tional, and beyond the powers of Parliament to

sanction.

"Had this bill been then law, they would have all been guilty of felony, and suffer death. Who could tell in what manner the words tending to excite disturbance might be interpreted? The clause respecting the taking of arms, and ammunition, or money to purchase them, bears a similarity to the White-boy act; but the Whiteboy act was more guarded.

"Now look to the clause which prostrates places of public worship.I consider it as Casting a stain of impiety on the whole nation, and enjoining the magistrates, to commit that very act of violence, which is punished with death in the peasantry.

"It is a revival of the penal laws, and that in the most dangerous and exceptionable part.→→ I call upon gentlemen to consider, that they had no charge against the Catholies to warrant this measure to consider, that they had not so much as cause for suspicion of them to con sider, if they were a popish peasantry, they were actuated by no popish motive ;---to consider, that public thanks had been returned to the principal person of the Catholic religion in this country, for his manly exertions to maintain the public peace, and to protect the rights of the established clergy; and I think, if there be

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any thing sacred or binding in religion, it would operate successfully against the present mea. sure; for it would cast a stigma on the Protestant religion.

"I have heard of transgressors being dragged from the sanctuary, but I never heard of the sanctuary being demolished ;—it went so far as to hold out the laws as a sanction to sacrilege. -If the Roman Catholies were of a different religion, yet they have one common God, and one common Saviour, with gentlemen themselves, and surely the God of the Protestant temple, was the God of the Catholic temple.

1

What then does the clause enact? that the magistrate shall pull down the temple of his God-and if it be rebuilt, and as often as it is rebuilt for three years, he shall again prostrate it, and so proceed in a repetition of his abominations, and thus stab the criminal through the sides of his God a new idea indeed.-But this was not all the magistrate was to sell by auction the ; altar of the Divinity to pay for the sacrilege that had been committed on his house. By preventing the chapel from being erected, I contend that we must prohibit the exercise of religion for three years; and that to remedy disturbance, we resort to irreligion, and endeavour to establish it by act of Parliament. A commission of the peace

might fall into the hands of a clergyman, and this clause first occasion him to preclude the practice of religion for three years, then involve him in vile abominations, and afterwards he must preach peace upon earth and good will towards men. With regard to the clause respecting the obstruction to the collection of Tithes, I do not know how far it may be proper to go into the question of Tithes; I conceive it would not be proper at all, if not generally. But since the clergy have with such ability, shewn their right to Tithes, by ecclesiastical and civil law, and that a resistance to the collection of that property, under the laws, was improper, the House would find itself in a strange predica, ment for its own vote of agistment. If Tithes were legal, the House by that vote certainly deprived the clergy of a great part of them.

"I wish to have the clergy supported; I think the dignity of the country requires it; but as to making new laws for the purpose, I think that part of another business. Perpetuity was another principle of the Bill, and another objection to it. Would any man say that the coercion which might be necessary, from the turbulence of one period, would be requisite at all future times! Was it to be handed down an inheritance to posterity? Would they tell the provinces of

Ulster, Leinster, and Connaught, that they would reward their tranquillity in the same manner they did the turbulence in the South? Was it to descend from the fathers to the children, as a kind of origi nal sin, and death, and felony, to be spread in every quarter? It was a fixed principle that the punishment should bear a portion to the crime, but it was not attended to in the Bill. Would any man say, that a man ought to be punished with death for writing, or influencing persons, I will say, by threats or otherwise? I wish, if possible, to confine the operation of the Bill to the offending counties, and contend, that if the Bill is to pass in its present state (but that I believe to be impossi ble) I will venture to pronounce that it would be absolutely ineffectual; for the crime would be overshot, and the feelings of humanity would revolt at the punishment: it would indeed be the triumph of the crimnal and the stigma of the laws. I desire to know, whether it is meant to press the Bill, with all its clauses? whether it be intended to submit it to alteration? If the former, I will oppose it in the first instance; if the latter should be acceded to, I will vote for the committal."

BEFORE we proceed to give the Speech pronounced by Mr. Grattan, against the Address, voted by the Irish Parliament, to the Marquis of Buckingham, on the 6th of July, 1789, we shall recall the memory of our readers to that period, when this nobleman was first honoured with the Viceregency of Ireland. The Marquis of Buckingham (then Lord Temple) was first appointed to the government of Ireland in the year 1782, underthe administration of Earl Shelburne. He had the misfortune to succeed to the administration of the Duke of Portland, which gave liberty to Ireland, and obtained the affections and gratitude of a free and generous people. Notwithstanding the disadvantage under which Lord Temple laboured, arising from the public apprehensions, that a system of Government was about to be acted upon, calculated to counteract the benefits which were sanguinely an ticipated, from the manly, wise, and liberal