the principle on which it is founded.—Trust, says he, to the generosity of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and give them all they ask.—This is the only plan by which the harmony and concord, the union and safety of the empire can be effectuated. Was there ever any thing so indefinite, wild and extravagant?—All that the Roman Catholics of Ireland ask. Can any one define what that is, or to what extent it goes? They will be satisfied, it is said, to be admitted to all the same privileges, and put on the same footing in all respects as the rest of his Majesty's subjects. (Hear! hear! from the opposite side.) I shall hereafter consider whether this is the extent of what the Roman Catholics of Ireland ask. But if it were, do the gentlemen who appear to sanction this claim by their cheers, consider what is the nature and extent of it, and what must be done to satisfy it in the extended sense in which it is made?—Immunity from all penalties and restraints they have already acquired; access to some of the franchises and power of the state has also been given; and the rest are open on the same terms as they are granted or acquired by any other subject. To grant a full participation of political power to those who refuse to acknowledge the plenum dominum, the entire sovereignty of the state, would be contrary to the policy and practice of all ages and nations: nor would this place them on the same, but on a different and a better footing than the rest of his Majesty's subjects. But how is this claim to be complied with in respect to the religious establishment of the country?—Is there to be no longer any preference or distinction in favour of the Protestant church in Ireland?—Is the Roman Catholic hierarchy to be immediately put on the same footing? to have the same episcopal and other dignities, with precisely the same rank and dignity, the same emoluments and rights, the same power, privileges, and authority? Are the tithes of Roman Catholics to be withdrawn from the Protestant and transferred to the support of the Roman Catholic church? And are the two rival establishments to be formed in Ireland in all respects on the same footing? If they are not, if all these things and more are not done, the Roman Catholics will still say they are not entirely placed on the same footing as the rest of his Majesty's subjects; and if they are, would these be the arrangements which are considered by lord Grenville to be necessary to make "due provision for the inviolable maintainance of the religious and civil establishments of this United Kingdom, to provide for mutual conciliation and common safety, by which contending interests are to be reconciled, jealousies allayed, and many long cherished and mutually destructive prejudices are to be eradicated; by which, in short, the mutual good-will of all our fellow-subjects, Protestants as well as Roman Catholics, and the union of the empire, in affection as well as in government, are to be effectuated?" That such innovations must be productive of effects directly the contrary, is too evident to require any further discussion. New and augmented sourcès, therefore, of civil discord, discontent, and danger to the state, will not fail to be created by a new parliamentary grant on this head, whether it fall short of what is required, and introduce new restrictions and qualifications, or whether it goes the full length of erecting an absolute, unqualified, and universal equality of jurisdiction, emolument, and power.

But if it were possible to overcome all the difficulties on this head, as it certainly is not, at least at this time, does the right hon. gentleman suppose that his object would then be fully attained, that parliament would have granted to the Roman Catholics of Ireland all that they ask, and that they will rest contented with this boon?—Has not this fallacious hope been always held out upon every successive claim made by the Roman Catholics of Ireland? Was it not always predicted that every petition was to be the last, and if granted, the grievances of Ireland were to be no more heard of? And yet has not every grant of indulgence been immediately followed with fresh demands and increased importunity? What security have we that the same would not be the case now?

