vision for communication or correspondence, with any other society, committee, or body of persons; neither shall it in any respect act in any manner inconsistently with the said statute of the 6th George IV. cap. 4. "5. The New Catholic Association can and may be formed merely for the purposes of public and private charity, and such other purposes as are not prohibited by the said statute of the 6th Geo. IV. cap. 4. "6. The first purpose of the New Catholic Association is, and shall be, that of promoting public peace and tranquillity, as well as private harmony and concord, amongst all classes of his majesty's subjects throughout Ireland. "7. The second purpose of the New Catholic Association is, and shall be, the encouragement and extension of a liberal, enlightened, and religious system of education, founded on the basis of Christian charity and perfect fair dealing. "8. The third purpose of the New Catholic Association is, and shall be, that of ascertaining the number of the population of Ireland, and the relative proportions which the professors of the various Christian persuasions bear the one to the other; and in particular to ascertain the number of children of each persuasion in a course of education. "9. The fourth purpose of the New Catholic Association is, and shall be, to devise the means of erecting suitable Catholic churches for the celebration of divine worship, and to procure and establish Catholic burial-grounds, wherein the Catholic dead may be interred without being liable to any species of contumely or insult. 10. The fifth purpose of the New Catholic Association is, and shall be, to promote all improvements in science, and in Irish agriculture, to encourage the consumption of Irish manufactures, and the extension of Irish commerce. "11. The sixth purpose of the New Catholic Association is, and shall be, to encourage, as much as possible, a liberal and enlightened press, to circulate works calculated to promote just principles, and mutual toleration and kindness, and to vindicate the principles of the Catholics against the unjust and slanderous attacks daily made upon them. "12. The seventh purpose of the New Catholic Association will be, to prepare a detailed statement of the various charges made against the Catholics, in the petitions presented to parliament during the recent sessions, and to publish authentic refutations of such charges in the places where they respectively originated. "13. That every person who shall think fit, on or before a day to be named, to pay the sum of 1l., on this admission, shall be a member of the New Catholic Association; and after that day, each person paying 17. and procuring one member to propose and another to second him, shall also be a member." A subsequent part of the report stated, that, as the New Catholic Association could not interfere in any way to procure redress from parliameat, or the courts of law, it was incumbent on the Catholics to adopt other means, altogether unconnected with the New Association, of preparing and presenting petitions to parliament, and also for preventing and punishing acts of individual oppression and of party violence. For this purpose the committee gave the following suggestions: "The petitions to parliament must of course be altogether unconnected with the New Catholic Association, and must originate with, and be conducted by, general or aggregate meetings, which, as the law now stands, may be continued by adjournment for fourteen days, and no longer. "It is obvious that it would be impossible to arrange all the petitions necessary to be presented to parliament during the ensuing sessions in the space of 14 days. "It is deemed advisable to have a petition presented from every parish in Ireland. "The country should be therefore taken separately by counties. There can, in point of law, be 14 days given to each county separate ly and distinctly, but the business of petitioning for such county must be conducted by general or aggregate meetings, unconnected with the New Catholic Association, and such general or aggregate meetings can continue to sit for the petitions of each county during fourteen days, according to the provisions of the statute. "Thus the New Catholic Association will have to attend to details in Catholic affairs, consistent with the duration of our present grievances, and with an acquiescence in our present sufferings. "The separate or aggregate meetings must and will seek for the redress of grievances, and the alteration of those matters in church and state by which we are oppressed. "The Committee," said the report, "further beg leave to suggest, that in the management of the future petitions of the Catholics of Ireland, care be taken to have our claims for relief brought before parliament, and kept free from any extraneous matter, or any details on subjects of any other description, we being convinced that the simple and single object of obtaining unconditional and unqualified relief from our disabilities, should be solely attended to as well by the Catholics themselves, as by their friends in parliament." The report was received with clamorous applause, and was approved unanimously. The language of some of the speakers was violent in the extreme. Mr. O'Gorman, who