rubbed the same matter upon different parts | is at present, in the Turkish army, a curious of his body. With somewhat less of courage, mixture of the severest despotism in the comand more of injustice, he wrapt his Arab ser- mander, and the most rebellious insolence in vant in the bed of a person just dead of the the soldier. When the soldier misbehaves, plague. The doctor died; and the doctor's the vizier cuts his head off, and places it unman (perhaps to prove his master's theory, der his arm. When the soldier is dissatisfied that the plague was not contagious) ran away. with his vizier, he fires his ball through his The bravery of our naval officers never pro- tent, and admonishes him, by these messenduced any thing superior to this therapeutic gers, to a more pleasant exercise of his auheroism of the doctor's. thority. That such severe punishments should Dr. Wittman has a chapter which he calls not confer a more powerful authority, and give An Historical Journal of the Plague; but the in- birth to a better discipline, is less extraordinary, formation which it contains amounts to nothing if we reflect, that we hear only that the punishat all. He confesses that he has had no expe- ments are severe, not that they are steady, and rience in the complaint; that he has no remedy that they are just; for, if the Turkish soldiers to offer for its cure, and no theory for its were always punished with the same severity cause.* The treatment of the minor plague when they were in fault, and never but then, it is of Egypt, ophthalmia, was precisely the me- not in human nature to suppose, that the Turkthod common in this country; and was gene-ish army would long remain in as contemptible rally attended with success, where the remedies were applied in time. a state as it now is. But the governed soon learn to distinguish between systematic energy, and the excesses of casual and capricious cruelty; the one awes them into submission, the other rouses them to revenge. Nothing can be conceived more dreadful than was the situation of the military mission, in the Turkish camp; exposed to a mutinous Turkish soldiery, to infection, famine, and a Dr. Wittman, in his chapter on the Turkish scene of the most abominable filth and putre- army, attributes much of its degradation to the faction; and this they endured for a year and altered state of the corps of Janissaries; the a half, with the patience of apostles of peace, original constitution of which corps was cerrather than war. Their occupation was to tainly both curious and wise. The children teach diseased barbarians, who despised them, of Christians made prisoners in the predatory and thought it no small favour that they should incursions of the Turks, or procured in any be permitted to exist in their neighbourhood. other manner, were exposed in the public They had to witness the cruelties of despotism, markets of Constantinople. Any farmer or and the passions of armed and ignorant multi- artificer was at liberty to take one into his tudes; and all this embellished with the fair service, contracting with government to proprobability of being swept off, in some grand duce him again when he should be wanted: engagement, by the superior tactics and ac- and in the mean time to feed and clothe him, tivity of the enemy to whom the Turks were and to educate him to such works of labour as opposed. To the filth, irregularity, and tumult are calculated to strengthen the body. As the of a Turkish camp, as it appeared to the Janissaries were killed off, the government British officers in 1800, it is curious to oppose drew upon this stock of hardy orphans for its the picture of one drawn by Busbequius in the levies; who, instead of hanging upon weeping middle of the sixteenth century: "Turcæ in parents at their departure, came eagerly to the proximis campis tendebant; cum vero in eo camp, as the situation which they had always loco tribus mensibus vixerim, fuit mihi facultas been taught to look upon as the theatre of videndorum ipsorum castrorum, et cognos- their future glory, and towards which all their cendæ aliqua ex parte disciplinæ; qua de re passions and affections had been bent, from nisi pauca attingam, habeas fortasse quod me their earliest years. Arrived at the camp, they accuses. Sumpto habitu Christianis homini- received at first low pay, and performed mebus in illis locis usitato, cum uno aut altero nial offices for the little division of Janissaries comite quacunque vagabar ignotus: primum to which they were attached: "Ad Gianizaros videbam summo ordine cujusque corporis rescriptus primo meret menstruo stipendio, milites suis locis distributos, et, quod vix cre- paulo plus minus, unius ducati cum dimidio. dat, qui nostratis militiæ consuetudinem novit, Id enim militi novitio, et rudi satis esse censummum erat ubique silentium, summa quies, sent. Sed tamen ne quid victus necessitati rixa nulla, nullum cujusquam insolens factum: desit, cum ea decuria, in cujus contuernium sed ne nox quidem aut vitulatio per lasciviam adscitus est, gratis cibum capit, eâ conditione, aut ebrietatem emissa. Ad hæc summa mundi- ut in culinâ reliquoque ministerio ei decuriæ ties, nulla sterquilinia, nulla purgamenta, nihil serviat; usum armorum adeptus tyro, cnedum quod oculos aut nares offenderet. Quicquid tamen suis contubernalibus honore neque stiest hujusmodi, aut defodiunt Turcæ, aut procul pendio par unam in solâ virtute, se illis æquanà conspectu submovent. Sed nec ullas com- di, spem habet: utpote si militiæ quæ prima potationes aut convivia, nullum aleæ genus, se obtulerit, tale specimen sui dederit, ut dignus magnum nostratis militiæ flagitium, videre judicetur, qui tyrocinio exemptus, honoris erat: nulla lusoriarum chartarum, neque tes- gradu et stipendii magnitudine, reliquis Gianserarum damna norunt Turcæ."