ed spirit of poverty, restored the Christian religion....the same principle which introduced Christianity guided reformation. What Luther did for us, philosophy has done in some degree for the Roman Catholics, and that religion has undergone a silent reformation, and both divisions of Christianity, unless they have lost their understanding, must have lost their animosity, though they have retained their distinctions. The priesthood of Europe is not now what it was once; their religion has encreased as their power has diminished. In these countries particularly, for the most part, they are a mild order of men, with less dominion and more piety; therefore, their character for the most part may be described in few words.... morality, enlightened by letters, and exalted by religion....such many of our parochial clergy, with some exceptions however, particularly in some of the disturbed parts of the kingdom.... such some of the heads of the church....such the very head of the church in Ireland. That comely personage, who presides over a vast income, and thinks he has great revenues, but is mistaken, being in fact nothing more than the steward of the poor, and a mere instrument in the hand of Providence, making the best possible distribution of the fruits of the earth; nay, there are of the church some superior to the prejudice which on the subject of tithes may be expected. Of all institutions, says Paley, adverse to cultivation, none so noxious as tithe....not only a tax on industry, but the industry that feeds mankind; it is true! the mode of providing for the church is exceptionable, and in some parts of Ireland has been, I apprehend, attended with very considerable abuses: these are what I wish to submit to you; you will enquire whether in some cases the demands for tithes have not been illegal, the collection of them oppressive, the excess of demand uncharitable, and the growth of it considerable and oppressive. Whether in all cases the tithe-farmer has been a merciful pastor, the tithe proctor an upright agent, and even the vicar himself a most unbiassed judge. In this enquiry, or in forming some regulations from this enquiry, you will not be withheld by the arguments of pride, bigotry, and prejudice; that argument, which reflecting on God maintains the sacred right of exactions; that other argument, which reflecting on parliament denies your capacity to give redress; that other argument, which reflecting on human nature supposes that you inflame mankind by redressing their grievances; that other argument, which traduces the landed interest of Ireland as an extortioner, and belies one part of the community to continue the miseries of the other....an argument of calumny, an argument of cruelty. Least of all should you be withheld by that idle intimation stuffed into the speech from the throne, suggesting that the church is in danger, and holding out from that awful seat of authority, false lights to the nation, as if we had doated back to the nonsense of Sacheverel's days, and were to be ridden once more by the fools and bigots. Parliament is not a bigot....you are no sectary, no polemic....it is your duty to unite all men, to manifest brotherly love, and confidence to all men....the parental sentiment is the true principle of govern ment. Men are ever finally disposed to be governed by the instrument of their happiness. The mystery of government would you learn it? look on the Gospel, and make the source of your redemption the rule of authority, and like the hen in the scripture, expand your wings and take in all your people. Let bigotry and schism, the zealot's fire, the high priest's intolerance, through all their discordancy, tremble, while an enlightened parliament, with arms of general protection, overarches the whole community, and roots the Protestant ascendency in the sovereign mercy of its nature; laws of coercion, perhaps necessary, certainly severe, you have put forth already, but your great engine of power, you have hitherto kept back; that engine, which the pride of the bigot, nor the spite of the zealot, nor the ambition of the high, nor the arsenal of the conqueror, nor the inquisition with its jaded rack and pale criminal, never thought of: the engine which armed with physical and moral blessing comes forth, and overlays mankind by services; the engine of redress....this is government, and this the only description of government worth your ambition. Were I to raise you to a great act, I should not recur to the history of other nations; I would recite your own acts, and set you in emulation with yourselves. Do you remember that night, when you gave your country a Free Trade, and with your hands opened all her harbours. That night when you gave her a Free Constitution, and broke the chains of a century....while England, eclipsed at your glory and your island, rose as it were from its bed, and got nearer to the sun. In the arts that polish life, the inventions that accommodate, the manufactures that adorn it, you will be for many years inferior to some other parts of Europe; but, to nurse a growing people, to mature a struggling, though hardy community, to mould, to multiply, to consolidate, to inspire, and to exalt a young nation; be these your barbarous accomplishments? I speak this to you, from a long knowledge of your character, and the various resources of your soul, and I confide my motion to those principles not only of justice, but of fire, which I have observed to exist in your composition, and occasionally to break out in a flame of public zeal, leaving the ministers of the crown in eclipsed degradation. It is therefore I have not come to you furnished merely with a cold mechanical plan; but have submitted to your consideration the living grievances, conceiving that any thing in the shape of oppression made once apparent....oppression too of a people you have set free....the evil will catch those warm susceptible properties which abound in your mind, and qualify you for legislation. Majority on the Question respecting the Regency. ABERCROMBIE, B. Clack- Berkeley, Hon. G. Gloucester mananshire Addington, H. Devizes Addington, Hiley, Truro shire Bishop, Sir Cecil, Bramber Browne, F. J. Dorsetshire Darell, L. Heydon Goddard, Ambrose, Wiltshire Dashwood, Sir H. Woodstock Gordon, Lord W. Inverness Daws, J. Hastings Douglas, A. Forfarshire shire Gordon, I. Stockbridge win Grant, I. Sutherlandshire Grenville, Right Hon. W. W. Grimstone, Visc. Hertfordshire Hawkins, C. St. Michael's Hill, Sir Richard, Shropshire Hill, J. Shrewsbury Hinchinbroke, Visc. Hunting don Horbart, Hon. H. Norwich Hunter, J. Leominster Jennings, G. Thetford west Kent, Sir C. Thetford Langston, John, Sudbury Lincoln, Earl of, East Retford Maddocks, J. Westbury Mornington, Earl of, Windsor Trent Muncaster, Lord, Milbourn Murray, Hon. J. Perthshire Pochin, W. Leicestershire Preston, Sir C. Kinghorn, &c. |