had not the excuse of eloquence for his vehemence, in returning thanks for his appointment to the office of secretary, observed, that his majesty's ministers were not lying on a bed of roses. Independently of their internal dissensions, which he hoped God Almighty would increase, their finances were in rather a ticklish situation; England was beginning to get uneasy, and a cloud appeared to be gathering in the North, which there was no knowing how soon it might burst, for Russia had thirteen hundred thousand men in arms. All these cheering prospects, he added, were sufficient to inspire Irishmen with hope. They, who call upon Catholics by the hate they bear to Protestants, to be peaceable, show a consistent spirit, in regarding the anticipated misfortunes of England and of Europe as cheering prospects for them. But it is melancholy to think that men like lord Gormanstown and lord Killeen should submit to be insulted by language, which is not treasonable only because it is so vague as to be almost without meaning; and still more melancholy is it, that any numerous assembly of men of education, should be so devoid of patriotism as to lend to such language even a momentary applause. CHAP. III. State of the Question concerning the Roman Catholic Claims-Scheme of Measures proposed with respect to these Claims-Motion of Sir Francis Burdett on the Subject: Debate: Speeches of Mr. Plunkett and Mr. Peel-Resolutions adopted by the House of Commons-Bill for the Relief of the Roman Catholics-Frame of the Bill-Its Progress through the House of Commons-Debates on it-Declaration of the Duke of York on the Subject-Effect of that Declaration-The Bill passes the House of Commons-Discussion on it in the House of Lords-It is rejected by the Lords-Bill for regulating the Exercise of the Elective Franchise in Ireland-Resolution for making a Public Provision for the Catholic Clergy-State of the Public Mind concerning the Roman Catholic Question-Inconsistency between the Frame of the Bill and the Principles of its Supporters. N all the discussions on the members of the cabinet who were I Roman Catholic Association, pledged to its support. the advocates of the ministerial measure had carefully separated the question of the conduct of that body from the general question of the Roman Catholic claims. Indeed one of the heaviest grounds of complaint in the minds of many against the Association was, that its intemperance was injurious to the very interests which it was intended to support. The Catholic cause, therefore, was in no degree involved in or prejudiced by the condemnation pronounced on Mr. O'Connell and his associates. On the contrary, it was now deemed to be in a fairer road to success than it had been for several years. The ranks of its friends had been augmented by various deserters from the adverse parliamentary array, among whom perhaps Mr. Brownlow was the most distinguished. But it had acquired a still better ground of hope in the increased and increasing influence and popularity of Mr. Canning, and those other The question was brought forward in the present session under a form very different from any which it had previously assumed. It was made the subject of three distinct measures. One of these was to remove the Catholic disabilities; another was to establish a species of connection between the Catholic ecclesiastics and the state, by making a public provision for the clergy of that church; and the third, in order to prevent the Protestants from being overpowered in elections by the overwhelming majority of the Catholic popula tion, proposed to raise considerably the yearly value of the freehold to which the elective franchise was annexed. On the 1st of March, sir F. Burdett presented the general pe tition of the Roman Catholics, and moved, in an eloquent and temperate speech, for the appointment of a committee of the whole House, to consider of the state of the laws affecting his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. Mr. Croker seconded the motion, and was followed on the same side by Mr. Canning, Mr. S. Wortley, Mr. Plunkett, and Mr. Brougham. They argued the question entirely on general principles. The claim of the Roman Catholics, said Mr. Plunkett, was a claim to be admitted members of a free representative government, and to the benefit of institutions, the advantages of which belonged equally to every subject of that government. He did not say that the right would admit of no exception, or control: for there was nothing in the social fabric concerning which he would venture to make that assertion. Even the enjoyment of natural rights must be qualified, in a state of society, with conditions: still more must this be the case with the artificial rights given by the mere existence of society. But these conditions ought to be imposed only in the degree which would be the most likely to protect and preserve the rights and privileges of all. Whether the rights enjoyed by individuals were of the character of natural or of chartered rights, they were liable to be withheld on the ground of general expediency. But, then, the expediency must be clearly and unquestionably made out. At the Reformation, the main object was to protect the rights of the throne