-Augeri Bus-izaris par habeatur. Quâ quidem spe plerique bequii, Epist. 3, p. 187. Hanovia. 1622. There *One fact mentioned by Dr. Wittman appears to be curious; that Constantinople was nearly free from plague during the interruption of its communication with Egypt. tyrones impulsi, multa præclare audent, et fortitudine cum veteranis certant."-Busbequius, De Re Mil. cont. Turc. Instit. Consilium.* The This is a very spirited appeal to his countrymen on the tremendous power of the Turks; and, with the sub same author observes, that there was no rank or dignity in the Turkish army, to which a common Janissary might not arrive, by his courage or his capacity. This last is a most powerful motive to exertion, and is, perhaps, one leading cause of the superiority of the French arms. Ancient governments promote, from numberless causes which ought to have no concern with promotion: revolutionary gorernments, and military despotisms, can make generals of persons who are fit for generals: to enable them to be unjust in all other instances, they are forced to be just in this. What, in fact, are the sultans and pashas of Paris, but Janissaries raised from the ranks? At present, the Janissaries are procured from the lowest of the people, and the spirit of the corps is evaporated. The low state of their armies is in some degree imputable to this; but the principal reason why the Turks are no longer as powerful as they were, is, that they are no longer enthusiasts, and that war is now become more a business of science than of personal courage. The person of the greatest abilities in the Turkish empire is the capitan pasha; he has disciplined some ships and regiments in the European fashion, and would, if he were well seconded, bring about some important reforms in the Turkish empire. But what is become of all the reforms of the famous Gazi Hassan? The blaze of partial talents is soon extinguished. Never was there so great a prospect stitution of France for Turkey, is so applicable to the present times that it might be spoken in Parliament with great effect. of improvement as that afforded by the exer tions of this celebrated man, who, in spite of the ridicule thrown upon him by Baron de Tott, was such a man as the Turks cannot expect to see again once in a century. He had the whole power of the Turkish empire at his disposal for fifteen years; and, after repeated efforts to improve the army, abandoned the scheme as totally impracticable. The celebrated Bonneval, in his time, and De Tott since, made the same attempt with the same success. They are not to be taught; and six months after his death, every thing the present capitan pasha has done will be immediately pulled to pieces. The present grand vizier is a man of no ability. There are some very entertaining instances of his gross ignorance cited in the 133d page of the Travels. Upon the news being communicated to him that the earth was round, he observed that this could not be the case: for the people and the objects on the other side would in that case fall off; and that the earth could not move round the sun; for if so, a ship bound from Jaffa to Constantinople, instead of proceeding to the capital, would be carried to London, or elsewhere. We cannot end this article without confessing with great pleasure the entertainment we have received from the work which occasions it. It is an excellent lounging-book, full of pleasant details, never wearying by prolixity, or offending by presumption, and is apparently the production of a respectable, worthy man. So far we can conscientiously recommend it to the public; for any thing else, Non cuivis homini contingit adire, &c. &c. &c. SPEECHES. CATHOLIC CLAIMS. A Speech at a Meeting of the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of the East Riding of Yorkshire, held at Beverley, in that Riding, on Monday, April 11, 1825, for the Purpose of Petitioning Parliament, &c.