main in Sweden so long only as he conforms to the decree of toleration, under all its restrictions. In civil matters, all persons, natives or foreigners, professing the Roman Catholic religion are strictly prohibited from holding any of the higher or lower offices of the state, they cannot become members of the Diet, but by the same beneficent policy which prevails in this country, they have a voice in the election of the members of the Diet, though they have not the right of admission. By a decree of the states of Holland and West Friesland, it is enacted, that no priest shall exercise the Roman Catholic worship, unless by a written consent of toleration from the states-that in all the different dependencies the priests shall abjure the authority of the pope in the most ample manner-and also the power of dispensation, of absolution; and shall even preach the pre-eminence of the states. All bulls, mandates, &c. from the see of Rome must be submitted to the council of the towns before publication: no new churches can be built without the consent of the burgomasters; and even with that consent they are not allowed to bear any resemblance to those of the established church. By the same decree, all Roman Catholics are excluded from being officers of justice, secretaries, and police officers. By an act of the senate of Hamburgh, the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion is allowed; but it is allowed only in private buildings, without steeples or bells, or bearing any of the outward signs of a public church: all public processions are prohibited, and the senate assumes to itself the most complete control over the regulation of all ecclesiastical matters. These conces sions are thought quite sufficient, and the Catholics are expressly forbidden to look for civil employments in the state, or even to express dissatisfaction at their exclusion, under a threat of the immediate revocation of the indulgence of the state. In the more despotic nations of the continent, professing the Protestant religion, the exclusion under which the Catholic labours, though not so severe as in those states which have been mentioned, is, however, very comprehensive, and sufficiently manifests the suspicion with which they are tolerated. In Denmark, they are treated perhaps with more rigour than in any other country; for the exercise of their religion depends upon the arbitrary will of the king alone. No public place of worship is authorised by law, and it is allowed only as a matter of special favour to foreign ministers. The power of the pope is absolutely unknown, and though there is no express law to prohibit Catholics from filling any office of the state, yet the spirit of the law is inferred from there being no instance of the employment of a Catholic in the high civil departments. In Prussia they are treated with greater indulgence, as they labour under no exclusion from office; but in ecclesiastical matters the authority of the king is supreme, and no communication between bishops or individuals and the court of Rome can take place lawfully, except through the medium of the Prussian government. In Saxony the Catholics laboured under greater restrictions than prevailed in any other country, until the conquest of the country by Napoleon, who restored them to an equality of rights, but these privileges were gained by the power of the sword, and not with the concurrence of the nation.-Now, from this hasty sketch of the regulations affecting Catholics in Protestant countries, two things are apparentthat in those countries possessing a constitution in which the elements of liberty are to be found, in something like a representative system, the exclusion of the Catholic from civil office, and the restriction under which he exercises his religion, prevail with the greatest rigour. In Holland, Hamburgh, and Sweden, the Catholic is looked upon with the most jealous eye. What inference is to be drawn from this universal exclusion of the Catholic in the free Protestant states of Europe? Is caprice or prejudice the cause of their exclusion Certainly not: for they are uncertain and fluctuating in their nature, and cannot be assigned as a motive for general policy. Is tyranny? No: for it is incompatible with the free forms of government in those countries. No rational inference can be drawn, except that wisdom has dictated and experience has proved that the principles of the Catholic faith are hostile to the general principles of liberty. Another circumstance worthy of note is, that no Protestant nation under a despotic government ever allows the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion without some restriction. If this is to be found in despotic governments where the king can banish or imprison, for any attempt which he may think subversive of the law or religion, how much more careful ought a mixed and limited government to be, where no such summary power exists, in admitting those persons into power, who live under no government without suspicion, and under very few without total exclusionand what is there in England alone of all the Protestant nations of Europe, to make her regardless of dangers against which every other nation is anxious to provide? If he was justified in concluding that concession could not be claimed as a matter of right, he would ask, is it politic to repeal these laws? He had not witnessed any thing on the part of the Catholics themselves to induce him to turn a deaf ear to the dictates of wisdom and experience: he would not follow theory and speculation in preference to practice. It was said that it would be an instrument of peace: he was sure it would be a cause of dissatisfaction. It was true the majority of the Irish nation was Catholic; but a very small number of that majority would be at all affected by complete emancipation. It was true also that the superiority of wealth, power, industry, and property, was on the Protestant side, and that every man would be alarmed. If prejudices exist, they are not likely to be removed by giving up to numerical majority alone all the privileges upon which the preponderating party in wealth and property have founded their security. If the Catholic is emancipated the Protestant will be alarmed, and we shall weaken Protestant loyalty without securing Catholic allegiance.