tors? It is no life but the condition of living;(the flave is not fo likely to complain of the want of property, as the proprietor, of the want of privilege.The human mind is progreffive; the child does not look back to the parent that gave him being, nor the legiflator to the people that gave him the power of acquifition, but both look forward; the one to provide for the comforts of life and the other to obtain all the privileges of property.)

Your imperfect grants and comprehenfive theories, have given those afpiring thoughts, and let in that train of ideas which may hereafter greatly ferve, or marvelously diftract your country-you have already given to their minds the firft principles of motion, and the laws of motion now muft direct the machine.

The germ on the foul, like the child in the womb, or the feed in the earth, fwell in their ftated time to their destined proportions, by virtue of their laws, which we neither make nor controul. Talk not in fuch cafes of gratitude, rely on that gratitude which is founded on intereft; fuch gratitude as governed yourselves from 1691, when you fecured your property, to 1779, when you demanded your trade, and 82, when you demanded your liberty; from a colony looking only to property, to a people looking to a free form of government-from planters joining with the mother country against the catholics, to a nation joining with the catholics to exact of the mother country trade and freedom. Do I condemn you? fuch is the progrefs of nation, fuch the nature of man, and fuch his gratitude. Let me now confider how far this policy is confiftent with the intereft of his majefty; it has been faid, that under a proteftant monarch, the catholic ought never have the elective franchife; thus gentlemen

have attempted to annex the curfe of catholic flavery to the perfon of the king. They have gone a step farther, and have fuppofed the coronation oath goes against the prefent claims of the catholics, and have thus reprefented the king as fworn against the liberties of his people; they have done this, on a furmife, the statement of which would excite our fcorn, if its confequence did not produce our apprehenfions, that men believing in the real prefence cannot be well affected to the houfe of Hanover; they have urged this, when the Pretender was extinct, when the power of the Pope was extinct, and when the fting of catholic faith was drawn; they have done this when a new enthusiasm had gone forth in the place of religion, much more adverse to kings than popery, and infinitely more prevailing-the fpirit of republicanism. At fuch a time, they have chofen to make the catholics outcafts of a protestant monarchy, and leave them no option but å republic; fuch a policy and fuch argument, tend to make Irish catholics French republicans; they aid the caufe of profelytism against the cause of kings; they would drive the roman catholics from the huftings, where they might vote without danger, and would fend them to plant the tree of liberty on their own hills, where treafon, foreign and domeftic, may intrigue in a body kept vacant for all the floating poifon of the times to catch and propagate-a fchool for the difcontents of both countries and the foreign emiffaries, who need not bring any other manifefto than your own code and your own refolu

tions.

*

I differ much from those who say that the roman catholic cannot, under a proteftant king, enjoy the franchises of the conftitution; I fhould fay directly the reverse, that under no govern

ment

ment can the franchises of the conftitution be
communicated fo effectually, and fecured fo per-
manently to all his majesty's fubjects, as under
our prefent monarchial government. The time
is come when every loyal fubject fhould be free,
and every free fubject loyal;---it is true, the ro-
man catholics will now be your fellow fubjects,
but not your fubjects; they will be fubjects of
the king, and not the flaves of fubjects, who ftood
with regard to them, in the place of kings. Do
you lament the change? I congratulate you up-
on it;---the Bafha will not command the cringe
of the peafant's knee, but the king will command
the ftrength of it. You appropriate this great
body of men to the throne; you put the ftamp
of the king upon them, and ferve the crown more
by far than when you vote for his minifter. Let
me confider this policy in its relation to the Brit-
ifh empire.) Britain, you know, governs you no
longer; it is not your religious arrangement that
interefts her, but your phyfical ftrength. You do
not mean to fay that the catholics cannot be faith-
ful in their connexion with great Britain. I ap-
peal to thofe officers who ferved with them in the
laft war:their religion furely cannot now make
them adverfe; the roman catholic religion re-
fembles much more the church of England than
the church of France; their diffent cannot make
them adverfe. You fay the catholics are not as
well dipofed as the proteftants, because they are
not defcended from the English; many of them
are; but nations have neither a parent's nor a
child's affection; like the eagle they difmifs their
young and know them no longer. I know not
whether the roman catholics are as well difpofed
to great Britain as the proteftants are; but I am
fure they are at least as well difpofed as the pro-
teftant's would be, if they were deprived of civil

and

and political advantages. If you doubt their dif pofition, do you difpofe them better. You are trustees to preserve to great Britain the phyfical force of the catholics of Ireland, and nothing but you can forfeit it;-not religion, not the pope, not the pretender, but your profcription, which argues that the franchife of the catholic is incompatible with British connexion, and of course teaches the catholic to argue that the British connexion is incompatible with catholic liberty.Thus you would deprive great Britain of her refources, in recruiting army and navy, but you will fupply their place; how? One million, after filling all the places in church and ftate, will fpare the overplus of the numbers. You will borrow from the loom, and fend the weaver of the North into the ranks.-But this is a partial ftatement for you, inftead of affording one million to great Britain, you must borrow men from great Britain to defend and garrifon yourselves.Calculate then that in perfifting to disfranchife the catholic, you make him adverfe; three millions are to be put into the other fcale, which would be a difference of fix millions, that is nearly one half of the whole empire. It follows from this, that your policy is prejudicial to the British empire, as well as to the throne.

t

I have confidered your fituation and your arguments. A fituation of extraordinary peril.Arguments of extraordinary weaknefs, of monopoly, of panic, of prejudice, of any thing but religion; arguments which like the fabric they would fuftain, cannot bear the proof of any trial, nor the principles of morality, not thofe of religion, nor thofe of policy, nor those of conftitution; neither the touch of time nor the revolutions of mankind; their tendency is to make freedom a monopoly, which is like an endeavour

to make the air and the light a monopoly; their tendency is to make GoD a monopoly.—I have heard of monopolies of falt, monopolies of rice, monopolies of corn, but here is a monopoly of the ALMIGHTY, and yet the perfons who use these arguments are men of talents. Compare, compound, abftract, but in this inftance, the ftring of their madnefs fo ftrangely perplexed in the intellectual function, one fhould think God had fmitten the intellect of the country, as well as her fortunes, with fome diftinguished imbecility; fuppofe a will impeached for infanity, and it appeared in evidence that the teftator had in his capacity as a general officer had taken powder and ball from one half of his battalion, becaufe they believed in the real prefence, or when fick, had refufed to take a specific from Dr. Purcel, declaring he had confidence in his medicine, but had no faith, in his facrament, or had difinherited his own fon becaufe his fon's wife did not understand theology, or had fell on her knees to return thanks to GOD for his univerfal bleffings, and then had risen up, and dealt out imprecations on three-fourths of the people about him; or proclaimed that as long as a proteftant prince was on the throne, three-fourths of his fubjects be diffranchifed. Would not the evidence which is nothing more than a compound of your piety and your policy, if applied to the cafe of an individual, compell twelve honeft men, on their oaths, to find a verdict of infanity?

I have read of a republic, where the whole bufinefs of life was neglected, to give place to mathematical inveftigation. I can fuppofe a more extraordinary ftate, where the law excluded from ferving the public, three-fourths of the people; unless they would give a theological opinion touching an abstract point of divinity, and verify

that