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What says the law of the land to this extravagant piece of injustice? It is no challenge against a juryman, to say he is a Catholic; he sits in judgment upon your life and your property. Did any man ever hear it said that such or such a person was put to death, or that he lost his property, because a Catholic was among the jurymen? Is the question ever put? Does it ever enter into the mind of the attorney or the counsellor to inquire of the faith of the jury? If a man sell a horse, or a house, or a field, does he ask if the purchaser be a Catholic? Appeal to your own experience, and try by that fairest of all teststhe justice of this enormous charge.

We are in treaty with many of the powers of Europe, because we believe in the good faith of Catholics. Two-thirds of Europe are, in fact, Catholics; are they all perjured? For the first fourteen centuries all the Christian world were Catholics; did they live in a constant state of perjury? I am sure these objections against the Catholics are often made by very serious and honest men, but I much doubt if Voltaire has advanced any thing against the Christian religion so horrible as to say that twothirds of those who profess it are unfit for all the purposes of civil life; for who is fit to live in society who does not respect oaths? But if this imputation be true, what folly to agitate such questions as the civil emancipation of the Catholics! they are always ready to support falsehood by an appeal to God, why are they suffered

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of the waters of England? Why are they not driven into the howling wilderness? But now they possess, and bequeath, and witness, and decide civil rights; and save life as physicians, and defend property as lawyers, and judge property as jurymen; and you pass laws enabling them to command all your fleets and armies *, and then you turn round upon the very man whom you have made the master of the European seas, and the arbiter of nations, and tell him he is not to be believed on his oath.

I have lived a little in the world, but I never happened to hear a single Catholic even suspected of getting into office by violating his oath; the oath which they are accused of violating is an insuperable barrier to them all. Is there a more disgraceful spectacle in the world than that of the Duke of Norfolk hovering round the House of Lords in the execution of his office, which he cannot enter as a peer of the realm ? disgraceful to the bigotry and injustice of his country- to his own sense of duty, honourable in the extreme: he is the leader of a band of ancient and high-principled gentlemen, who submit patiently to obscurity and privation, rather than do violence to their conscience. In all the fury of party, I never heard the name of a single Catholic mentioned, who was suspected of having gained, or aimed at, any political advantage, by violating his oath. I have never heard so bitter

There is no law to prevent a Catholic from having the command of a British fleet or a British army.

a slander supported by the slightest proof. Every man in the circle of his acquaintance has met with Catholics, and lived with them probably as companions. If this immoral lubricity were their characteristic, it would surely be perceived in common life. Every man's experience would corroborate the imputation; but I can honestly say that some of the best and most excellent men I have ever met with have been Catholics; perfectly alive to the evil, and inconvenience of their situation, but thinking themselves bound by the law of God and the law of honour, not to avoid persecution by falsehood and apostasy. But why (as has been asked ten thousand times before) do you lay such a stress upon these oaths of exclusion, if the Catholics do not respect oaths? You compel me, a Catholic, to make a declaration against transubstantiation, for what purpose but to keep me out of Parliament? Why, then, I respect oaths and declarations, or else I should perjure myself, and get into Parliament; and if I do not respect oaths, of what use is it to enact them in order to keep me out? A farmer has some sheep, which he chooses to keep from a certain field, and to effect this object, he builds a wall: there are two objections to his proceeding; the first is, that it is for the good of the farm that the sheep should come into the field; and so the wall is not only useless, but pernicious. The second is, that he himself thoroughly believes at the time of building the wall, that all the sheep are in the constant habit of leaping over such walls. His first intention with respect to the sheep is absurd, his means more absurd, and his error is perfect in all its parts. He tries to do that which, if he succeed, will be very foolish, and tries to do it by means which he himself, at the time of using them, admits to be inadequate to the purpose: but I hope this objection to the oaths of Catholics is disappearing; I believe neither Lord Liverpool, nor Mr. Peel (a very candid and honourable man), nor the Archbishops (who are both gentlemen), nor Lord Eldon, nor Lord Stowell (whose Protestantism nobody calls in question), would make such a charge.