against the claims of a foreign power, and against the disaffection of those subjects who might reserve their allegiance for that foreign power, to the detriment of the throne, and of the state in general. This being the object, how did our ancestors proceed? There were the claims of the pope, not simply interfering with the interest of the Roman Catholic religion, which then was the established religion of the state, but extending also the right of disposing of benefices, of naming the clergy, of deposing the monarch, and of absolving the people from their allegiance. The legislature accordingly provided for the absolute integrity and inviolability of the church, and for the spiritual prerogative of the crown, forbidding at the same time the exercise of any other than the established religion. It was now long since any man had heard of any claim of the pope, or any other foreign power, to interfere with the church, or to exercise a right of deposing kings, or absolving their subjects from their allegiance? Those enactments were, therefore, gradually done away. In the reign of Charles the 2nd, our ancestors observed a new danger-a monarch careless about religion, or secretly affected to an unconstitutional one, who was to be followed by a popish successor. Here their providence was as remarkable as before. They provided a remedy, not adapted entirely to meet the evil, but the only one they could obtain; which was, to require certain oaths to be taken by those who were to sit in parliament. That was found insufficient on the accession of James 2nd, who openly maintained the Roman Catholic religion against the constitution and the rights of his people. The legislature then drove the monarch from the throne, and resolved that the sovereign power should be held inviolable Protestant and unalterable in hands. Did he deny that the throne must be Protestant? Was he doing any thing to weaken its Protestant supremacy? No such thing. Was there any mode or device to make that supremacy surer, which the genius of any man could suggest? He was ready to incorporate it with the proposed bill, or to have it introduced as a separate, yet concomitant measure. What were the dangers, which afterwards threatened the establishment? The claims of an exiled family, and the plots and agitations of a disaffected party retained in its interests. He admitted, freely, that the Roman Catholics of that period were suspected justly. What was the course taken by parliament? All the measures against the papists were continued. They were held to be not good subjects, and unfit to be trusted either with honour or power in the state. They were coerced in their persons and property, deprived of their civil rights, sunk and degraded into that wretched state from which they were relieved by the benignity of the last reign. This was a natural course of reasoning, though he did not conceive it to be a very wise one: but it showed, that our ancestors adapted their remedies to the evils then existing, and pressing upon their apprehensions. In 1791, a new danger, and an entirely new difficulty, presented themselves. The Roman Catholics had proved themselves truly submissive; they had been uniform in their peaceable conduct: and though rebellion had twice raged in Scotland, no movement was made in Ireland in favour of the exiled family. But the Catholics, so sunk and degraded, added nothing to the strength of the state. The landlord found that the lands could not be sufficiently cultivated. The valuable energies of labour were every where paralyzed; a new plan was adopted; and a system of beneficence was introduced, which, having been now in practice for the space of forty years, had raised the Roman Catholics of Ireland to a state of affluence, comfort, and respectability; had given them a perfect equality of civil rights; and had caused them to participate in the advantages of the constitution. What was the danger which we had now to dread? Not the pope, not the claims of foreign potentates, not the assumption of a power to dissolve the allegiance of the people, not the interests of an exiled family. The Roman Catholics had perfected the proofs of their obedience, and had been admitted to their civil rights, as good subjects who were entitled to every thing which they could reasonably claim. The danger now to be apprehended was perfectly new, though not inferior to that of a dispute concerning the supremacy or the succession to the crown. What was now to be feared was, to see four millionstaking them at the lowest-of subjects, having wealth, power, and respectability on their side, and awakened to a full sense of their condition, coming up, year after year, to claim the rights and privileges enjoyed by their fellow subjects, and retiring dejected and disappointed. It was in vain to tell us not to look at the dangers of our own times, but to go back to the Reformation, to the reign of James 2nd, and to the Revolution. The present danger was the greatest, and was the only one for the House to consider. While man would sleep or stop in his career, the course of time was rapidly changing the aspect of all human affairs; and all that a wise government could do, was to keep as close as possible to the wings of time, to |