they are dying in a good cause: while their associates, instead of regarding their punishment as a sacrifice to the offended laws, view it rather in the light of the ordinary operations of a campaign; and, while their superiors are hoping that the examples of so many executions may strike a salutary terror into the guilty, they are no less congratulating themselves that the cause has lost only so few of its supporters. p. 308.

We should have expected Mr Foster to tell us, that under the present laws of exclusion, for the continuance of which, at least for a time, he is an advocate, the amount of Catholic wealth and numbers, and the sphere of Catholic influence, were declining; and that the Protestant population and government, though at present exposed to some danger, had, by means of the laws which they alone have made and administered, a tolerable prospect for the future ;-quite the reverse.

The Protestant sees, further, in too many districts, an increasing proscription of himself and of his creed; he sees the Protestant tradesman systematically and simultaneously deserted by his Catholic customers; he sees the Protestant farmer menaced in his habitation, and waylaid in his journeys, until he seeks his peace in emigration, or buys it by his conversion; he sees a wide-spreading system of intermarriage of Protestants and Catholics, above all things encouraged by their priesthood, ending very generally in the conver sion of the husband or wife, and securing almost universally the Catholicism of the children. He sees, everywhere, from these concur rent causes, the diminution of Protestant numbers—the increasing insecurity of Protestant property-the steady career, the unbending intolerance, of Catholic aggrandizement.'

Such is Mr Foster's account of the relative situations of the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland; and he is not so absurd as to say, that some change in such a state of things is not desireable. He looks about for safeguards against the Catholics :Domestic nomination is delusive,' and the Veto is 'nugatory; -' an object of Protestant ridicule, and of Catholic abhorrence. He tells us, that he scarcely ever met with an Irish Protestant who saw in it (the Veto) any security whatever-and for this reason, that the attachment of the great mass of the Irish Roman Catholic population to the English laws, and their desire to maintain the political connexion of the British islands, is, in his view, the only real security against an increase of ⚫ Catholic power.' But he has a nostrum of his own;-a provision must be made by the Government for the priesthood, and the Crown must have the power of appointing the bishops, or at least translating to the sees of the greatest rank, value and importance, with other regulations, which would make the King as much the head of the Catholic, as he is of the Protestant

Church. There is, however, one quality in this nostrum, which renders unnecessary the task of considering its efficacy; and that is that it cannot be administered: For he tells us, every objection which the Catholics now feel to the Veto, they would apply with tenfold exasperation to a project which they would consider as a mere purchase of the liberties of their church:’ -and, indeed, in what other light they could consider it, we cannot at present imagine. Mr Foster thus finding that the securities offered by the Catholics are delusive, and that his own securities will not be adopted, thinks it best to abstain from proceeding at all, till the minds of the Catholics are prepared for the reception of his prescriptions:-he thinks it best to wait, while Protestant numbers are diminishing, while Protestant property is everywhere becoming more insecure, till the Catholics become less confident because more numerous, less arrogant because more wealthy, and submit to the terms which may be dictated to them in their strength, but which in their weakness they reject with indignation. This, Mr Foster thinks, is wise and cautious, and statesman-like; and a great party follow Mr Foster.

But, when this learned gentleman was looking round him for securities, for something to establish or extend the attachment of the great mass of the Irish Roman Catholic population to ⚫ English laws, and their desire to maintain the political connexion of the British Islands,' did it never occur to him, that in the measure of emancipation itself, some such security was to be found? If it be true that you cannot prevent the priests from giving their flocks disadvantageous impressions of British laws and British connexions, is it not something at least to render the members of these congregations less fit subjects for the priests to operate upon? If it be from the discourses of the priests, and not from their own natural feelings, that the dissatisfaction of the Catholics of Ireland towards their present state of exclusion arises, we say it is not the less advisable, as a matter of policy, to deprive these orators of a topic calculated more than any other to make an impression on their auditors. If they represent to the Irish Catholics, that they are excluded from a fair share in making or administering the laws by which they are governed, the representation, we humbly conceive, is not the less likely to gain credit because it is the plain and simple truth. The offices from which the Catholics are excluded, the opponents of emancipation tell us, are few. They are too few, if exclusion be meant as a security; but quite enough, if it be meant to disgust and irritate the Catholics. They are invited to draw in a lottery, from all the

great prizes of which they are excluded, and are called upon to pay as much for their tickets as the other adventurers. To console them for this, an arithmetical calculation is set before them, to show that, upon reckoning the pounds, shillings and pence, the sum total of the small prizes is much larger than that of the great ones. The most imaginative people-the votaries of the most imaginative religion in the world, are desired not to be led away by their imagination. Mr Foster tells us, that the hostile influence of the Catholic clergy is a great cause of the dissatisfaction of the mass of the people. And what is his immediate practical remedy? He tells the young Catholic barrister that he shall never be a Judge he tells the young landed proprietor that he shall never be a member of Parliament-he tells every young Catholic of ambition and talents, that he shall never reach any of those offices which men of ambition and of talents alone look forward to as desirable. Having told them this, which they must be dull indeed not to feel-having fixed deeply in them feelings of discontent, at the time when the mind acquires the character which it carries through life, they are sent forth-they, who, above all others, exercise an influence on society-to counteract the machinations of a disaffected clergy!

