TO HIS GRACE * THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, WHOSE VICTORIES IN WAR, AND WHOSE COUNCILS IN PEACE, HAVE CONFERRED A LASTING BENEFIT ON THE BRITISH NATION, THIS WORK, ILLUSTRATIVE OF THOSE IMPORTANT PARLIAMENTARY MEASURES, IN THE CONSUMMATION OF WHICH THE ENERGIES OF HIS CHARACTER AS A SENATOR AND A STATESMAN WERE SO EMINENTLY DISPLAYED, IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY HIS OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. ADVERTISEMENT. ALTHOUGH the excitement occasioned by the immediate agitation of the Catholic Question has now passed away, it appeared to the Author of the following pages that some permanent record, not only of the measures recently adopted by the legislature for its settlement, but of the origin and progress of the laws affecting Roman Catholics, interwoven, as they are, with the constitutional history of our country, might not be unacceptable. Every liberal minded Englishman must hail, with sincere pleasure, the arrival of a period when Ireland is united with Great Britain, not by the bonds of a political compact merely, but by the removal of those causes of mutual discord and suspicion, which had so long kept the hearts of their inhabitants asunder. The successive steps which have led to the consummation of this grand measure, form an interesting portion of our national annals, while the par liamentary proceedings which have accompanied its discussion, have given rise to some of the most splendid efforts of senatorial eloquence on record. The author has endeavoured to select from both sources what he judged most important. He lays no claim to any merit beyond that of an industrious compiler. His attempt is therefore not so much discussion, as history. His aim has been not to produce what is original, but merely to present a combined and permanent record of facts already known. He will, however, feel gratified if his labours should, in any degree, tend to the removal of whatever may yet remain of the virulence of party rancour on the one hand, or the apprehensions of conscientious timidity, on the other. If however, in allusion to any of the points at issue between the Romish and Protestant churches, he should appear to bear hard on the tenets held by Roman Catholics, it will be recollected that he has written only what he conceives to be truth; and he assures the individuals of that communion that, while as a Protestant, he conscientiously renounces the doctrines of the church of Rome, it is in the spirit of meekness and good will to those who differ from him. OXFORD, JULY 14, 1829, |