HISTORICAL SKETCH

OF THE LATE

CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION, &c.

CHAP. I.

Protestant sympathy-Society for the Improvement of Ireland-Coalition of the liberal Protestants -- Protestant Declaration-Dinner of the friends of civil and religious liberty to Lord Morpeth-Recall of the Marquess of Anglesey-Meeting at the Rotunda-Petition to parliament Address to the King-The King's speech-The dissolution of the Association.

WHILST the two contending parties were now closing more nearly upon each other, and the awful crisis which would soon have been beyond all human control seemed every day more visibly approaching, a third party appeared in the country, to whose consolidation (in concurrence with the preceding circumstances) the Catholics were mainly indebted for the success which at last terminated their eventful struggle. But it was by a series of very delicate measures, and gradual arrangements,

VOL. II.

A

that this consolidation was brought about. The liberal Protestant for a long period was affected by the same habitual indifference to existing evils, which had formerly characterised the Catholic himself. The immediate pressure of danger did more than any sense of justice and fellow-feeling they might entertain for the calamities of their countrymen. But the time was fast approaching when Catholic or Protestant were no longer to be left a choice.

The liberal Protestant stood in a very peculiar position. Whilst the anti-Catholic party had remained passive, he testified for the struggles of his Catholic countrymen but a feeble and modified interest. The relics of old prejudices; the little inclination actively to interfere in concerns which did not immediately affect himself; the disfavour which usually accompanies voluntary displays of devotion to the popular cause, were very powerful drawbacks upon his zeal and exertions. But there were other motives, arising out of existing circumstances, which had a far more direct and repulsive effect upon his sympathies. The Catholic Association generally, but especially the individuals who were supposed to have the greatest weight and influence in its proceedings, were accused of a very injudicious and inexcusable

disregard, both in deed and language, to the feelings and opinions of others. It is quite true, that the provocation to such intemperance was great and frequent; that the excess has been far surpassed, especially in later times, by the excesses of their adversaries; and that much and reasonable apology may be made for such violations of public propriety, by the consideration of the usual habits of all popular assemblies. But these redeeming circumstances did not in the slightest degree palliate or neutralise the impressions which they conveyed to all classes of the Protestant community. The Catholic, separated by the anti-social influence of the penal laws from the Protestant, did not feel in its full force the result of these errors. He habitually and exclusively associated with men who were not only aggrieved in precisely the same manner with himself, but who, generally speaking, with very few exceptions, sought for relief from their grievances precisely by the same means. What other men would have regarded as violence, the Catholic considered as a natural and manly resistance to admitted wrong he applauded the overflowings of more deep sources of indignation, which he felt equally in his own bosom: he looked with admiration on the man who took the fiercest tone, who barbed

his shafts with the keenest poison, who winged them most directly and fearlessly to the heart of his antagonist. But the liberal Protestant stood in a very different position. His ordinary associates for the most part were opposed to him in opinion; he had to contend with their arguments, and what to most men is far more difficult, with their scoffs: instead of receiving in the evening any portion of that meed of applause, which usually repaid the exertions of the Catholic, and consoled him for the abuse of his enemies, he had to enter into an apology of his conduct, and to take up the defence of men, and of proceedings, who, however they might merit every approbation in mass, were extremely objectionable in details. The difficulties of this disheartening warfare were still farther increased by the Catholics themselves. Many of the most earnest supporters of their cause were often, with very little inquiry, heedlessly included in the sweeping denunciations, with which the good and the bad, the friend and the enemy, were sure to be visited in some way or other, during the course of the annual debates of the Association. A. friend, who perhaps had been contending with his whole force the night before in maintaining the claims and deserts of the body, not unfrequently found himself rewarded for his chi

valry the next day in the Association, by some sneer at his lukewarmness, or some coarse and unmerited invective against his principles, the injustice of which he had no means of repelling, but by entering into direct and personal explanation, and perhaps collision, with parties who, except from their connexion with such a cause, had little or no title to his respect. Such things are with difficulty to be separated from assemblies in a state of perpetual excitement like the Catholic Association: in Ireland, they are particularly so; and every Irishman, who could reason largely on the subject, naturally extended to them for these reasons no small share of his sufferance and indulgence. But the party of which we are speaking, seldom were so general and philosophic in their views: they considered only the personal wound, and the momentary result. Disgusted and indifferent, and at last fatigued with fighting in a cause in which they had so few to sympathise with, and no allies, they retired gradually from all intermixture with these proceedings, and

• There was an obvious falling off of Protestant sympathy and interest from 1825 to the middle of 1828. There had been no attempt to repeat the meetings of 1819, or the petitions of grand juries, counties, &c. &c. The attendance also on Catholic dinners was much less frequent, numerous,