countries should supply their defect; above all, I should appeal to the gentlemen of Ireland to associate with the Catholics as much as possible. If they do not, if they form a distinct society, they will be a distinct people, and will reap the wages of pride and infirmity.

When a country divides, and hates one portion of itself more than it hates the enemy, that country opens a passage to a foreign power, and betrays the infallible symptom of a falling nation, and its fate is then a judgment on its malignity and its folly.

The landed interest will have the power of communicating through their tenantry the spirit of tolerance, and with it the spirit of concord, and the spirit of defence; for they must go together. Their example will do much their presence will do more. They will recollect that the Catholic feels the personal, at least as much as the political superiority; the latter is at his door. He does not see the exclusion from parliament, but he does see and feel the assumed superiority of his neighbours (which arises not a little from that exclusion), the saucy little tyrant that wounds him by a galling dominion, his toasts and monopolising merriment hurting him in those very points in which he is most sensible and irritable.

I have applied to one description; and here let me apply to that body of the community distinguished by the appellation of Orangemen. Many of them are heated by controversy; but many of them are misunderstood. And many will soften and see the folly of the dispute, if the point was made rather a subject of discussion than a point of spirit.

They will perceive the certainty, that though there may be an exclusive religion, there should be no affectation of an exclusive allegiance. In vain their loyalty, if they procure to the throne a host of enemies. No insinuation, as thus: If you believe your own religion, you cannot be good subjects; or you cannot be trusted; or we will not corps with you; no pointed paragraphs, no logical victories! They will see the danger with which we are environed, and the punishment; and despise the little puerile jealousy entertained against their fellow-subjects, which can only end in the victory of the French, and the subjugation of the constitution. They should consider, that Ireland should not be a party question; that nations do not always act from their interest, but more generally from their feelings; and that any measures that sharpen these are high crimes. They should consider themselves as trustees for its preservation; and not sectarists to quicken and disgrace the downfal of their country. And, finally, I should appeal to the government, who may do some great good or great mischief. They may act decisively on the magistracy, so as to

preclude partiality in the administration of justice; in the appointment of justices of the peace; in the regulation of the yeomanry; and in the disposal of favours and distinctions in the state. They may, and ought, and it is indispensable that they should establish this principle in the administration of that country, that the Catholics should never feel the victory of a party; this should be a fundamental maxim of the Irish government.

Let there be no bigotry on one side, and there will be no French feeling on the other. It is a necessary consequence, and the natural reaction of your own sentiment. Philanthropy generates on philanthropy, and confidence propagates on confidence.

And do not believe those idle tales, for instance, that the Catholics in some part of Ireland will not suffer a Protestant to live among them; or that Catholic servants will not suffer a Protestant in the same family; or that, in Dublin, the poorer sort cannot get themselves apprenticed as servants.

To this I beg to advance an absolute denial. And I offer, if a committee should be appointed, to disprove it most fully and satisfactorily. The Catholics desire, that they may not be concluded against, by a suggestion which would not be listened to, and they appeal to the conscious persuasion of their fellow-countrymen; they appeal to Maida, and they appeal to Egypt, that witnessed their battles, which could never have been fought if such tales had been true. I do not agree with those, who think the lower classes of the Irish savage or lazy. I see them labouring their mountains, cultivating their hills, and toiling in every part of Ireland. I do not agree with those who think the landlords are oppressive; if that were so, the middle men could not exist; the middle man is a proof, that the head landlord does not get the highest price for his land. These suggestions arise from the ignorance of the Irish, and tend to make the upper orders despise the lower, and to mislead and deceive both. But, in order to judge of the country, look at her work; they have in twenty-five years added a third to their trade, worked out by the sweat of their brow; produced by the labour, virtue, and energy of the people; they increased five-fold their revenue, and have added a third to their population; they procured a free trade, and a free constitution.

These are the savage perfections of the people of Ireland. The Catholics had their share in procuring these blessings of freedom, and, to a certain degree, a share in the enjoyment of their benefits. I will not vulgarise their petition by the cant of exaggeration. The Catholic has the benefit of trial by jury; he has admissibility to all offices, civil and military, that are not offices of state, and sheriffs; he is a

constituent part of the Commons, and he can go to a county meeting, discuss public matters, instruct, arraign, and rebuke his representatives. What these are I cannot estimate; but I say they are defending you against a foreign enemy. The Catholic would not surrender these to the king of England; he will not surrender them to the powers of France. Further, in these things, and particularly in the elective franchise, is the seminal principle of the remainder: that remainder, the object of his petition will come-it will come in the natural progress of moral causes. I mentioned the progress for the last twentyfive years; above a third to your trade, and near a third to your population so that Ireland now stands by you a country with 5,000,000 of people, exporting near 9,000,000 of produce, taking from you near 7,000,000, supplying you with £700,000 worth of corn, and furnishing your navy and army with a great proportion of their strength. Why do I mention this? that Ireland may see what a country she has to defend, and that you may see what a country you have to adopt; and that both may see they have nothing but one another; and that you may perceive the folly as well as wickedness of attempting to govern such a country by division, or corruption, or bigotry, or any system but that of equality. The more to illustrate the necessity of this, turn to the Continent, and you see all her ports and harbours hostile. Let me suppose there should hereafter issue from them different navies to invade these islands, would you then send dispatches to Ireland to guard the corporation against the Catholic, to preserve the parliament? or would you not desire to embody, and incorporate, and inspire? But then it might be too late. Now, therefore, when you are mistress of the measure, and have time to secure its effect, now will you not do away in act or in spirit these distinctions? Will you not repeal those death-doing divisions? Coalesce in the spirit of repeal and confidence, so that you may in fact, or by anticipation, prepare for what? for the final battle, which, sooner or later, must be fought, and which must determine the rivalship of 500 years.