* MR. ARCHDEACON,It is very disagreeable to me to differ from so many worthy and respectable clergymen here assembled, and not only to differ from them, but, I am afraid, to stand alone among them. I would much rather vote in majorities, and join in this, or any other political chorus, than to stand unassisted and alone, as I am now doing. I dislike such meetings for such purposes-I wish I could reconcile it to my conscience to stay away from them, and to my temperament to be silent at them; but if they are called by others, I deem it right to attend-if I attend I must say what I think. If it is unwise in us to meet in taverns to discuss political subjects, the fault is not mine, for I should never think of calling such a meeting. If the subject is trite, no blame is imputable to me: it is as dull to me to handle such subjects, as it is to you to hear them. The customary promise on the threshold of an inn is good entertainment for man and horse. -If there is any truth in any part of this sentence at the Tiger, at Beverley, our horses at this moment must certainly be in a state of much greater enjoyment than the masters who rode them. duced into all bills-jealous safeguards for the It will be some amusement, however, to this meeting, to observe the schism which this question has occasioned in my own parish of Londesborough. My excellent and respectable curate, Mr. Milestones, alarmed at the effect of the pope upon the East Riding, has come here to oppose me, and there he stands, breathing war and vengeance on the Vatican. We had some previous conversation on this sub-trifling success, a still superior class think it ject, and, in imitation of our superiors, we agreed not to make it a cabinet question. Mr. Milestones, indeed, with that delicacy and propriety which belong to his character, expressed some scruples upon the propriety of voting against his rector, but I insisted he should come and vote against me. I assured him nothing would give me more pain than to think I had prevented, in any man, the free assertion of honest opinions. That such conduct, on his part, instead of causing jealousy and animosity between us, could not, and would not fail to increase my regard and respect for him. I beg leave, sir, before I proceed on this sub. ject, to state what I mean by Catholic emancipation. I mean eligibility of Catholics to all civil offices, with the usual exceptions intro * I was left at this meeting in a minority of one. A poor clergyman whispered to me, that he was quite of my way of thinking, but had nine children. I begged he would remain a Protestant. worth while to try the risk: men are hurried into a rebellion, as the oxen are pulled into the cave of Cacus-tail foremost. The mob first, who have nothing to lose but their lives, of which every Irishman has nine-then comes the shopkeeper-then the parish priest-then the vicar-general-then Dr. Doyle, and, lastly, Daniel O'Connell. But if the French were to make the same blunders respecting Ireland as Napoleon committed, if wind and weather preserved Ireland for you a second time, still all your resources would be crippled by watching Ireland. The force employed for this might liberate Spain and Portugal, protect India, or accomplish any great purpose of offence or defence. War, sir, seems to be almost as natural a state to mankind as peace; but if you could hope to escape war, is there a more powerfu receipt for destroying the prosperity of any country than these eternal jealousies and dis. 2H 2 365 The denial of such a doctrine upon oath is the only means by which a Catholic can relieve himself from his present incapacities. If a Catholic, therefore, sir, will not take the oath, he is not relieved, and remains where you wish him to remain; if he does take the oath, you are safe from his peril: if he has no scruple tinctions between the two religions? What | Parliament, a copy of which I hold in my hand. man will carry his industry and his capital into a country where his yard measure is a sword, his pounce-box a powder-flask, and his ledger a return of killed and wounded? Where a cat will get, there I know a cotton-spinner will penetrate; but let these gentlemen wait till a few of their factories have been burnt down, till one or two respectable merchants of Man-about oaths, of what consequence is it whether chester have been carded, and till they have seen the cravatists hanging the shanavists in cotton twist. In the present fervour for spinning, ourang-outangs, sir, would be employed to spin, if they could be found in sufficient quantities; but miserably will those reasoners be disappointed who repose upon cotton-not upon justice-and who imagine this great question can be put aside, because a few hundred Irish spinners are gaining a morsel of bread by the overflowing industry of the English market. But what right have you to continue these rules, sir, these laws of exclusion? What necessity can you show for it? Is the reigning monarch a concealed Catholic?-Is his successor an open one ?—Is there a disputed succession? Is there a Catholic pretender? If some of these circumstances are said to have justified the introduction, and others the continuation of these measures, why does not the disappearance of all these circumstances justify the repeal of the restrictions? If you must be unjust-if it is a luxury you cannot live without-reserve your injustice for the weak, and not for the strong-persecute the Unitarians, muzzle the Ranters, be unjust to a few thousand sectaries, not to six millions-galvanize a frog, don't galvanize a tiger. this bill passes, the very object of which is to relieve him from oaths? Look at the fact, sir. Do the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, living under the same state with the Catholic cantons, complain that no faith is kept with heretics? Do not the Catholics and Protestants