-Can any man suppose that the inhabitants of the same country, divided so immensely in their religious sentiments, will not come into frequent collision? Suppose Catholic emancipation to be granted, are friendship and union to follow immediately? Are there no causes of dissension in the institutions founded upon a Protestant establishment, which have grown up with centuries? Would Catholics acquiesce in their existence, if they were complimented with the privilege of becoming judges, sheriffs, and members of parliament? In Ireland the corporations of all the principal towns are universally Protestant; they can admit or refuse whom they like. Would Catholic emancipation make the admission of a Catholic into the corporations more probable than it is at this moment, and would not his defeat founded upon the prejudice of the Protestant be more galling than his present disability? In election matters there would be the same source of discord: nine-tenths of the land of Ireland belong to Protestant proprietors, and a great part is occupied with Catholic tenants. In the event of a contest between a Protestant and a Catholic, the former would rely on his property and his influence as a landed man; the latter on his religion and the intrigues of the priest. If the former succeeded, the tenant would be exposed to religious excommunication; if the Catholic succeeded, the tenantry would be arrayed against the landlord Were there no seeds of mischief in such a conflict? Greater evil would flow from such perpetual struggles than from the present restrictive laws. If the law enabled a Catholic to be sheriff, his first act would be to name twenty-three Catholic land-owners, if indeed such a number could be found in any county, as the fittest persons to be grand jurors: the next year the Protestant would retaliate, and hence would arise an endless conflict. Were there no sources of discord to be found in the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs, upon the supposition that a bill had passed for the relief of the Catholics? Conceive the principles by which the pastors of the respective churches would be actuated? Conceive the pure and independent doctrines of our church, and the bigotted and servile tenets of the Catholic worship? Conceive the character of its ministers ?—ours endued with a lofty idea of their own independence, and highly gifted with all the learning which the ancient and celebrated institutions of this country afford-theirs wringing a scanty subsistence from an impoverished and unwilling peasantry, drawing their education, as well as their principles, from the institutions of a foreign country: our church flourishing in wealth and splendour, theirs existing in poverty and distress: our ecclesiastical establishments the richest in Europe, compared with the number of persons for whom they are provided: theirs, the poorest for the multitudes which are attached to them. Conceive this state of things, and can any man say that peace will be the fruit of the comparison? Is it in human nature to suppose that the Catholic body will continue to pay with patience for the maintenance of a double establishment, to one of which they are attached to the other mortally hostile? Is it not natural for them to look back to the times when their church possessed all that wealth of which ours has despoiled them? Is it not reasonable for them to say, "restore the patrimony of our church, as you have restored the establishment of our religion" -and will not they find many advocates to support the claims which the majority of the nation make for an ecclesiastical establishment, which, contrary to all general principle, is now kept up for the minority? Can such a system continue in harmony, if the aggrieved and more numerous party have the power and inclination to attempt its destruction?With this view of the case, it cannot be said that Catholic emancipation would heal the dissensions of Ireland: it would not remove the causes which have been described: they would remain untouched and undiminished. And, with such a conviction on his mind, he could not suffer such delusive arguments to remain uncontradicted, being convinced that Catholic emancipation would not remove the causes of discord between the Protestants and Catholics. Mr. Charles Grant said, he would now trouble the House with the few observations which he had to make, because, from the advanced stage of the night, he might otherwise be precluded from delivering his sentiments on this important question; the delivering of which, in the situation in which he stood with regard to Ireland, he esteemed a solemn and imperative duty. He had listened with the utmost attention and the greatest delight to the eloquence with which the motion had been introduced-an eloquence which, while it called to the support of the policy which it recommended the names of the illustrious statesmen and great geniuses of former times, evinced the possession of a high portion of kindred talent. He had, indeed, heard the speech of the right hon. and learned gentleman with wonder and admiration, esteeming it worthy of the cause which it defended worthy of the principles which it advocated and worthy of the petitioners whose claims it stated and enforced. He presumed to think that their cause had made some progress, not only from the powerful eloquence and convincing reasoning of the right hon. and learned mover, but from the observations of his right hon. friend, who had spoken on the question as became the frankness and candour of his just and manly