How would you answer to your ancestors, that you had lost the hereditary laurel of your country, because you were afraid of the Pope, or of the influence of the eucharist, of the Council of Lateran, or the Council of Constance ?

The Catholics do not approach this House with servile humility; they come to support your empire; they come, as freemen, to share your privileges; and now, when Austria has turned against you, when Russia is no longer your friend, when Prussia has ceased to exist as a power, they come to partake in your danger, and to partake in your constitution.

This is their prayer. On these grounds I move their petition; I move to refer it to a committee of the whole House; I move it on the ground of national justice, and I accompany it with two wishes; first, that you may long preserve your liberties; next, that you may never survive them.

31st May, 1811.

Sir-In wishing that these votes of thanks should be read on this occasion, it was my object that the House should be in accurate possession of its own testimony to the conduct of that race of men, the justice of whose claims to equal rights and capacities we are proceeding to discuss. We are now going to consider, whether it be just or expedient that the existing system of penal laws to which they are subject, should any longer continue. I call them penal; for what else is the qualifying law? A law, inflicting penalties in the most objectionable form, that is, under the disguise of an oath; a law, which makes the forfeiture of conscience a recommendation to title and office; a law, that enacts religion to be a crime, and perjury a qualification. This is an occasion in which we are assembled to try the bulk of the population of Ireland. We have to try them upon separate chargesupon charges against the religion they profess, and the political principles upon which they have acted. The testimony against them, I am sorry to say, is that of their countrymen, and also of their fellowsubjects. Now, although I will not affirm that it is impossible for the authors of those charges to enjoy a safe conscience; although I will not suspect or deny their morality, yet their testimony, thus directed against their fellow-subjects, is to my mind a strong presumption of their prejudice against those whom they accuse. Let their evidence be ever so good or respectable, their zeal and alacrity to tender it, are to me demonstrations of those prejudices. For what, in fact, does this evidence amount to? It begins by testifying that an immense body of Christians, subjects of this empire, are worse than any class or nature of idolaters; that they are not trustworthy in civil life. But if this charge be true, then it can be no less true that the Messiah has failed, that the Christian religion is not of divine origin, since its effect and operation has been to deprave and immoralize mankind. The charge is compounded of the dogmas of the church, and the politics of the court; the spirit of the former being uniformly the spirit of bigotry, that of the latter as uniformly power. Against this evidence, we have long had the indisputable declarations, and the explicit testimony of the six most eminent universities of Europe, disclaiming

any doctrine incompatible with the strongest attachment to the civil government of every country. In addition to this, there is our experience of the fact, as proved and established in the long intercourse that has subsisted between Protestant and Catholic, and the long obedience and submission shown by the Catholic to your government. But let us look at the charges in another point of view, and examine upon what ground it rests. It represents that you, having had possession of Ireland for six hundred years, have so abused the exercise of your authority, have so oppressed and misgoverned the people of that country, that they are unalterably hostile to your interests, and inflexibly rebellious to your control. It represents that you stand self-convicted of a perversion of your power, and practically disqualifies you to be governors, under whose sovereignty Ireland has passed so many centuries of her existence. But, sir, I believe no such thing; I believe the assumption to be groundless; that it is unjust thus to accuse England; but such is the nature of the accusation against the Catholics; it points less against them than against England and against British connexion. Depend upon it, that the original source of a people's vices is the vice of its government; and that, in every instance since the creation of the world, the people have been what their rulers made them. A good government makes a good people. Moralize your laws, and you cannot fail to moralize your subjects.

Now, in order to disprove the justice of the charges brought against the general character of the Irish Catholics, I will first refer the House to the preamble of the statute of 1782. I will next beg their attention to the facts recorded in its late votes of thanks; and, lastly, to the circumstances and history of the connexion between both countries. If the allegation, that the religion of the Catholics is essentially adverse to the British government be true, let us remember that the necessary inference is, that the British government must be a public calamity, and no longer deserving of support. But give me leave in contradiction to that allegation, to advert to the facts on which it is founded, in order that I may the more clearly show, in the first place, that the existing penal laws are wrong, unjust, and indefensible; secondly, that their repeal is the only means of establishing the tranquillity and the security of Ireland. In the year 1792, about a hundred dissenters in the north of Ireland rebelled; this was immediately designated a Catholic revolt. These men, unprotected by your government, and denounced by your laws, were then declared to be in a state of general insurrection. This was your candour, this was your truth. But let me remind you, that tyranny is its own reward, and