Here again we are not left merely to conjecture. The explicit declarations of the Roman Catholics themselves put the matter out of all doubt. They do not pretend thus to circumscribe and limit their demands; they have much larger and more extended views.—They have been publicly announced by one of their own body, who is said to speak the sentiments and to possess the confidence of a considerable number of the Catholic body, in the publication on the subject of the Veto, to which I have before alluded. Quoting from the letter of lord Grenville the following sentence, "Vain indeed would be the hope of reconciling Ireland solely by the repeal of a few remaining disqualifications of the Catholics," the author adds, "Here lord Grenville speaks truly to the point, for they are in fact rather an affront than an injury. Emancipation, if an isolated measure, must be undesirable both to England and Ireland."—In another passage he says, "To satisfy the people of Ireland, there must be means adopted which the poor man will feel in his cabin; there must be a change, not merely of men, but of the total system of government."—He afterwards explains his meaning more in detail. "Depend upon it you will only tamper with the tranquillity of Ireland, if you go on discussing your extensive and complicated arrangements. You had better turn your mind to arrangements at once extensive and simple. It is time to lay the axe to the root of the evil. If you sincerely feel that love of England, and that loyalty to your King, you are so forward to profess; if, in a word, your purpose be to save Ireland to the empire,—let her experience an eternal divorce between religion and politics, including the abolition of tythes, and the suppression of every species of public plunder upon pious pretences. Let her see her corporate bodies, including the universities, annulled; for they are all organized accomplices of old errors, and of old vices, against every moral, political, or physical improvement. Let her peasantry be freed from the pressure of rackrent, not by inoperative statutes, but by bringing into market fewer bidders for more arable land, by discouraging her grazing, and by encouraging her domestic manufactures. Let the progressive accumulation of her taxes be terminated. Their amount, indeed, must remain enormous, to pay the interest of her debt; for alas! the money is squandered. But if the series of robbery, from the tax-gatherer to the exchequer both inclusive, were guarded against, and if the immense misapplied revenues of the intrusive church, and of the corporate bodies, were resumed by the nation, Ireland might wage a war which would last till the end of the world." I am far from supposing these extravagant sentiments generally to be entertained by the Roman Catholics in Ireland; but if such ideas at all prevail in the country, it is in vain to look for tranquillity and content from any grants which it is in the power of parliament to make.—The cry of grievances unredressed will never cease to be loud and frequent by turbulent and restless spirits, so long as the Protestant establishment continues to be maintained, and the union between England and Ireland to be preserved.

The right hon. gent. will, therefore, I am sure, upon cool reflection, be convinced how utterly impossible it would be, by pursuing his plan of unconditionally and irrevokably granting to the Roman Catholics all that they ask, to attain the objects which I know he has in view, viz. the peace and happiness of Ireland, the harmony of the United Kingdom, or the safety and stability of the empire.

