will receive them with open arms; we will enable and encourage them to qualify for that important ftation; we will contend and struggle with them in the honeft and honoura ble pursuits of fortune and of fame; and if vanquished in the ftrife, we will join with the furrounding world in admi ring those talents which, though we could not equal, we dared to emulate.

With respect to the intermarriages of Proteftants and Ro man Catholics, I feel affured it is a measure that can never meet refistance within those walls. In a country eminently distinguished by the beauty of its women and gallantry of its men, fhall it be adjudged criminal to admire that, from whofe

Every step is grace,

"And every gesture dignity and love!"

Shall it be deemed a breach of allegiance to pay homage to beauty? Shall loyalty be fet at variance with nature? Shall our gracious fovereign be forced to difpute' titles with the "mighty monarch of the human heart?" And fhall love in Ireland, fhall love be made little less than high treason by law? Why, Sir, the punishment of Tantalus was mercy to this. Such horrid laws find their remedy in their impotence; their cruelty defeats and destroys their effect, and they become inoperative, because they are unnatural. Where God and nature enjoy admiration and esteem, it is vain, as well as finful, in law to prohibit union. The instinctive paffions of the human heart will force their way in spite of every cruel effort to check or to fubdue them; and when indulged, when virtuously and honourably indulged, gracious Heaven! fhall all their holy joys, shall all their facred and myfterious raptures be, by a mercilefs law, converted into pains and penalties? Shall the nuptial torch serve only to light its unoffending, yet unhappy, votaries to their temporal undoing? And shall the doating husband be forced to contemplate, in the person of his lovely wife, the fatal drag,

caft upon his honeft ambition; the beauteous, innocent, pitiable burthen that is to weigh him down in life, and mar his fortune and his fame for ever?

Away with fuch abominable laws ! Away with fuch favage legislation; and away, for ever away with fuch mischievous and fuch merciless policy. Let us, I conjure the house by the facred names of charity and benevolence! Let us maintain the cause and affert the honeft, virtuous claims of nature. Let us adjure all tyranny over the human heart, and vindicate and protect these amiable and irresistible attachments which are the prime fources, not only of all domeftic happiness, but also of all national strength, profperity, and glory. Let us once more throw wide the golden gates of hallowed love, and let hymeneal fongs and the fympathetic murmurs of united hearts render "our groves harmonious."

I fear I have trefpaffed on the attention of the house too long, and fhall therefore haften to conclude; but before I refume my feat, let me in the most folemn, yet in the most fuppliant manner, entreat of those gentlemen who may be apprehenfive of the confequence of the prefent bill, that while they regard, with a steady eye, the Proteftant interest, they do not overlook the Roman Catholic virtue; that is, in their anxiety to preserve what is called the Proteftant afcendancy, they forget not to alleviate the Roman Catholic grievances; fo that while one party fhall be happy in the poffeffion of prerogative, the other may be contented in the participation of privilege; always remembering that kindness on the one hand, will not, cannot fail of producing gratiude on the other; until, after a lengthened period of mutual harmony, cordiality, and affection, that happy moment, fo much, fo devoutly to be wifhed for by every real friend of this country, fhall arrive, when the divided names of Protestant and Roman Catholic fhall be heard no more, but mellowed and melted away-shall finally lose themselves in the more endearing, glorious, and divine appellations of friend, brother, and fellow Chriftian.

СНАР. ІХ

Addrefs on behalf of the Roman Catholics to the Lord Lies tenant. Refolutions and proceedings of the Catholic body. -motion of Mr. Ponsonby refpecting the Trade of Ireland. —Speaker's address on prefenting the money bills.-Conclufion of the feffion.-Lord Lieutenant's fpeech.-feffion of 1793-Debates refpecting parliamentary reform-the like concerning volunteers.

ON

N the 27th of December 1791, the following addrefs on behalf of the Roman Catholics was prefented to the Lord Lieutenant.

To his Excellency John, Earl of Weftmoreland, Lord Lientenant, General and General Governor of Ireland.

We, the undernamed, his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal fubjects, Roman Catholics of the kingdom of Ireland, defirous at all times to declare unequivocally our fentiments of loyalty to our most gracious Sovereign, and our attachment to the Constitution, difclaiming every word or act which can directly or indirectly tend to alarm the minds of our brethren, or disturb the tranquillity of this country, have, in order to prevent mifrepresentation or misconception of our fentiments, thought it neceffary now to lay before your Excellency the resolutions hereunto annexed.

VOL. II.

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We confide in your Excellency's goodnefs, that you will be pleased to represent us to our most gracious Sovereign, fuch as we really are, grateful for the mild and benevolent difpofition he has been always gracioufly pleased to fhew toward

us.

We rely with confidence on our paft as a pledge for our fu ture good conduct, and as we feel most ftrongly the benefits. that have arisen not only to us in particular, but to this kingdom in general, from the indulgence which, through the wisdom of the legislature, we have already received, so we look with respectful confidence to its wifdom, liberality, and benevolence, for a further extenfion of its favours.

Refolved, that application be made to the legiflature during the next feffion of parliament, for a further repeal of the laws affecting the Roman Catholics of Ireland.

Refolved, That grateful for former conceffions, we do not prefume to point out the measure or extent to which fuch repeal fhould be carried, but leave the fame to the wif dom and discretion of the legislature, fully confiding in their liberality and benevolence, that it will be as extenfive as the circumstances of the times and the general welfare of the Empire fhall, in their confideration, render prudent and expedient.

Refolved, That firmly attached to our most gracious Sovereign and the conftitution of the kingdom, aud anxiously defirous to promote tranquillity and fubjection to the laws, we will ftudioufly avoid all measures which can either directly or indirectly tend to disturb or impede the fame, and will rely on the wisdom and benevolence of the legiflatuge, as the fource from which we defire to obtain a further relaxation of the above-mentioned laws.

This address was figned.

FINGAL, GORMANSTOWN, KENMARE, J. TROY, D. D. R. Cath. A. D. Hon. J. Prefton, Gormanstown, Co. Meath, Valentine Browne, Killarney, Co. Kerry, Sir Patrick Bellew, Bart. Barmeath, Co. Louth,-Sir, Thomas Efmond, Bart. Co. Wexford,

And by above 40 others, of like refpectability.

The general wish of the Catholics went farther than this addrefs expreffes: they defired to be put complately on a like footing with Proteftant fubjects, and the addrefs was cenfured at several public meetings, particularly by the General Committee of the Roman Catholics; who on the 14th of January, 1792, publifhed the following refolutions.

1. That an address be presented to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to request his Excellency to certify to his Majesty, the ardent, zealous, and loyal attachment of the Roman, Catholics of this kingdom to his Majefty's perfon and govern. ment, and to lay before his Majesty the motives which have induced us to withhold our fignatures from a certain paper, purporting to be an address to the Lord Lieutenant, with refolutions annexed, and prefented to his Excellency by Lord Kenmare, on the 27th December, to explain at large to his Majefty the circumftances of that whole tranfaction.

2. That it is the opinion of this Committee that many or most of the persons who figned the faid addrefs, being ignorant of feveral collateral and antecedent circumstances, could not poffibly apprehend the real drift and object thereof, and confequently that the address was furreptitiously obtained.

3. That the faid addrefs (under pretence of fatisfying unfounded alarms, and a fuppofed uneafinefs in the public. mind, which had no real existence) was fabricated for the purpose

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