ourselves, and in a country where the oppressed are four times as numerous as their oppressors. So much for the wisdom of our ancestors-so much for the nineteenth century-so much for the superiority of the English over all other nations of the continent.

Are you not sensible, let me ask you, of the absurdity of trusting the lowest Catholics with offices correspondent to their situation in life, and of denying such privilege to the higher? A Catholic may serve in the militia, but a Catholic cannot come into Parliament; in the latter case you suspect combination, and in the former case you suspect no combination; you deliberately arm ten or twenty thousand of the lowest of the Catholic people-and the moment you come to a class of men whose education, honour, and talents, seem to render all mischief less probable, then you see the danger of employing a Catholic, and cling to your investigating tests and disabling laws. If you tell me you have enough of members of Parliament, and not enough of militia, without the Catholics, I beg leave to reinind you, that by employing the physical force of any sect, at the same time when you leave them in a state of utter disaffection, you are not adding strength to your armies, but weakness and ruin:-it you want the vigour of their common people, you must not disgrace their nobility, and insult their priesthood.

very necessary that a chancellor should be of the re, ligion of the Church of England, how many chancel lers you have had within the last century who have been bred up in the Presbyterian religion?-And again, how many you have had who notoriously have been without any religion at all?

Why are you to suppose that eligibility and election are the same thing, and that all the cabinet will be Catholics, whenever all the cabinet may be Catholics? You have a right, you say, to suppose an extreme case, and to argue upon it-so have I: and I will suppose that the hundred Irish members will one day come down in a body, and pass a law compelling the king to reside in Dublin. I will suppose that the Scotch members, by a similar stratagein, will lay Eng. land under a large contribution of meal and sulphur; no measure is without objection, if you sweep the whole horizon for danger; it is not sufficient to tell me of what may happen, but you must show me a ra tional probability that it will happen after all, I might, contrary to my real opinion, admit all your dangers to exist; it is enough for me to contend that all other dangers taken together are not equal to the danger of losing Ireland from disaffection and inva sion.

:

Do you think mankind never change their opinions without formally expressing and confessing that change? When you quote the decisions of ancient Catholic councils, are you prepared to defend all the decrees of English convocations and universities since the reign of Queen Elizabeth? I could soon make you sick of your uncandid industry against the Catholics, and bring you to allow that it is better to forget times past, and to judge and be judged by present opinions and present practice.

I am astonished to see you, and many good and well-meaning clergymen beside you, painting the CathI thought that the terror of the pope had been con- olics in such detestable colours; two-thirds, at least, fined to the limits of the nursery, and merely employ-of Europe are Catholics,-they are Christians, though ed as a means to induce young master to enter into his mistaken Christians; how can I possibly admit that small clothes with greater speed, and to eat his break-any sect of Christians, and above all, that the oldest fast with greater attention to decorum. For these and most numerous sect of Christians, are incapable of purposes, the name of the pope is admirable; but why fulfilling the duties and relations of life; though I do push it beyond? Why not leave to Lord Hawkesbu- differ from them in many particulars, God forbid I ry all farther enumeration of the pope's powers? For sholud give such a handle to infidelity, and subscribe a whole century, you have been exposed to the enmity to such blasphemy against our common religion! of France, and your succession was disputed in two rebellions; what could the pope do at the period when there was a serious struggle, whether England should be Protestant or Catholic, and when the issue was completely doubtful? Could the pope induce the Irish to rise in 1715? Could he induce them to rise in 1745? You had no Catholic enemy when half this island was in arms; and what did the pope attempt in the last rebellion in Ireland? But if he had as much power over the minds of the Irish as Mr. Wilberforce has over the mind of a young Methodist, converted the preced- I must beg to be excused from explaining and re. ing quarter, is this a reason why we are to disgust futing all the mistakes about the Catholics made by men, who may be acted upon in such a manner by a my Lord Redesdale; and I must do that nobleman the foreign power? or is it not an additional reason why justice to say, that he has been treated with great dis. we should raise up every barrier of affection and kind-respect. Could any thing be more indecent than to ness against the mischief of foreign influence? But make it a morning lounge in Dublin to call upon his the true answer is, the mischief does not exist. Gog lordship, and to cram him with Arabian-night stories and Magog have produced as much influence upon hu- about the Catholics? Is this proper behaviour to the man affairs, as the pope has done for this half century representative of majesty, the child of Themis, and past; and by spoiling him of his possessions, and de.the keeper of the conscience in West Britain ?-Whograding him in the eyes of all Europe. Bonaparte has not taken quite the proper method of increasing his influence.