But if the right hon. gent. can still entertain these visionary and delusive hopes, I beg to ask, whether he has carried his ideas forward to what he must at least admit there is considerable danger may be the case, the event being different, whether he is prepared to point out what is to be done, if after putting to so desperate a risk a stake of such transcendant importance, if after parliament shall have, as the right hon. gent. recommends, absolutely and unconditionally granted to the Roman Catholics all that they ask for, if after vesting them with the full participation of authority and power ecclesiastical and civil, military and political, throughout all the functions and departments of the state, trusting entirely to their subsequent generosity spontaneously to adopt the arrangements deemed necessary to prevent the fatal consequences to the church and state from such a grant, the Roman Catholics should notwithstanding still persevere in their present determination to admit of no change in their ecclesiastical discipline or appointments, and should still, with the same devoted earnestness and zeal, continue to recognize the plenitude of the papal supremacy, the controlling influence and authority, the altum Dominium of the holy see, as a fixed and inviolable article of the Catholic faith, admitting of no alteration or abatement, even though Cardinal Fesche, or any other instrument of the emperor of France should be invested with that character, what, I ask, would the right hon. gent. propose should be done to protect the united empire from the alarming danger, to which even the most zealous advocates for the augmentation of the Catholic power, have, as I have shewn, admitted both the church and state would in such a state of things be infallibly exposed? Would the right hon. gent. be content to leave the empire exposed to all that danger without even then resorting to any measure of security?—If not, what would that measure be? and which of the only alternatives that would then be left to us would he recommend to be adopted? Would he propose that parliament should resume the grant so improvidently made, and restore things to the state in which they were when this rash experiment was made; or would he by a new infliction of legislative penalties and restraints enforce the observance of the arrangements deemed necessary for the public safety? In either case the right hon. gent. must be sensible at how great a distance he would place the attainment of any of the great national objects which he has in view, the happiness, the tranquillity, or the safety of the United Empire? It cannot be necessary to dwell longer on the bad policy and mischief, in every point of view, of the right hon. gent.'s proposition. I have already detained the House too long in the exposal of it. The right hon. gent. must, I presume, have been induced to resort to it, not as in itself an advisable measure, but because if something must be done towards the Roman Catholics of Ireland, this is an experiment, the only one which in their present temper and disposition could be tried after the language and conduct which they had held respecting the proposal of the Veto: after the angry and vehement resistance given to that most temperate, though in my judgment, most inadequate and feeble measure of precaution, notwithstanding the quarter in which it originated, and by which it was recommended and enforced, after the feelings and sentiments manifested by the Roman Catholics throughout Ireland on the subject, which the right hon. mover of the present question feels in common with the warmest of their advocates, to be an indispensable condition of any further communication of political franchises or power, I mean the Papal Supremacy, after their proclaimed determination, as a matter of the highest religious obligation, not to allow of the slightest degree of abatement of that foreign influence and dominion, the whole of which must, it is admitted, be absolutely and completely renounced, before it can be reconcileable to any principle of policy or justice to make any further grants to them, any conditional arrangements with the approbation and consent of the Roman Catholics, the right hon. gent. must have been sensible had been removed to an immeasurable distance. The doctrine which it is now made manifest, continues to be maintained respecting the Pope, forms alone, even if every other point could be adjusted, in the judgment of the most strenous advocates for encrease of Catholic power, an insuperable obstacle and bar to any such measure.—The time is not yet come, when the Roman Catholics of Ireland can bring themselves to cast off a foreign yoke, to cease to recognize the controul of a foreign power over their minds and consciences, to maintain a complete and unqualified, instead of a partial and divided, allegiance to the state, and to be no longer the temporal subjects of one sovereign, and the ecclesiastical subjects of another, with considerable danger too of a predominant preference to their, spiritual head whenever the two interests should happen to clash.—To effectuate this must be a work of time, aided by the diffusion of knowledge, and deliverance from ancient prejudices and intellectual bondage.—Without anticipating any question which may hereafter arise, whether any future change of circumstances may render it politic and expedient to augment the political power of the Roman Catholics, or as to what the change must he to warrant such a measure, it is sufficient for our present purpose that such a state of things does not now exist, and consequently that nothing now can be done.—And if it cannot, to what purpose is it to refer the petitions to a Committee? What is the benefit to be derived from such a measure? Is it a Catholic question, a subject upon which it is necessary to procure additional information? The right hon. gent. who opened the debate on the first day, in the commencement of his speech, complained that the subject was worn out and exhausted by the repeated discussion of it, and that he was unable to throw any new light upon it. And if he was not able, with all the long and anxious, attention he has bestowed upon it, and the best means of being fully acquainted with it in all its bearings, what prospect is there of any useful information being derived from any other quarter? Surely if the subject was exhausted at the time when this declaration was made, it must now be much more so, after the long and able speech of the right hon. gent., and those which have since occupied the time of the House during a lengthened debate of three whole days.—Will the discussion be continued to more profit or advantage, when carried on in the same assembly, composed of the same members, by our being formed into a committee, you, Sir, being removed out of that chair, and another member presiding in one below? I am sensible, Sir, that I have myself very unprofitably added to the tedium of this debate, and am still trespassing too long on the reluctant patience of the House. But surely those who have manifested so much impatience at the useless protraction of the debate, will not urge the necessity of it as a reason for going into a Committee.—We have certainly talked enough on the subject, and the only result has been to satisfy us that nothing can be done.—Is there then any other object to be attained by complying with the motion? We are told that it is necessary for the purpose of conciliation, to testify a disposition on our part to enter into a treaty, if a similar disposition is shewn on the part of the Roman Catholics. But here again the argument is most unfortunate, and the effect certain to be the opposite of what is proposed.—For how is conciliation to be produced by entering upon a treaty with a previous certainty that no practical measure can he the result of it? Will it not rather tend to exasperate and provoke than conciliate, to excite expectations and hopes, which are sure to terminate in disappointment? Will not the Roman Catholics have just ground to complain of their being trifled with, and their feelings in- suited by so disingenuous and delusive a proceeding? We did not conceal, they will say, what were our fixed and unalterable resolutions. They were done and repeatedly published in the most open manner, and in the most explicit terms.—If they afforded, an insuperable bar to a compliance with our petition, why did not you at once tell us so? With a full knowledge of our determined purpose, you still resolved to entertain and consider our petition, and thereby encouraged us to believe that you were in earnest, and sincere in your intentions to afford some practical measure of relief, yet you now tell us, that at the very time of this resolution you know this to be impossible. What an unprofitable waste of time then was it, and what mockery and insult towards us, to engage in so idle and nugatory a proceeding?—That such a measure must give rise to feelings and reflections of this kind, is, I think, inevitable, how it can operate to produce conciliation I am at a loss to conceive.—In the full conviction, therefore, that it can lead to no practical good, but to much litigation and mischief, I shall give the motion my decided negative.