mind. His right hon. friend had, however, argued upon a view of the question which was not before the House, and had answered. propositions which had not been advanced. He had argued as if it had been proposed to repeal all the disabilities under which the Catholics laboured, at once, without examination or deliberation; whereas, it merely pledged the House to inquire into them in a committee. He owned he was surprised to hear his right hon. friend draw a parallel between the repeal of the Catholic disabilities and the abolition of the Test and Corporation acts, and argue, that because the latter could change the former, it ought not to be taken into consideration. The prayer of the petitioners contained nothing offensive or revolting: they asked for inquiry; they besought the House to examine their case; and, if their claims. should be shown to be founded in policy and justice, to remove the disabilities under which they laboured. His right. hon. friend answered "True it is we feel for your situation; true it is your case is a hard one: but we cannot grant your request; for if we do so we must repeal the Test and Corporation acts!" The Catholics came boldly forward and said, that past causes of animosity ought to be forgotten; and. that, in their present disposition towards our establishments, there existed no ground for alarm. To this his right hon. friend answered-" True, they are forgotten; but, in the revolutions of states, at some future distant period, we may become afraid of you; and we will, therefore, persevere in the same treatment of you as before, when you were really dangerous." It was thus that we treated the Catholics of Ireland. His hon. friend. behind him (Mr. Dawson) had called upon him to follow him to Denmark, to Sweden, and Holland, and see how the Catholics were there treated. He would not obey the call of his hon. friend; he would not follow him to foreign countries; he would appeal to the British constitution, and call upon the House rather to set than to follow an example. Motives of policy and justice, which affected the whole empire, pressed upon parliament the consideration of the Catholic claims; but more particularly the interests of Ireland required that so im-. portant a part of the population should not be excluded from the benefit of the British constitution. The right hon. gentleman here drew an eloquent contrast between the state of the inhabitants of admit, without inconsistency, a Catholic. But did the exclusion of the Catholics from the privileges they claimed produce peace or any corresponding advantages? No. If there was danger to our establishments from the admission of the Catholics, there was greater danger from their exclusion. There were two lines of demarkation on which the House might take its stand. First, it might have repealed the penal laws, and, after repealing them, might have stood on the existing disabilities, or might repeal both. But parliament had not stood on either. It had repealed all the penal statutes, and some of the disabilities, retaining others. It was contended that, if the Catholics obtained the abolition of the existing disabilities, they would become formidable to our establishments by becoming more powerful. This, he contended, would not be the case. As individuals, those who attained office or distinction would become more powerful; but the body would be less so, because less united. Besides, a government ought not to found its security on the weakness of its subjects, but on their confidence. There was no part of the constitution which ought to depend on the powerlessness of any portion of the subjects. It was impossible to tell the countless and nameless ties by which the constitution attracted to itself the affections of subjects; and therefore it was madness to persist in any measure, the inevitable tendency of which was to alienate those affections. He implored the House to consider that the fate of Ireland was at stake-to look at the state of the population of that country Great Britain and Ireland, and attributed | some share of the difference of circumstances in the two countries to the anomalous disabilities under which most classes of the sister kingdom laboured. He represented Ireland as subject to inconsistencies and anomalies of all kinds suffering much local oppression and great general distress; having its higher classes excluded from privileges to which the lower were admitted; wanting that sympathy between the different orders of society, and that interchange and communication of sentiment and feeling between the different ranks of life, which constituted at once the glory and the security of England. In this country freedom lived along the line which joined all the classes of the community, and our institutions were conductors of the general feeling. Why was not Ireland in this state? Why was property there stripped of its influence? Why was it divested of the force of authority? What was the result of all this? Local outrages distrust of the laws in a people disposed to obedience-extending to all classes of the community-operating in the higher classes to a contempt of the law, and in the lower to a transgression of it. He did not attribute all this state of things to the Catholic disabilities; but as little was he inclined to allow that these disabilities had no part in it. The system formerly pursued with regard to Ireland had been to legislate contrary to the opinion of the country. The calamities of the people followed, step by step, the system of degradation to which they were subjected; and the relaxation of the oppressive laws had been as invariably followed by im--to reflect on its present misery-and provement and increasing order. It should not be forgotten, that while Wales and Chester owed their liberties to Charles 2nd, Ireland owed her slavery to William 3rd. When he heard of the inconsistencies that would be involved in granting the Catholic