But why not a Catholic king, as well as a Catholic member of Parliament, or of the cabinet?-Because it is probable that the one would be mischievous, and the other not. A Catholic king might struggle against the Protestantism of the country, and if the struggle was not successful, it would at least be dangerous; but the efforts of any other Catholic would be quite in significant, and his hope of success so small, that it is quite improbable the effort would ever be made; my argument is, that in so Protestant a country as Great Britain, the character of her Parliaments and her cab. inet could not be changed by the few Catholics who would ever find their way to the one or the other, But the power of the crown is immeasurably greater than the power which the Catholics could obtain from any other species of authority in the state; and it does not follow, because the lesser degree of power is innocent, that the greater should be so too. As for the stress you lay upon the danger of a Catholic chancellor, I have not the least hesitation in saying, that his appointment would not do a ten-thousandth part of the mischief to the English church that might be done by a methodistical chancellor of the true Clapbam breed; and I request to know, if it is really so

ever reads the letters of the Catholic bishops, in the appendix to Sir John Hippesly's very sensible book, will see to what an excess this practice must have been carried with the pleasing and Protestant nobleman whose name I have mentioned, and from thence I wish you to receive your answer about excommunication, and all the trash which is tulked against the Catho lics.

A sort of notion has, by some means or another, crept into the world, that difference of religion would render men unfit to perform together the offices of common and civil life; that Brother Wood and Brother Grose could not travel together the same circuit if they differed in creed, nor Cockell and Mingay be engaged in the same cause if Cockell was a Catholic and Mingay a Muggletonian. It is supposed that Hus kisson and Sir Harry Englefield would squabble behind the speaker's chair about the Council of Lateran, and many a turnpike bill miscarry by the sarcastical con troversies of Mr. Hawkins Brown and Sir John Thockmorton upon the real presence. I wish I could see some of these symptoms of earnestness upon the subject of religion; but it really seems to me, that in the present state of society, men no more think about inquir ing concerning each other's faith than they do con cerning the colour of each other's skins. There may have been times in England when the quarter sessions

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would have been disturbed by the theological polemics; but now, after a Catholic justice had once been seen on the bench, and it had been clearly ascertained that he spoke English, had no tail, only a single row of teeth, and that he loved port-wine,-after all the scandalous and infamous reports of his physical confirmation had been clearly proved to be false, -he would be reckoned a jolly fellow, and very supe rior in flavour to a sly Presbyterian. Nothing, in fact, can be more uncandid and unphilosophical* than to say that a man has a tail, because you cannot agree with him upon religious subjects; it appears to be ludi. crous, but I am convinced it has done infinite mischief to the Catholics, and made a very serious impression upon the minds of many gentlemen of large landed property.

In talking of the impossibility of Catholics and Protestants living together under the same government, do you forget the cantons of Switzerland? You might have seen there a Protestant congregation going into a church which had just been quitted by a Catholic congregation; and I will venture to say that the Swiss Catholics were more bigoted to their religion than any people in the whole world. Did the kings of Prussia ever refuse to employ a Catholic? Would Frederick the Great have rejected an able inan on this account? We have seen Prince Czartorinski, a Cath-commerce stands still, manufactures perish, Ireland olic sectretary of state in Russia; in former times, a Greek patriarch and an apostolic vicar acted together in the most perfect harmony in Venice; and we have seen the Emperor of Germany in modern times entrusting the care of his person and the command of his guard to a Protestant prince, Ferdinand of Wir. temberg. But what are all these things to Mr. Perceval? He has looked at human nature from the top of Hampstead Hill, and has not a thought beyond the little sphere of his own vision. The snail, say the Hindoos, sees nothing but its own shell, and thinks it the grandest palace in the universe.'