Sir, I will trouble the House no longer.—I have endeavoured to confine myself to the narrow view of this question, which I at first proposed.—Many gentlemen will be disposed to oppose the motion upon more general grounds, and upon a decided opinion of the inexpediency under any circumstances of adding to the political power of the Roman Catholics in Ireland. In avoiding to discuss that opinion on the present occasion, it will not, I hope, be inferred, that I mean either to affirm or to negative it. I have chosen to avoid any disputable ground, and to meet the supporters of the present question upon their own arguments, assuming, for the sake of the argument, the general question to be with them.—I have still endeavoured to shew that in the present state of things it is impossible for these gentlemen, and particularly for the right hon. gent. who has moved the question, consistently with their own principles, to maintain it, or to shew any practical good that can result from it. I cannot hope to be able to carry any of those gentlemen with me in the opposition to the motion, but I trust they will do me the justice to admit, that the grounds on which I have rested my opposition, feeble and imperfect as they may appear to be, cannot yet be fairly attributed to any principle of bigotry or into- lerance.—They are derived from those who profess themselves most inimical to that principle, and upon their authority, as well as the plain reasons and merits of the question, I oppose the reference of the petitions to a Committee.

.—Sir, I am conscious that apology is due to the House for rising at this late hour to occupy more of its attention. But, Sir, I think this question concerns the whole empire, and not Ireland alone. I proposed to myself the honour of stating my sentiments at length upon this important subject; but at this period of the debate, tired and exhausted as gentlemen seem to be, I shall merely confine myself to a few words, and content myself with the consciousness, that the vote I shall give was not sub silentio.—I concur most fully in every word spoken by the hon. gent. who seconded this motion. He, Sir, has chosen a ground of argument, which must be as convincing to all men's minds, as it is simple and unshackled by any other local consideration. The broad principle of toleration is that upon which this question ought to be set at rest. That hon. gent. has already descanted with so much ability upon the happy influence universal toleration has upon the nations of the world, that I shall not incur the imputation of temerity, by endeavouring to follow him upon that topic. I fully concur in every word he has said upon it, and I shall only crave permission of the House to add a very few words. Sir, I wish the House to consider seriously the effect of the system of toleration that has been established in England. We have heard of no relaxation of morals; we have heard of no dangerous conspiracies—none of those dreadful consequences which invaribly follow a persecuted nation; bat on the contrary, I will maintain, that in proportion as the principles of toleration have obtained, in that proportion peace, tranquillity, and learning have prevailed.

. Sir, I will not obtrude myself upon the attention of the House but for a single moment. Having come into the House this evening with a determination not to say one word, I should not now have broken that resolution, but hearing the name of a revered and noble relation of mine (lord Grenville) alluded to, and especially by the hon. and learned gent. opposite (Solicitor General) who has particularly dwelt on a passage of that noble lord's pamphlet, I feel myself called upon to set him right upon a point on which he seems to have a good deal of difficulty. I have only to recommend the learned and hon. gent., before he forms a conclusive opinion upon the subject, that he will read the two last pages of the pamphlet.