claims, he could not but contrast them with the inconsistencies of the present system, where Ireland might have Catholic electors, but could not return a Catholic representative-where Catholics might be magistrates, but not sheriffs-barristers, but not king's counsel. There was nothing more inconsistent in a Protestant king having persons of the Catholic religion in his council, than a king of the episcopal system having presbyterian councillors; and a parliament that might be filled with dissenters could on what the parliament of Great Britain had already done for that country under the auspices of our late sovereign. Let it no longer be said of Ireland, that, having performed the duties which the constitution exacted, she was still excluded from the privileges to which she had a constitutional right. He called on the House to ratify this night the solemn contract of the union, and to make that great measure in reality what it was in name. What did Mr. Pitt, who had projected that measure, conceive to be its nature? What meaning did that great statesman attach to the following lines, which he had applied to the union of the two countries : « Non ego, nec Teucris Italos parere jubebo, Nec mihiregna peto: paribus se legibus amb Invictæ gentes æterna in fœdera mittant. What, he asked, did Mr. Pitt understand | land to be an illegal association, inasmuch by the eternal laws of confederacy, which as they bound themselves to a condi. were in future to bind those nations, not tional allegiance, and to principles un. in the relations of conqueror and con- known to the great body of the public. quered, but in equality of laws? We The address in question had been brought professed to follow the policy of that en- over to this country by the lord mayor lightened statesman in our intercourse of Dublin, and had been presented to his and relations with foreign countries; but majesty, surrounded and emblazoned with on this system of domestic policy we have those symbols of the association which not yet acted, nor will the maxims on were understood only by its own members. which that system was founded be reduced The lord mayor of Dublin, who had been to practice, until the inscription on his employed to carry over this address, was tomb shall record the liberation of Ire- his majesty's stationer in Ireland, and, he land. Let them look to the recent im- understood, had expected to receive the provements in Ireland. They would find honour of knighthood on presenting it. A that every opportunity had been seized of noble lord, remarkable for his suavity of educating all classes of society in that manners, and his powers of enlivening country. They would there see a generous even aldermen, had gone so far as to people making every effort, under every furnish the knight expectant with the disadvantage, for improving the situation, motto "pro patria," which he conceived and enlightening the minds of the lower peculiarly appropriate to a stationer. classes of society. There were securities Having failed, however, to obtain the springing up where they were least ex- honour which he had been led to expect, pected, as if sent by Providence to remove the lord mayor was condoled with by his a base and illiberal pretext. friends, and an hon. alderman (sir W. Curtis) who was remarkable for his festive urbanity, had resolved "to cheer him up" with a dinner. He should only add his hope, that the presentation of party addresses would always be reprobated by that House, as it could never be desired that the sovereign of this kingdom should become the sovereign of a party or faction. Mr. Luke White said, he merely rose to make his acknowledgments to the right hon. secretary for Ireland, for his excellent and manly speech in behalf of his suffering country. Mr. Bankes proceeded, amidst very general cries of question! to oppose the motion, but was altogether inaudible. Mr. Hart Davis said, that upon a question of such vital importance, he should consider it right to move an adjournment, if any member was prevented from delivering Lis opinions. Mr. Bankes said, that he felt no inclination to persevere against the sense of the House. Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald rose merely to state a fact connected with the present question. The circumstance to which he wished to draw the attention of the House was, the insertion in the Gazette of an address, purporting to come from an association of Orange-men in Ireland. He understood that from among the addresses presented to his majesty, a selection was made for publication in the Gazette by the minister whose duty it was; and he was bound to say, in justice to ministers, that the individual who selected that address must have done so without the sanction of his colleagues, as it was nothing less than an insult to the sovereign. It was not perhaps generally known, that this class of individuals had been pronounced by the judges of the VOL. IV. Sir G. Hill said, he had had the honour of accompanying the lord mayor of Dublin. He should oppose the present motion, because former concessions to the Catholics had failed to produce conciliation. Lord Castlereagh could not suffer the question to go to a vote, without troubling the House with a few observations. The present was a subject on which he had frequently expressed his sentiments; but it was one which he never approached without great pain, because it compelled him to differ from those friends with whom he usually agreed on other political and national questions. Another circumstance that gave him pain was, that from what had passed he saw no great prospect of a more favourable issue to the question at the present moment than had formerly attended it; but still he conceived it to be his duty to express himself candidly and without reserve. He had often wondered that the extent of the question now remaining for discussion had so much importance attached to it. He could 3 U |