I now take a final leave of this subject of Ireland; the only difficulty in discussing it is a want of re sistance, a want of something difficult to unravel, and something dark to illumine; to agitate such a ques. tion is to beat the air with a club, and cut down gnats with a scimitar; it is a prostitution of industry, and a waste of strength. If a man says I have a good place, and I do not choose to lose it, this mode of arguing upon the Catholic question I can well understand; but that any human being w th an understanding two degrees elevated above that of an Anabaptist preacher, should conscientiously contend for the expediency and propriety of leaving the Irish Catholics in their pre. sent state, and of subjecting us to such tremendous peril in the present condition of the world, it is utterly out of my power to conceive. Such a measure as the Catholic question is entirely beyond the common game of politics; it is a measure in which all parties ought to acquiesce, in order to preserve the place where and the stake for which they play. If Ireland is gone, where are jobs? where are rever. sions? where is my brother, Lord Arden? where are my dear and near relations? The game is up, and the speaker of the House of Commons will be sent as a present to the menagerie at Paris. We talk of wait. ing from particular considerations, as if centuries of joy and prosperity were before us; in the next ten years our fate must be decided; we shall know, long before that period, whether we can bear up against the miseries by which we are threatened, or not; and yet, in the very midst of our crisis, we are enjoined to abstain from the most certain means of increasing our strength, and advised to wait for the remedy till the disease is removed by death or health. And now, instead of the plain and manly policy of increasing una.

* Vide Lord Bacon, Locke, and Descartes.

nimity at home, by equalizing rights and privileges,
what is the ignorant, arrogant, and wicked system
which has been pursued? Such a career of madness
and of folly was, I believe, never run in so short a
period. The vigour of the ministry is like the vigour
of a grave digger,-the tomb becomes more ready and
more wide for every effort which they make. There
is nothing which it is worth while either to take or to
retain, and a constant train of ruinous expeditions has
been kept up. Every Englishman felt proud of the
integrity of his country; the character of the country
is lost for ever. It is of the utmost consequence to a
commercial people at war with the greatest part of
Europe, that there should be a free entry of neutrals
into the enemy's ports; the neutrals who carried our
manufactures we have not only excluded, but we have
compelled them to declare war against us. It was
our interest to make a good peace, or convince our
own people that it could not be obtained; we have
not made a peace, and we have convinced the people
of nothing but of the arrogance of the foreign secre
tary; and all this has taken place in the short space
of a year, because a King's Bench barrister and a
writer of epigrams, turned into ministers of state,
were determined to show country gentlemen that the
late administration had no vigour. In the mean time
is more and more irritated, India is threatened. fresh
taxes are accumulated upon the wretched people, the
war is carried on without it being possible to conceive
any one single object which a rational being can pro
pose to himself by its continuation; and in the midst
of this unparalleled insanity, we are told that the con
tinent is to be reconquered by the want of rhubarb
and plumbs. A better spirit than exists in the Eng.
lish people never existed in any people in the world;
it has been misdirected, and squandered upon party
purposes in the most degrading and scandalous man.
ner; they have been led to believe that they were
benefiting the commerce of England by destroying the
commerce of America, that they were defending their
sovereign by perpetuating the bigoted oppression of
their fellow-subject; their rulers and their guides have
told them that they would equal the vigour of France
by equalling her atrocity; and they have gone on
wasting that opulence, patience, and courage, which,
if husbanded by prudent and moderate counsels, might
have proved the salvation of mankind.
policy of turning the good qualities of Englishmen to
their own destruction, which made Mr. Pitt omnipo-
tent, continues his power to those who resemble him
only in his vices; advantage is taken of the loyalty of
Englishmen, to make them meanly submissive; their
piety is turned into persecution, their courage into
useless and obstinate contenticn; they are plundered
because they are ready to pay, and soothed into
asinine stupidity because they are full of virtuous
patience. If England most perish at last, so let it be ;
that event is in the hands of God; we must dry up
our tears and submit. But that England should perish
swindling and stealing; that it should perish waging
war against lazar houses and hospitals; that it should
perish persecuting with monastic bigotry; that it
should calmly give itself up to be ruined by the flashy
arrogance of one man, and the narrow fanaticism of
another; these events are within the power of human
beings, and I did not think that the magnanimity
of Englishmen would ever stoop to such degradations.
Longum vale!

The same

PETER PLYMLEY.

* Even Allen Park (accustomed as he has always been to be delighted by all administrations) says it is too bad; and Hall and Morris are said to have actually blushed in one of the divisions.

THE END.