said, that he had come to the House with intention to enter at some length into the merits of this singularly important question; but at this advanced hour of the morning, the House naturally exhausted, and very impatient for a decision, he should most readily spare them, and spare himself; and the more especially, as he was himself very anxious to hear his right hon. friend Mr. Grattan in reply. Under this declaration, he hoped and trusted the House would have the goodness to hear him on one or two points, as concisely as the nature of them would possibly admit.—Mr. Moore said, in the 19th century he should be ashamed to view this in any other light than as a question of national strength, wholly divested of every other influence or consideration, on the principles which he should hereafter state. In this light he was, first, to consider the nature and character of the strength which he was anxious to add to the empire; and this he should concisely do, by implicitly subscribing to the full extent of the words and the spirit of the declaration of the hon. and learned gent. (the Solicitor General), that he readily admitted the loyalty, integrity, and fidelity of the Catholic subjects of the empire; to which he (Mr. Moore) should as concisely add, that they had lately testified to the world that their principles and conduct were superior to suspicion, and that thus feeling, to manifest our sense of their inestimable value, in a conquest over our own ignorance, weakness, passions, and prejudices, as the gospel we profess in common with them has enjoined, would be the most brilliant and the most valuable conquest, in a national sense of acquisition, which the consolidated wisdom and faculties of the whole empire of Great Britain could command, had ever achieved.—It was in this light (Mr. Moore said) he considered the acquisition of the Catholic subjects as an acquisition of national strength, in calling four millions of them to the support of the empire, and the maintenance of the constitution, in the security of which they had as great an interest, and took as much pride as any class of his majesty's subjects whatever. In proof thereof, the hon. member proceeded to adduce what he considered as the greatest possible test which human nature could exhibit, of their loyalty and attachment to the constitution, to the throne, and to all the institutions of the empire, which the Catholic subjects had most singularly and conspicuously manifested by their late conduct in the Union of Ireland with England in one legislature, in these concise but most impressive terms:—that whereas the political interests of the Protestants of Ireland, as proved by the records on the table of this House, had been stipulated for and procured by large compensations in money, and thus, as he felt, most corruptly paid for, in order, and, indeed, as the only means of obtaining their assent to the Union, while the Catholics, without whose assent, it is avowedly and unanimously acknowledged, the measure of Union could not have been carried, superior to all such undue influence, had spontaneously acceded to the wishes of the throne and the government of England, in the humble expectation only, confessedly held out by its ministers for the general welfare of the state, that they should thenceforward be exonerated from all penal statutes inflicting disabilities, the repeal of which would admit them to that honourable participation of the constitution, of which they had so long been unwisely as well as unjustly deprived, and to which every subject of the empire, taking the oath of allegiance, submitting to the laws of the state and contributing to its support, is, in the hon. member's opinion, entitled as a right. Mr. Moor submitted, that if after this almost unexampled instance of self-denial and sacrifice on the part of the Catholic body, so peculiarly characteristic of their principles and integrity, which had not been attempted to be controverted, the Protestant part of the nation could continue to entertain a doubt of their loyalty, integrity, and disinterestedness, and of the great value of their strength being added to the empire, he should be inclined to suppect that they were prepared to scorn, all principle, and to trample inscrupulously on all virtue. This, Mr. Moore said, was the first point on which he was desirous of offering his sentiments to the House. He should now shortly advert to what a noble viscount opposite had offered early in the debate, which he thought of too great consequence not to be removed; and the more so, as it seemed to have been so accepted and cheered by the ministerial side of the House. The noble viscount had been pleased to give it as his opinion, that the influence of the Catholic hierarchy over the minds of the people was uncommonly great and of vast extent, and therefore, to be apprehended as formidable to the state; and the more so, as we were so wholly ignorant of the system of management of the Catholic hierarchy, as to be left in a condition of difficulty, which precluded all middle way, or to that effect, (lord Castlereagh bowed assent to the general substance of this position.)—Now, said Mr. Moore, I do on the contrary most unreservedly contend that a full, extensive, and powerful influence of all classes of the clergy over their flocks, is and ever has been, the great fundamental principle, object, and end of every ecclesiastical institution, and the first object and duty of the clergy in all states throughout the civilized world; and if the impatience and unsettled state of the House would allow him, he was ready to support his allegations by the authorities of the most ancient, of the best and most approved writers on religious subjects; and especially, on the very enlightened and more applicable subject of alliance between church and state which is formed on general compact, "that the state shall give the church its fullest protection, and the church, in return, shall give the state its utmost influence:" and that if the clergy of the church with whom this compact is made, which, except in Ireland, is with the strongest, as having the greatest number to influence in obedience and submission to the civil state, should lose their influence, the alliance, ipso facto, is dissolved, inasmuch as "religion is established, not to provide for the true faith, but for civil utility."—And, said Mr. Moore, with regard to the difficulty in which the House and the country were left as to a middle way of decision, as it has been termed, if there was a difficulty, it was entirely owing to the neglect of ministers exercising the executive trust in both countries, whose special duty commanded that they should at all times consult, promote, and protect the peace of the church, in all its establishments, for the advantage and utility of the civil state.—Following up this opinion, the hon. member adverted to the unhappy, decrepid, and almost nugatory condition of the establishments of the Protestant church in Ireland, as exhibited to the House in a folio volume in 1807: an establishment which, though little more than nominal, the great body of the people of Ireland could not, religiously and conscientiously, help receiving and viewing as an heretical imposition on their faith; and the hon. member repeated, that he could not help declaring as he felt, from an attentive consideration of this report of 1807, that the governments of both countries had for so long a series of time, shamefully abandoned this most sacred duty, and one of the first objects of the general trust of the powers and authorities of the state.—Mr. Moore lamented exceedingly the impatience of the House, for which he could naturally account by his own fatigue of long attendance: that he could not enlarge on a subject of so much real importance to the strength, security, and prosperity of the empire; a subject which he contended, and had to evince, had never yet been argued on the true grounds and principles which peculiarly belonged to it, and were exclusively its own; but, as he had said he would be as concise as possible, he should perhaps take some other opportunity of promulgating his sentiments more at large; now unequivocally declaring, that he thought the applications made by our Catholic brethren of the empire, to partake of and to support our constitution, as he contended was their undoubted right, the greatest honour and compliment they could offer to the House, to the nation, and to the world; and he hoped they would unremittingly persevere until they succeeded.—He should most cheerfully support the motion of his right hon. friend for going into a committee.