It is confined to provincial violence, and to the politicians of the second table. I remember hearing the Catholics from the hustings of an election accused of disregarding oaths, and within an hour from that time, I saw five Catholic voters rejected, because they would not take the oath of supremacy; and these were not men of rank who tendered themselves, but ordinary tradesmen. The accusation was received with loud huzzas; the poor Catholics retired unobserved and in silence. No one praised the conscientious feelings of the constituents; no one rebuked the calumny of the candidate. This is precisely the way in which the Catholics are treated: the very same man who encourages among his partisans the doctrine, that Catholics are not to be believed upon their oaths, directs his agents upon the hustings to be very watchful that all Catholics should be prevented from voting, by tendering to them the oath of supremacy, which he is certain not one of them will take. If this be not calumny and injustice, I know not what human conduct can deserve the name.

If you believe the oath of a Catholic, see what he will swear, and what he will not swear: read the oaths he already takes, and say whether in common candour, or in common sense, you can require more security than he offers you. Before the year 1793, the Catholic was subject to many more vexatious laws than he now is; in that year an act passed in his favour; but before the Catholic could exempt himself from his ancient pains and penalties, it was necessary to take an oath. This oath was, I believe, drawn up by Dr. Duigenan, the bitter and implacable enemy of the sect; and it is so important an oath, so little known and read in England, that I cannot, in spite of my wish to be brief, abstain from quoting it. I deny your right to call No Popery, till you are master of its contents.

"I do swear that I do abjure, condemn, and detest, as unchristian and impious, the principle, that it is lawful to murder, destroy, or any ways injure, any person whatsoever, for or under the pretext of being a

heretic; and I do declare solemnly, before God, that I believe no act, in itself unjust, immoral, or wicked, can ever be justified or excused by or under pretence or colour, that it was done either for the good of the Church, or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power whatsoever. I also declare that it is not an article of the Catholic faith, neither am I thereby required to believe or profess that the Pope is infallible; or that I am bound to obey any order, in its own nature immoral, though the Pope, or any ecclesiastical power, should issue or direct such order; but, on the contrary, I hold that it would be sinful in me to pay any respect or obedience thereto. I further declare, that I do not believe that any sin whatsoever committed by me, can be forgiven at the mere will of any pope or any priest, or of any persons whatsoever; but that sincere sorrow for past sins, a firm and sincere resolution to avoid future guilt, and to atone to God, are previous and indispensable requisites to establish a well-founded expectation of forgiveness; and that any person who receives absolution without these previous requisites, so far from obtaining thereby any remission of his sins, incurs the additional guilt of violating a sacrament: and I do swear, that I will defend, to the utmost of my power, the settlement and arrangement of property in this country, as established by the laws now in being. I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church establishment, for the purpose of substituting a Catholic establishment in its stead; and I do solemnly swear, that I will not exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled, to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion, and Protestant government, in this kingdom. So help me God."

This Oath is taken by every Catholic in | Ireland, and a similar oath, allowing for the difference of circumstances of the two countries, is taken in England.

It appears from the evidence taken before the two Houses, and lately printed, that if Catholic emancipation were carried, there would be little or no difficulty in obtaining

