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 subject, and, in imitation of our superiors, we agreed not to make it a Cabinet question.—Mr. Milestones, indeed, with that delicacy and propriety which belongs 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 subject, to state what I mean by Catholic emancipation. I mean eligibility of Catholics to all civil offices, with the usual exceptions introduced into all bills-jealous safeguards for the preservation of the Protestant Church, and for the regulation of the intercourse with Rome-and, lastly, provision for the Catholic clergy. I object, Sir, to the law as it stands at present, because it is impolitic, and because it is unjust. It is impolitic, because it exposes this country to the greatest danger in time of war. Can you believe, Sir, can any man of the most ordinary turn for observation believe, that the monarchs of Europe mean to leave this country in the quiet possession of the high station which it at present holds? Is it not obvious that a war is coming on between the governments of law and the governments of despotism?-that the weak and tottering race of the Bourbons will (whatever our wishes may be) be compelled to gratify the wounded vanity of the French, by plunging them into a war with England. Already they are pitying the Irish people, as you pity the West Indian slaves already they are opening colleges for the reception of Irish priests. Will they wait for your tardy wisdom and reluctant liberality? Is not the present state of Ireland a premium upon early invasion? Does it not hold out the most alluring invitation to your enemies to begin? And if the flag of any hostile power in Europe is unfurled in that unhappy country, is there one Irish peasant who will not hasten to join it?and not only the peasantry, Sir; the peasantry begin these things, but the peasantry do not end them—they are soon joined by an order a little above them—and then, after a trifling success, a still superior class think it worth while to try the risk: men are hurried into a rebellion, as the oxen were 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 vicargeneral — 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 powerful receipt for destroying the prosperity of any country, than these eternal jealousies and distinctions between the two religions? What 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 cottonspinner will penetrate; but let these gentlemen wait till a few of their factories have been burnt down, till one or two respectable merchants of Manchester 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. quired 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, is denied upon oath, in the bill now pending in Parliament, a copy of which I hold in my 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 pre-hand. The denial of such a doctrine upon tender? 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 galvanise a frog, don't galvanise a tiger. - 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 banished to the provinces; from the gentleman's houses of the provinces these pieces of furniture, as soon as they are discovered to be unfashionable, descend to the farm-houses, then to cottages, then to the faggot-heap, then to the dunghill. As it is with furniture so it is with arguments. I hear at country meetings many arguments against the Catholics which are never heard in London; their London existence is over they are only to be met with in the provinces, and there they are fast hastening down, with clumsy chairs and ill-fashioned sofas, to another order of men. But, Sir, as they are not yet gone where I am sure they are going, I shall endeavour to point out their defects, 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 in oath is the only means by which a Catholic 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 yet, when it suits the purposes of party to bring forth this argument, we say he has no respect for oaths. The right to a landed estate of 3000l. per annum was decided last week, in York, by a jury, the foreman of which was a Catholic; does any human being harbour a thought, that this gentleman, whom we all know and respect, would, under any circumstances, have thought more lightly of the obligation of an oath than his Protestant brethren of the box? We all disbelieve these arguments of Mr. A. the Catholic, and of Mr. B. the Catholic; but we believe them of Catholics in general, of the abstract Catholics, of the Catholic of the Tiger Inn, at Beverley, the formidable unknown Catholic, that is so apt to haunt our 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 be justifiable any where, 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, in some I believe to Protestant Princes: Protestant worship is now carried on at Rome. In the Low Countries, the seat of the Duke of 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 thinkng 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 man kind, 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. Why not pay their clergy? the Presbyterian clergy in the north of Ireland are paid by the state: the Catholic clergy of Canada are provided for: the priests of the Hindoos are, I believe, in some of their temples, paid by the Company. You must surely admit, that the Catholic religion (the religion of two thirds of Europe) is better than no religion. I do not regret that the Irish are under the dominion of the priests. I am glad that so savage a people as the lower orders of Irish are under the dominion of their priests; for it is a step gained to place such beings under any influence, and the clergy are always the first civilizers of mankind. The Irish are deserted by their natural aristocracy, and I should wish to make their priesthood respectable in their appearance, and easy in their circumstances. A government provision has produced the most important changes in the opinions of the Presbyterian clergy of the north of Ireland, and has changed them from levellers and Jacobins into reasonable men; it would not fail to improve most materially the political opinions of the This cannot, however, be emancipation of the laity. Catholic priests. done without the No priest would dare to accept a salary from Government, unless this preliminary were settled. I am aware it would give to Government a tremendous power in that country; but I must choose the least of two evils. The great point, as the physicians say, in some diseases, is to resist the tendency to death. The great object of our day is to prevent the loss of Ireland, and the consequent ruin of England; to obviate the tendency to death; we will first keep the patient alive, and then dispute about his diet and his medicine. 