observed, in reply, that the hon. member (the Solicitor General), had furnished in favour of appointing a committee, an argument the most decisive. He had totally and entirely misapprehended the resolutions of the Catholics, and in consequence of that misapprehension, had declared that no arrangement could take place—so that the two parties, the Protestants and Catholics, were to remain in a state of eternal separation. The mischief of such a supposition is too evident to require explanation, and the grounds for it too futile to require long discussion, but are a very strong and very powerful argument for a Committee to consider these documents, on which a mistake so pernicious has been founded.

I have in my hand the resolution of the Catholic bishops, in which they declare they are ready to yield, for the security of the state, every thing which does not af- fect the rights or integrity of their church. Here it a ground far arrangement, and an argument for a Committee; but one of the hon. member's ideas, if generally adopted, would indeed render it vain and useless to proceed to a Committee, because he says that there cannot be, and that there is not an instance of a full communication of privilege, where there is not in the body so possessed, an acknowledgment of the plenum dominum of the crown. No Catholic country does make such acknowledgments. Your Catholic ancestors, who obtained the Great Charter—they who so many times confirmed that charter—made no such acknowledgment. They all acknowledged the spiritual power of the pope.

The hon. member who preceded him, denies that the frequent disturbances that have taken place in Ireland, have arisen from the penal laws. Certainly tithe, as he himself acknowledges, has been a more operative cause. But I beg to observe, that whatever outrages the Irish have committed, are greatly exaggerated, and that one reason why some of the Irish have not always been so attached to the law is, that the law has not been attached to the Irish. The laws have been enemies to their religion and their rights, and therefore they have not been friends to the laws.

The hon. gent. thinks, that the rights in question are no great object to the Catholic body: I differ from him. The withholding those rights degrades the whole Catholic community, and subjects the peasantry to insult and oppression.—The right hon. gent. ask me whether I agree, on this subject, with lord Grenville and lord Lansdowne?—In return I ask him, whether he agrees with them, or whether he agrees with his friend on his right side, and his friend on his left? and whether, agreeing with lord Grenville, he means to vote against him; and dissenting from his friends, he means to vote with them?

With regard to a former administration to which he has alluded, I can only say, that I do not subscribe to his charge. That administration gave up the military Catholic bill, because they could not carry it; and they resigned their offices, because they would not resign their principles—a crime in which they will not have many imitators. The Viceroy of Ireland at that time seemed to me to hare, acted an honourable and an honest part; I am glad his qualities are not to die with him, but promise to survive in the instance we have just heard of the noble marquis, who, good by inheritance, asserts the noble nature of his race, and promises to his country a succession of virtue.

