fluence arising from landed property is the only influence that can ever be injurious to the country. But the same person says, that few Roman catholics set their lands to protestant tenants, if so, then they can have no freeholders on their estates-I leave, therefore, the inconsistency of those two arguments to answer each other.

Mr. Forbes. I will not impute to gentlemen who urge the adjournment, an intention to destroy the bill; yet it is somewhat strange they should persist in it, when every man of profession knows that the clause may be guarded by a proviso as far as may be necessary. I was at first alarmed at what was said, till I considered more attentively. I find, upon reflection, that were we to alter the clause in the manner desired, it would allow catholics to acquire estates, but would convey destruction to them-it would say, we give you power to acquire the fee of lands, but we cannot trust you with the rights appertaining to the fee, because in time to come you may destroy our constitution. If this be our opinion, let us not grant them any thing at all. By all the acts, which the tyranny of the last age devised, a Protestant was not prohibited from settling on the estate of a Catholic-the scheme of the hon. gentleman who spoke last but one, would effectually prohibit them-it would not only be oppressive to catholics, but a punishment to such protestants as should settle on their lands. The great object of the penal laws was to break the power of papists in Ireland; that object they accomplished, but they also ruined and destroyed

the country. Bishop Burnet tells us, the scheme was totally to root out and banish Catholics from Ireland, and to plant Palatines, and other foreign Protestants, in their place: but the superior wisdom of the present age, considering mens' faith as a concern purely their own, attempts to bind catholics to the state by benefits, and to obtain by generosity what we could not accomplish by force. Nothing can be more ridiculously spiteful. than the attacks formerly made upon catholics. You will find upon your journals, a petition from the Protestant coal-porters of Dublin, complaining of a certain Darby Ryan, a Papist master coal-porter, for employing a number of Papists in that trade. You will find a complaint against Sir C. Phipps, for having been present at a musical entertainment, where one Christian, who had formerly been a domestic of the Pretender, performed on the violin. It was alleged, that Sir C. had listened to the.tune of a song known by these words, "The king shall have his right." There was some dispute about the tune, and the house, in order to judge whether their member had been guilty of a treasonable act, ordered his accuser to whistle the tune in question, and gravely sat to determine by the music.

Major Hely Hutchinson.-From the example of a former session, and the fears of gentlemen of the best intentions, he was not so much surprised at the opposition the first clause of the bill had met with; but he hoped, that no man would object to the doing away that part of the Popery laws, which related to religion and education: a

system of laws, disgraceful, impolitic and unjust; so disgraceful, that you were ashamed to execute them; so impolitic, that you dared not do it. Those laws have remained on your statute books for eighty years, in profound and sullen silence, insulting the Roman catholic, grating his feelings, upbraiding his policy, and dishonouring the justice of the protestants of Ireland. By one law, it is enacted, that any Roman catholic, going himself, or sending any other person abroad to be educated, shall be disabled from prosecuting any suit or action at law; shall forfeit all his personal property, and the profits of all his lands during life. By another law, there is a penalty on any Roman catholic who shall keep a public school. Now, Sir, as a Roman catholic cannot receive an education at home, and dare not receive it abroad, the parliament, that passed this law, has said, we, in contradiction to the principles that have actuated other wise governments, enact by a law, that a great majority of our people are to receive no education at all. We mean to convert them from a false to a true religion, by establishing ignorance, the mother of superstition. We say to the parent, you shall not, in conformity to the dictates of God and nature, educate your child; you shall not teach him the duties of an honest man, or the obligations of a virtuous citizen, though we demand from him, that he shall respect laws he can only know, because they have trampled upon him, and venerate a constitution, that has put him out of its pale, and doomed him to perpetual ignorance. If such

have not been the consequences, if the Roman catholic has been wretchedly ignorant, if he has not been reduced to the most contemptible state that any human creature can possibly be in, your efforts have not been wanting to make him so. But those laws have been fortunately overwhelmed by the pressure of their own weight; they have had that fate which every law must have, enacted by a legislator, who, descending from his tribunal, forgetting that nature has set limits to his power, shall convert himself from a law-giver into a persecutor. The cruelty of the law has been the antidote of the poison; it has not been executed: humanity has lifted up her voice and forbid the attempt.

In short, gentlemen, you are called upon to pass this law, by the example of every other enlightened nation in Europe; who, convinced of the unavailing cruelty of religious persecution, have said to their subjects, in the words of the Roman emperor, "take the ladder, and climb up your own way to Heaven." You are called upon by the dismembered situation of the British empire, requiring the firmest union of all the remaining parts: you are called upon, by the most salutary, yet most painful of all lessons, your own experience, which tells you, that by a system of pains and penalties, you only rivetted the obstinacy, armed the pride, and oftentimes banished, the gallant Roman catholics of this country into the service of a foreign prince, to publish our infamy, and his glory, wherever he went. If a protestant should say to a Roman

catholic, why have you persevered so obstinately in a religion, certainly not so pure as mine? He might reply to him, if in your government I had found any thing but persecution and oppression, in your laws any thing but cruelty, I might not have been inattentive to your call. But how have you endeavoured to convert me-not by the voice of persuasion-but by the cruel rigour of your law, which armed every generous passion of the human breast against you. You have refused me any stake in this my native land; you forbid me to educate my child; the hand of the executioner has been raised against the man, who would unite your offspring to mine-force is the clumsy supporter of a bad cause, truth and reason despise such an assistant. It has been said by gentlemen, in the course of this debate, that what has been done, and is now doing by other nations, does not apply to the situation of Ireland; I acknowledge it does not exactly; but I will tell you what applies, and applies forcibly, the history of eighteen centuries; they tell us, that persecutions, punishments, and even death itself, bave been found insufficient to conquer religious obstinacy; for this plain and simple reason, the man suffering in defence of his religion, thinks that he is securing eternal happiness hereafter; the less interest sinks into the greater. Human laws can therefore be of no avail: he glories in their rigour; he exults in his punishment-it has been well and truly said of the superstitious man, that his feet alone are on the earth, but his head is in Heaven.