It is curious to observe the arguments by which Mr Foster justifies to his mind this hopeful course of policy-though they are arguments which have not been peculiar to himself. He chooses to consider the Legislature as driving a bargain with the Catholics of Ireland; and his ruling fear is, that the body of which he himself is a member may be overreached. He says, that the proposition of domestic nomination is distinctly this, that the Protestants and Catholics, having each much to re•quire, and much to give up, the Protestants are to cede every thing that remains, and the Catholics are to make the single concession of remaining exactly as they are.' Now, Mr Foster's ideas of bargain-making seem, in a case of this kind, a little unreasonable. The Catholics have been excluded, by special penal acts of the Legislature, from rights common to the other subjects of the State. When the reasons for their exclusion are at an end, it is not fair to ask them what price they will now pay for their admission. If the exclusion of the Catholics were a benefit to the Protestants, this demand might be equally unjust; but it would not be equally foolish. Mr Foster, however, tells us, that while the system of exclusion is in its vigour, Protestant numbers are diminishing, and Protestant property is becoming more insecure. He then exhorts the Pro testants of Ireland to persevere, like the dog in the manger; end, rather than confer an unbought benefit on their neigh

bours, to hold fast, to the last gasp, a power which is so fatal to themselves. He exhorts Great Britain, rather than abandon the proposal of insulting provisos, to continue a system, by which the population of Ireland must become universally Catholic, and universally discontented.

But this is not the only scheme that has been devised for the redress of these growing evils. Mr Foster is for offering the Catholics terms which he knows they cannot accept. Mr Peel is the advocate of another party, which would offer them no terms at all. If they be admitted into the Constitution, he says, I have heard of no securities, nor can I devise any, which will allay the apprehension I entertain.' Mr Peel is one of those speakers who are fair and candid in their statements, but rash in their arguments; who, on the strength of exhibiting a question clearly and impartially, think themselves at liberty to give it any answer they please; and, after having made doubly clear that which was sufficiently intelligible before, leave us quite in the dark as to those points on which we wish to be satisfied. He labours unnecessarily to show, that if the Catholics are made eligible to offices by law, we should calculate on their admission to those offices in the proportion to which their numbers and talents entitle them. He says that they will not naturally see with pleasure an intrusive Church' in possession of the temporalities which have been wrested from their own clergy;-but, after these premises, without fairly considering whether they will, with their numbers and dispositions, be more formidable when admitted into Parliament than when excluded, he drops the argument, and leaves us to puzzle out the question as we may.

We are, for the present, assured,' he says, that the number of Roman Catholics who will be returned to Parliament will be very limited. "True, there may be danger, but then it will not be very great! You will not have more than ten Roman Catholics in the House of Commons; and the Roman Catholics cannot overturn your Establishment!" And are these the clumsy securities which are offered to us?-these, so little in unison with the spirit of that Constitution which we profess to maintain, but which, in truth, we are about to abandon? If the Roman Catholics entertain no principles and no views hostile to the establishments of the State, admit them to privilege, without reference to the numbers to be admitted: if they entertain such, exclude them, not because their numbers will be limited, but, fairly and openly, because you cannot confide in them.

If we had not diligently perused Mr Peel's Speech, we should have imagined that we had mistaken the page of the Parliamentary Debates in which we read the reprint of it, and fallen upon a part of a treatise delivered upon the same subject by Mr

WEBBER, who says, that the mysterious and sublimed union of Church and State is a sacred subject, that scars above the ken of worldly policy. It is an ethereal essence, that sanctifies and gives a character of perpetuity to your State, while it draws from that support which repays to it worldly stability and "effect.' But if Mr Peel is not a believer in the new alchemy, and condescends to make his process clear to the ken of worldly reason, he should have proceeded to draw a comparison between the danger to be apprehended from the state of Ireland under its present system of laws, and that which can reasonably be expected to result from the laws which it is proposed to enact. To say that we cannot confide in the Catholics, is not a sufficient reason for their exclusion, unless it can be shown that, in their excluded state, they are less dangerous. The Constitution is not an idle word, nor a collection of unmeaning ceremonies, without reference to human welfare or misery. must be allowed to have some regard to the four millions of Catholics-we must be allowed to have some consideration for the safety of Great Britain:-But, if the laws must have regard to the comfort or pride of a million of Irish Protestants only, let us see by what means the destruction of Protestantism may take place in Ireland, and how far the probability of such an event is increased by the proposed measure of emancipation.

As for the Protestant laity of Ireland, according to Mr Foster, they are daily diminishing; the farmers are way-laid, the shopkeepers are combined against. If the measure of emancipation were adopted, we cannot suppose that these lawless proceedings would continue, at least to the same extent. We cannot suppose, that, if Protestants and Catholics were equal in the eye of the law, that one sect would have a peculiar enmity to the rules which were intended for their common protection. But all this, to such reasoners as Mr Peel, is nothing. Though every Protestant farmer in Ircland was murdered, and every Protestant shopkeeper starved, this might be a lamentable fact; but if it were necessary to the support of the Protestant Church in Ireland as the religion of the state,—as the favoured religion, he could take no steps to prevent it.

We find Ireland, then,' he says, 'circumstanced as I have described, united by an inviolable compact to Great Britain; and we find it an essential article of that compact, that the Protestant religion the religion of the small minority in point of number, shall be the established and favoured religion of the State. We cannot make a constitution de novo; it is needless to resolve what would be the best system of law under another state of circumstances. We must modify and adapt our theories to that national compact which we cannot infringe.