I shall divide the opponents to the motion into two classes, those against the time, and those against the principle; but of the latter class there are scarcely any—So that the principle is generally acceded to. The Roman Catholic religion is then acquitted; it is then allowed there is nothing either in the composition of the Irish or of their religion, that bar their capacitation—the only thing desired is, security against dangerous influence in the nomination of their clergy, and the security so required, gentlemen have declared should not go to an influence to be possessed by our government in that nomination, but to a precaution against the nomination by a foreign power. But this precaution the resolution of the Catholic bishops bespeaks—they declare they are ready to give you every security which is consistent with the integrity of their church and their religion. What becomes now of the argument which says, the parties cannot agree—or the abuse heaped on the Catholic body, more especially on the Catholics of Ireland?

An hon. gent, has asked, whether in the committee I meant to propose the veto?—1 would, in the committee, make our propositions to the Catholics, and impose nothing on them that was not perfectly agreeable to them. I have no doubt of their spirit of accommodation to every thing which is necessary for our security; but if we do not go into a committee, neither parties can make any proposition, and therefore I should suggest to the member, who put a question to me that his instructions are for a committee; for without a committee no part of them whatever can be fulfilled.

Mr. Grattan took notice here of the injustice committed by those who charged the friends of Catholic emancipation with a design to subvert the Catholic clergy, What View could they have in taking such a part?—What! to conspire against their widowed and un endowed condition, in order to rob them of their no power—and their no magnificence. He then adverted to the argument which objected to the time, and said, he apprehended that the consent of the Pope would be necessary to any arrangement—that the Pope was now our friend, but if we delayed until there should be a French pope, we should find a new embarrassment. Had the Catholic question been carried in 1801, or in 1805, or in 1808, there would have been no embarrassment on that head. The gentlemen who say, that had you gone into a committee in 1808, you could not have obtained the veto at that time, speak without authority, and without information. The difficulty arises from the delay; and from a continuation of delay, a further difficulty, a difficulty for instance with regard to the nomination, may arise: so that a greater embarrassment would be found to justify the postponement pf the question, than to support the present motion.

In adverting to that class who opposed the motion on the principle, he observed that a right hon. gent. had said, he did not think the Catholics would, in consequence of civil franchises, be satisfied, but that they would ambition the establishment of their own church, and the overthrow of ours. He founds this objection on imputed character. What evidence of this character. Bishops—Protestant bishops, are held to be tenacious of power, shall we disqualify the Protestant bishops therefore? Presbyterians are held to entertain republican tendencies—unjust, I think, the surmise—but shall we disqualify the Presbyterians? Will you receive such evidence to disqualify a great proportion of your people, and, when the right hon. gent. who comes forth on this subject, is evidence, against a people with whom he is not acquainted. Had he been in Ireland, and witnessed the spare habits of the Catholic clergy and their exemplary frugality, or had he recollected that this very clergy, whose love of magnificence alarms us, have receded from the suggestions of salary, he would not have trembled at their passion for magnificence. But they will learn the lesson, we are told, from the growth of power; and this prophecy is to be received as evidence against the civil rights of a great community—a prophecy tendered by a person to whom that community is unknown. He asked whether any community would be satisfied with half privileges? the Catholics, in 1793, were dissatisfied with bad government and half privileges. He observed, that though the right hon. gent. would not agree to give more to the Catholics, yet he hoped he would agree that they should enjoy what they had, folly and freely, and therefore should, in the naval and military service, have the free exercise of their religion; he would therefore hope, that no officer should obstruct them. How monstrous and prophane would it be in any officer to do so; as if religion was like the manual, or the Prussian exercise—a military maneuver, to be done on the principle of uniformity, in which the soldier's God and conscience were perfectly unconnected. If such obstruction should take place, I make no doubt that ministers will interfere; and if they should not, that parliament will. This appears a subject the more important, if we consider the numbers of Catholic seamen and soldiers. The Irish militia, some regiments of the line, the Irish yeomanry, and the sailors of some ships of the line, are wholly or in a great proportion Catholics. This; the recruiting serjeant procures for you, without knowledge either of divinity or politics: that great practical statesman, and that profound practical divine, proceeds without book, and with his fife and drum fills your ranks and your ships with Catholics; he goes on the principle that sapientia prima stultitia caruisse. By stultitia I do not mean folly; I mean the wisdom of this right hon. gent., the divinity of-that right hon. gent., and their great controversial abilities.