in the kingdom of the Netherlands meet in one common Parliament? Could they pursue a common purpose, have common friends, and common enemies, if there was a shadow of truth in this doctrine imputed to the Catholics? The religious affairs of this last kingdom are managed with the strictest impartiality to both sects? ten Catholics and ten Protestants (gentlemen need not look so much surprised to hear it), positively meet together, sir, in the same room. They constitute what is called the religious committee for the kingdom of the Netherlands, and so extremely desirous are they of preserving the strictest impartiality, that they have chosen a Jew for their secretary. Their conduct has been unimpeachable and unimpeached; the two sects are at peace with each other; and the doctrine, that no faith is kept with heretics, would, I assure you, be very little credited at Amsterdam or the Hague, cities as essentially Protestant as the town of Beverley. Wretched is our condition, and still more wretched the condition of Ireland, if the Catholic does not respect his oath. He serves on grand and petty juries in both countries; we trust our lives, our liberties, and our properties, to his conscientious reverence of an oath, and If you go into a parsonage house in the country, Mr. Archdeacon, you see sometimes a style and fashion of furniture which does very well for us, but which has had its day in London. It is seen in London no more; it is ban-yet, when it suits the purposes of party to bring ished to the provinces; from the gentlemen's forth this argument, we say he has no respect houses of the provinces these pieces of furni- for oaths. The right to a landed estate of ture, as soon as they are discovered to be un- 3000l. per annum was decided last week, in fashionable, descend to the farm-houses, then York, by a jury, the foreman of which was a to cottages, then to the faggot-heap, then to Catholic; does any human being, harbour a the dunghill. As it is with furniture, so is it thought, that this gentleman, whom we all with arguments. I hear at country meetings know and respect, would, under any circummany arguments against the Catholics which stances, have thought more lightly of the obliare never heard in London; their London ex- gation of an oath, than his Protestant brethren istence is over-they are only to be met with in of the box? We all disbelieve these arguments the provinces, and there they are fast hastening of Mr. A. the Catholic, and of Mr. B. the Cathodown, with clumsy chairs and ill-fashioned lic; but we believe them of Catholics in gensofas, to another order of men. But, sir, as eral, of the abstract Catholics, of the Catholic they are not yet gone where I am sure they are of the Tiger Inn, at Beverley, the formidable ungoing, I shall endeavour to point out their de-known Catholic, that is so apt to haunt our fects, and to accelerate their descent. Many gentlemen now assembled at the Tiger Inn, at Beverley, believe that the Catholics do not keep faith with heretics; these gentlemen ought to know that Mr. Pitt put this very question to six of the leading Catholic universities in Europe. He inquired of them whether this tenet did or did not constitute any part of the Catholic faith. The question received from these universities the most decided negative; they denied that such doctrine formed any part of the creed of Catholics. Such doctrine, sir, 28 denied upon oath, in the bill now pending in clerical meetings. I observe that some gentlemen who argue this question, are very bold about other offices, but very jealous lest Catholic gentlemen should become justices of the peace. If this jealousy is justifiable anywhere, it is justifiable in Ireland, where some of the best and most respectable magistrates are Catholics It is not true that the Roman Catholic religion is what it was. I meet that assertion with a plump denial. The pope does not dethrone kings, nor give away kingdoms, does not extort money, has given up, in some instances, the nomination of bishops to Catholic princes, | quent ruin of England; to obviate the tendency in some, I believe, to Protestant princes; Pro- to death; we will first keep the patient alive, testant worship is now carried on at Rome. In and then dispute about his diet and his medithe Low Countries, the seat of the Duke of cine. Alva's cruelties, the Catholic tolerates the Protestant, and sits with him in the same Parliament-the same in Hungary-the same in France. The first use which even the Spanish people made of their ephemeral liberty, was to destroy the Inquisition. It was destroyed also by the mob of Portugal. I am so far from thinking the Catholic not to be more tolerant than he was, that I am much afraid the English, who gave the first lesson of toleration to mankind, will very soon have a great deal to learn from their pupils. Some men quarrel with the Catholics, because their language was violent in the Association; but a groan or two, sir, after two hundred years of incessant tyranny, may surely be forgiven. A few warm phrases to compensate the legal massacre of a million of Irishmen are not unworthy of our pardon. All this hardly deserves the eternal incapacity of holding