from the Pope an agreement, that the nomination of the Irish Catholic Bishops should be made at home constitutionally by the Catholics, as it is now in fact*, and in practice, and that the Irish prelates would go a great way, in arranging a system of general education, if the spirit of proselytism, which now renders such a union impossible, were laid aside. This great measure carried, the Irish Catholics would give up all their endowments abroad, if they received for them an equivalent at home; for now Irish priests are fast resorting to the Continent for education, allured by the endowments which the French government are cunningly restoring and augmenting. The intercourse with the see of Rome might and would, after Catholic emancipation, be so managed, that it should be open, upon grave occasions, or, if thought proper, on every occasion, to the inspection of commissioners. There is no security, compatible with the safety of their faith, which the Catholics are not willing to give. But what is Catholic emancipation as far as England is concerned? not an equal right to office with the member of the Church of England, but a participation in the same pains and penalties as those to which the Protestant dissenter is subjected by the Corporation and Test Acts. If the utility of these las.-mentioned laws is to be measured by the horror and perturbation their repeal would excite, they are laws of the utmost importance to the defence of the English Church; but if it be of importance to the Church that pains and penalties should be thus kept suspended over men's heads, then these bills are an effectual security against Catholics as well as Protestants: and the manacles so much confided in, are not taken off, but loosened, and the prayer of a Catholic is this:- "I cannot now become an alderman, without perjury. I pray of you to improve my condition so far, that if I become an alderman,

Pretender, are recommended either by the chapters The Catholic Bishops since the death of the or the parochial clergy, to the Pope; and there is no instance of his deviating from their choice.

I may be only exposed to a penalty of 500l. There are two common errors upon the subject of Catholic emancipation; the one, that the emancipated Catholic is to be put on a better footing than the Protestant dissenter, whereas he will be put precisely on the same footing; the other, that he is to be admitted to civil offices, without any guard, exception, or reserve, whereas in the various bills which have been from time to time brought forward, the legal wit of man has been exhausted to provide against every surmise, suspicion, and whisper of the most remote danger to the Protestant Church.

The Catholic question is not an English question, but an Irish one; or rather, it is no otherwise an English question than as it is an Irish one. As for the handful of Catholics that are in England, no one, I presume, can be so extravagant as to contend, if they were the only Catholics we had to do with, that it would be of the slightest possible consequence to what offices of the state they were admitted. It would be quite as necessary to exclude the Sandemanians, who are sixteen in number, or to make a test act against the followers of Joanna Southcote, who amount to one hundred and twenty persons. A little chalk on the wall and a profound ignorance of the subject, soon raises a cry of No Popery; but I question if the danger of admitting five popish Peers and two Commoners to the benefits of the constitution could raise a mob in any market town in England. Whatever good may accrue to England from the emancipation, or evil may befall this country, for withholding emancipation, will reach us only through the medium of Ireland.

I beg to remind you, that in talking of the Catholic religion, you must talk of the Catholic religion as it is carried on in Ireland; you have nothing to do with Spain, or France, or Italy: the religion you are to examine is the Irish Catholic religion. You are not to consider what it was, but what it is not what individuals profess, but what is generally professed, not what individuals do, but what is generally practised. I constantly see, in advertisements from county

meetings, all these species of monstrous injustice played off against the Catholics. The inquisition exists in Spain and Portugal, therefore I confound place, and vote against the Catholics of Ireland, where it never did exist, nor was purposed to be instituted.* There have been many cruel persecutions of Protestants by Catholic governments; and, therefore, I will confound time and place, and vote against the Irish, who live centuries after these persecutions, and in a totally different country. Doctor this, or Doctor that, of the Catholic Church has written a very violent and absurd pamphlet ; therefore I will confound persons, and vote against the whole Irish Catholic Church, which has neither sanctioned nor expressed any such opinions. I will continue the incapacities of men of this age, because some men, in distant ages, deserved ill of other men in distant ages. They shall expiate the crimes committed, before they were born, in a land they never saw; by individuals they never heard of. I will charge them with every act of folly which they have never sanctioned and cannot control. I will sacrifice space, time, and identity, to my zeal for the Protestant Church. Now, in the midst of all this violence, consider, for a moment, how you are imposed on by words, and what a serious violation of the rights of your fellow-creatures you are committing. Mr. Murphy lives in Limerick, and Mr. Murphy and his son are subjected to a thousand inconveniences and disadvantages, because they are Catholics. Murphy is a wealthy, honourable, excellent man; he ought to be in the corporation; he cannot get in because he is a Catholic. His son ought to be king's counsel for his talents, and his standing at the bar; he is prevented from reaching this dignity, because he is a Catholic. Why, what reasons do you hear for all this? Because Queen Mary, three hundred years before the natal day of Mr.