In adverting to the argument of the able civilian who opposed the motion, he observed, that the right honourable member had remarked that religion must be controlled by law. In answer to which he begged to say, that the religious sentiment was not a subject for legal control, and the reason was because we could not; human legislatures could not make laws for heaven—no more for the truths of religion than for principles of motion. An act of parliament with regard to the square of the hypotenuse, or with regard to the eucharist, would be equally but of the region of the legislature, but if to preserve religious opinions an establishment should be made, and that establishment connected with a foreign power, such communication would be a proper subject for the state; but even then the consideration should he, whether that communication was political, and if the communication was with the natural enemy of the country, as. in the ease of the French emperor should that happen, then the state would naturally consider such communication, though professedly spiritual, in fact, and in effect, political, and would naturally wish to make an arrangement which should guard the kingdom from such an influence. The right hon. gent, says, it is impossible to do so—domestic nomination, he specifically says, is impossible. How we do try Catholic allegiance! sometimes we say no Catholic, no true Catholic, can bear true allegiance to a Protestant king; then we say, no true Catholic can submit to domestic nomination, but rather must suffer nomination of their bishops to be made by France. Thus we give Protestant authority for Catholic rebellion; but I must observe, that such cannot be the principles of any divine religion: there cannot be any divine religion that compels the subject to submit to the enemy of his country: and if any professor shall say so, I ask that professor, has there been a revolution in heaven, that he shall come to preach diabolical doctrines, as if God Almighty had abdicated, and Lucifer was on his throne. We know the world to be his work, and if any man contradicts his dispensations here, either by misrepresenting the laws of motion or of morals, we know such a preacher belies the Almighty to damn his fellow creatures. But the present question is not left to surmise: the fact is, that the nomination of Catholic is, almost universally, in considerable countries, domestic—the institution and the investiture must be in the Pope, but the nomination, with his consent, may be, and generally is domestic. In old France it was domestic—in Austria—in Russia—in Prussia—in England, with regard to Canada, domestic—nay, more, it is now practically domestic in Ireland, the Catholic bishops now in Ireland, nominate. The learned member quotes Doctor Milner as authority against a veto, and against domestic nomination. Dr. Milner proposed both—his propositions, read by my right hon. friend, made the nomination domestic, and he proposed, expressly, a domestic nomination in the Irish Catholic bishops, and he calls them nominators. Speaking of Dr. Milner, I beg to say, that I hope the sentiments which I have delivered may not be taken from Dr. Milner's publication. In one of his letters he supposes me to have said that canonical institution was the investiture of a foreign power, with the unqualified and arbitrary right of renomination to a portion of our magistrates; a representation too extravagant to deserve observation. The right hon. gent. having thus supposed domestic nomination impossible, and having considered the veto impossible also—corrects the danger—How?—by disqualifying the laity—but as long as you disqualify the laity, you separate them from England. What then is to be our situation, according to the doctrine of the right hon. gent.? A clergy connected with France, and a laity separated from England—You think it better to have French bishops in Ireland, than Irish Catholics in parliament—this is a situation defended on account of its safety; a situation, in fact, of the greatest peril—where the cure aggravates the disorder—where you correct an eventual communication with France, by a separation from England.—To shew the better the nature of such a situation, I shall propose to the gentlemen opposing the motion, to lay before them the map of Europe, and let them be the arbiters of their own argument. There is Ireland, here England, and there France—the object must be to connect the Catholics of Ireland with England, and keep them separate from France. To accomplish this, I shall present to those gentlemen two lines, one of communication, and the other of separation. How will they apply them r will they draw the line of communication between France and Ireland, and of separation between Ireland and Great Britain—ecclesiastical communication between the Irish Catholics and France, and political separation between the Irish Catholics and Great Britain. If they draw the lines in that manner, they give up the empire; and if they do not, they renounce their argument.

explained. He never said he entirely coincided with lord Grenville; but that he agreed with him that the veto alone was sufficient to destroy the present claim, without entering upon any other ground.

The gallery then cleared, and a division took place: For Mr. Grattan's motion 109; Against it 213; Majority against the motion 104.