civil offices. Then they quarrel with the Bible Society; in other words they vindicate that ancient tenet of their church, that the Scriptures are not to be left to the unguided judgment of the laity. The objection to Catholics is, that they did what Catholics ought to do-and do not many prelates of our church object to the Bible Society, and contend that the Scriptures ought not to be circulated without the comment of the Prayer Book and the Articles? If they are right, the Catholics are not wrong; and if the Catholics are wrong, they are in such good company, that we ought to respect their errors. Suppose a law were passed, that no clergyman who had ever held a living in the East Riding, could be made a bishop. Many gentlemen here (who have no hopes of ever being removed from their parishes) would feel the restriction of the law as a considerable degra dation. We should soon be pointed at as a lower order of clergymen. It would not be long before the common people would find some fortunate epithet for us, and it would not be long either before we should observe in our brethren of the north and west an air of superiority, which would aggravate not a little the justice of the privation. Every man feels the insult thrown upon his caste; the insulted party falls lower, every body else becomes higher. There are heart-burnings and recollections. Peace flies from that land. The volume of parliamentary evidence I have brought here is loaded with the testimony of witnesses of all ranks and occupations, stating to the House of Commons the undoubted effects produced upon the lower order of Catholics by these disqualifying laws, and the lively interest they take in their removal. I have seventeen quotations, sir, from this evidence, and am ready to give any gentleman my references; but I forbear to read them, from compassion to my reverend brethren, who have trotted many miles to vote against the pope, and who will trot back in the dark, if I attempt to throw additional light upon the subject. I have also, sir, a high-spirited class of genWhy not pay their clergy the Presbyterian tlemen to deal with, who will do nothing from clergy in the north of Ireland are paid by the fear, who admit the danger, but think it disstate the Catholic clergy of Canada are pro- graceful to act as if they feared it. There is a vided for: the priests of the Hindoos are, I degree of fear, which destroys a man's faculties, believe, in some of their temples, paid by the renders him incapable of acting, and makes Company. You must surely admit that the him ridiculous. There is another sort of fear, Catholic religion (the religion of two-thirds of which enables a man to foresee a coming evil, Europe), is better than no religion. I do not to measure it, to examine his powers of resistregret that the Irish are under the dominion of ance, to balance the evil of submission against the priests. I am glad that so savage a people the evils of opposition or defeat, and if he thinks as the lower orders of Irish are under the do- he must be ultimately overpowered, leads him minion of their priests; for it is a step gained to find a good escape in a good time. I can see to place such beings under any influence, and no possible disgrace in feeling this sort of fear, the clergy are always the first civilizers of man- and in listening to its suggestions. But it is kind. The Irish are deserted by their natural mere cant to say, that men will not be actuated aristocracy, and I should wish to make their by fear in such questions as these. Those who priesthood respectable in their appearance, and pretend not to fear now, would be the first to easy in their circumstances. A government fear upon the approach of danger; it is always provision has produced the most important the case with this distant valour. Most of the changes in the opinions of the Presbyterian concessions which have been given to the Irish clergy of the north of Ireland, and has changed have been given to fear. Ireland would have them from levellers and Jacobins into reasona- been lost to this country, if the British legislable men; it would not fail to improve most ture had not, with all the rapidity and precipimaterially the political opinions of the Catholic tation of the truest panic, passed those acts priests. This cannot, however, be done, with- which Ireland did not ask, but demanded in the out the emancipation of the laity. No priest time of her armed associations. I should not would dare to accept a salary from government, think a man brave, but mad, who did not fear unless this preliminary was settled. I am the treasons and rebellions of Ireland in time aware it would give to government a tremen- of war. I should think him not dastardly, but dous power in that country; but I must choose consummately wise, who provided against them the least of two evils. The great point, as phy-in time of peace. The Catholic question has sicians say, in some diseases, is to resist the made a greater progress since the opening of tendency to death. The great object of our day this Parliament than I ever remember it to have is to prevent the loss of Ireland, and the conse-made, and it has made that progress from fear |