* While Mary was burning Protestants in England, not a single Protestant was executed in Ireland and yet the terrors of that reign are, at this moment, one of the most operative causes of the exclusion of Irish Catholics.

Murphy, murdered Protestants in Smithfield; because Louis XIV. dragooned his Protestant subjects, when the predecessor of Murphy's predecessor was not in being; because men are confined in prison, in Madrid, twelve degrees more south than Murphy has ever been in his life; all ages, all climates, are ransacked to perpetuate the slavery of Murphy, the ill-fated victim of political anachronisms.

Suppose a barrister, in defending a prisoner, were to say to the judge, "My Lord, I humbly submit to your Lordship that this indictment against the prisoner cannot stand good in law; and as the safety of a fellowcreature is concerned, I request your Lordship's patient attention to my objections. In the first place, the indictment does not pretend that the prisoner at the bar is him- | self guilty of the offence, but that some persons of the same religious sect as himself are so; in whose crime he cannot (I submit) by any possibility be implicated, as these criminal persons lived three hundred years before the prisoner was born. In the next place, my Lord, the venue of several crimes imputed to the prisoner is laid in countries to which the jurisdiction of this court does not extend; in France, Spain, and Italy, where also the prisoner has never been: and as to the argument used by my learned brother, that it is only want of power, and not want of will, and that the prisoner would commit the crime if he could; I humbly submit that the custom of England has been to wait for the overt act before pain and penalty are inflicted, and that your Lordship would pass a most doleful assize, if punishment depended upon evil volition; if men were subjected to legal incapacities from the mere suspicion that they would do harm if they could; and if it were admitted to be sufficient proof of this suspicion, that men of this faith in distant ages, different countries, and under different circumstances, had planned evil, and, when occasion offered, done it."

When are mercy and justice, in fact, ever to return upon the earth, if the sins of the elders are to be for ever visited on these who are not even their children? Should

the first act of liberated Greece be to recommence the Trojan war? Are the French never to forget the Sicilian vespers; or the Americans the long war waged against their liberties? Is any rule wise, which may set the Irish to recollect what they have suffered?

The real danger is this-that you have four Catholics for one Irish Protestant. That is the matter of fact, which none of us can help. Is it better policy to make friends, rather than enemies, of this immense population? I allow there is danger to the Protestant Church, but much more danger, I am sure there is, in resisting than admitting the claims of the Catholics. If I might indulge in visions of glory, and imagine myself an Irish dean or bishop, with an immense ecclesiastical income; if the justice or injustice of the case were entirely indifferent to me, and my only object were to live at ease in my possessions, there is no measure for which I should be so anxious as that of Catholic emancipation. The Catholics are now extremely angry and discontented at being shut out from so many offices and honours: the incapacities to which they are subjected thwart them in all their pursuits; they feel they are a degraded caste. The Protestant feels he is a privileged caste, and not only the Protestant gentleman feels this, but every Protestant servant feels it, and takes care that his Catholic fellow-servant shall perceive it. The difference between the two religions is an eternal source of enmity, ill-will, and hatred, and the Catholic remains in a state of permanent disaffection to the government under which he lives. I repeat that if I were a member of the Irish Church, I should be afraid of this position of affairs. I should fear it in peace, on account of riot and insurrection, and in war, on account of rebellion. I should think that my greatest security consisted in removing all just cause of complaint from the Catholic society, in endearing them to the English constitution, by making them feel, as soon as possible, that they shared in its blessings. I should really think my tithes and my glebe, upon such a plan, worth twenty years' pur