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 degradation. 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 injustice of the privation. Every man feels the insults 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. gentlemen to deal with, who will do nothing from fear, who admit the danger, but think it disgraceful to act as if they feared it. There is a degree of fear which destroys a man's faculties, renders him incapable of acting, and makes him ridiculous. There is another sort of fear, which enables a man to foresee a coming evil, to measure it, to examine his powers of resistance, to balance the evil of submission against the evils of opposition or defeat, and if he thinks he must be ultimately overpowered, leads him to find a good escape in a good time. I can see no possible disgrace in feeling this sort of fear, and in listening to its suggestions. But it is mere cant to say, that men will not be actuated by fear in such questions as these. Those who pretend not to fear now, will be the first to fear upon the approach of danger; it is always the case with this distant valour. Most of the concessions which have been given to the Irish have been given to fear. Ireland would have been lost to this country, if the British Legislature had not, with all the rapidity and precipitation of the truest panic, passed those acts which Ireland did not ask, but demanded in the time of her armed associations. I should not think a man brave, but mad, who did not fear the treasons and rebellions of Ireland in time of war. I should think him not dastardly, but consummately wise, who provided against them in time of peace. The Catholic question has made a greater progress since the opening of this Parliament than I ever remember it to have made, and it has made that progress from fear alone. The House of Commons were astonished by the union of the Irish Catholics. They saw that Catholic Ireland had discovered her strength, and stretched out her limbs, and felt manly powers, and called for manly treatment; and the House of Commons wisely and practically yielded to the innovations of time, and the shifting attitude of human affairs. I admit the Church, Sir, to be in great danger. I am sure the State is so also. My remedy for these evils is, to enter into an I have also, Sir, a high-spirited class of alliance with the Irish people-to conciliate the clergy, by giving them pensions- to loyalise the laity, by putting them on a footing with the Protestant. My remedy is the old one, approved of from the beginning of the world, to lessen dangers, by increasing friends, and appeasing enemies. I think it most probable that under this system of Crown patronage the clergy will be quiet. A Catholic layman, who finds all the honours of the state open to him, will not, I think, run into treason and rebellion-will not live with a rope about his neck, in order to turn our bishops out, and put his own in: he may not, too, be of opinion that the utility of his bishop will be four times as great, because his income is four times as large; but whether he is or not, he will never endanger his sweet acres (large measure) for such questions as these. Anti-Trinitarian Dissenters sit in the House of Commons, whom we believe to be condemned to the punishments of another world. There is no limit to the introduction of Dissenters into both Houses-Dissenting Lords or Dissenting Commons. What mischief have Dissenters for this last century and a half plotted against the Church of England? The Catholic lord and the Catholic gentleman (restored to their fair rights) will never join with levellers and Iconoclasts. You will find them defending you hereafter against your Protestant enemies. The crosier in any hand, the mitre on any head, are more tolerable in the eyes of a Catholic than doxological Barebones and tonsured Cromwell. land consist? Is it in the eagerness with which they would range themselves under the hostile banner of any invader, for your destruction and for your distress? Is it liberty when men breathe and move among the bayonets of English soldiers? Is their happiness and their history any thing but such a tissue of murders, burnings, hanging, famine, and disease, as never existed before in the annals of the world? This is the system, which, I am sure, with very different intentions, and different views of its effects, you are met this day to uphold. These are the dreadful consequences, which those laws your petition prays may be continued, have produced upon Ireland. From the principles of that system, from the cruelty of those laws, I turn, and turn with the homage of my whole heart, to that memorable proclamation which the Head of our church the present monarch of these realms - has lately made to his hereditary dominions of Hanover- That no man should be subjected to civil incapacities on account of religious opinions. Sir, there have been many memorable things done in this reign. Hostile armies have been destroyed; fleets have been captured; formidable combinations have been broken to pieces-but this sentiment in the mouth of a King deserves more than all glories and victories the notice of that historian who is destined to tell to future ages the deeds of the English people. I hope he will lavish upon it every gem which glitters in the cabinet of genius, and so uphold it to the world that it will be remembered when Waterloo is forgotten, and when the fall of Paris is blotted out from the memory of man. Great as it is, Sir, this is not the only pleasure I have re We preach to our congregations, Sir, that a tree is known by its fruits. By the fruits it produces I will judge your system. What has it done for Ireland? New Zealand is emerging-Otaheite is emerging-Ireland is not emerging-she is still veiled in dark-ceived in these latter days. I have seen ness -her children, safe under no law, live in the very shadow of death. Has your system of exclusion made Ireland rich? Has it made Ireland loyal? Has it made Ireland free? Has it made Ireland happy? How is the wealth of Ireland proved? Is it by the naked, idle, suffering savages, who are slumbering on the mud floor of their cabins? In what does the loyalty of Ire within these few weeks a degree of wisdom in our mercantile law, such superiority to vulgar prejudice, views so just and so profound, that it seemed to me as if I was reading the works of a speculative economist, rather than the improvement of a practical politician, agreed to by a legislative assembly, and upon the eve of being carried into execution, for the benefit of a great |