some persons, it always pleases how often soever repeated-I mean the power of effecting mischief, with which you arm the Catholics by giving them seats in the legislature. It seems that a few peers of that persuasion being introduced into the other House, and a few commoners into this, all our securities, not only of oaths and tests, but of numbers of the large body of Protestants, among whom that handful will be lost-all the safeguards furnished by positive laws, and the still stronger checks provided in our own prejudices, or conscientious and well-founded opinions; in the zeal, for instance, of the learned judge and his co-adjutors, will speedily be at an end, and the parliament, without delay, be converted to the Catholic faith; or, at any rate, to seek the overthrow of the Protestant Church! I should be ashamed, Sir, to dwell one moment upon such miserable nonsense as their heads must be filled with, who are sincerely influenced by this argument. I should be still less excusable in stopping to expose it, after the able and well-reasoned speech of a noble friend of mine (lord Binning) who handled it last night. But let me only ask, if such be really the inextinguishable hostility of the Catholic body-if their grand object be, indeed, the destruction of the establishment, and if votes in parliament are the means of attaining it, what security have we against them at this very hour, fenced about with tests, and oaths, and declarations, which exclude them from seats indeed in parliament, but leave them free to choose their representatives? Why, Sir, if their hatred of our Church is so violent that they can scarcely keep their hands off it, notwithstanding all they say and all they swear, if they never can meet to poll for members without meditating its downfall; if wheresoever two or three Romanists are gathered together the Church is in jeopardy, what, I ask, prevents them from gratifying somewhat at least of this spleen, by electing (which the law allows,) a hundred members, calling themselves Protestants, indeed, but bound by the tenure on which they hold their seats, to represent faithfully the Romish feelings of their constituents, and work the overthrow of the establishment, the object which those con stituents, it seems, have nearest at heart? I will tell you, Sir, why no such thing can now be: the Catholics cannot return the whole, or even a considerable number of the Irish members. They are a powerful,

wealthy, most numerous, and highly respectable body; but the property possessed by the Protestant interest, makes it impossible for them to elect above a certain part of the whole Irish representation. Would they be able to elect a greater portion of it, if they could send Catholics here instead of Protestants? The fancy is ridiculous. But their wealth and influence may increase. True, it may; I trust it will. I am sure it must increase with the beneficial effects of the laws now in force, and which are toleration itself, compared with the sanguinary code they succeeded. But will that influence be made stationary by refusing the power of representation to the body which you have allowed the privilege of election ? Will the Catholic influence increase one degree less rapidly by confining them in their choice to certain classes of the community? Nay, if you keep from them the just and natural right of being represented, where they have a sufficient preponderance to chuse at all, by members of their own sect, are they the less likely to return men, who may indeed be Protestants, but will infallibly be rigid sticklers for every Catholic point; rigid in proportion as their constituents are cramped in their exercise of the elective franchise; rigid, more rigid than even Catholic members would be, because they must supply by excessive zeal the defect in their title to be returned, and prove at every turn that their Protestant creed is no bar to their fully representing the Romish prejudices of their constituents.

What then is the sun and the result of the matter?-Precisely this-that if there is the smallest ground for apprehension, we gain no security whatever against the danger, be it what it may, by still withholding from the Catholics the only part of the elective franchise which they do not already enjoy; and if our fears are chimerical, there is of course an end of the argument. I can descry no way out of this dilemma. The learned judge, with all his practised subtilty, cannot escape from it. Either we may in perfect safety take the further step of concession, which is now recommended, or we have already gone many steps too far. We have done too much for the security of the Church, or we may, without the slightest danger to it, do something more. If our fears have any foundation, if the learned judge's alarms are not purely visionary and fantastic, then the Church is really at this hour in danger. The laws of 1778, 1782, and 1793, those wise and humane laws as they have been called, I say those laws of strict justice and absolute necessity, the repeal of the code of persecution and blood, brought the Church into jeopardy, and they who affect to foresee an increase of danger from conceding the little that now remains to be given up, may exercise their ingenuity in explaining whence it is that the establishment has survived all the former concessions-the grand and substantial changes I allude to-not only without a total overthrow, but without even the slightest perceptible shock.

But after all, Sir, I would take leave to ask, are we in such speculations, taking the plain fact, or any thing like the fact, along with us? Really to hear the learned judge, and those who with less dexterous skill have enlarged upon the danger of Catholic votes in parliament, one is tempted

mass, there may be some pretence for apprehending that the religious diversity which forms their distinguishing badge, will exert a more than ordinary, and a more than natural sway over their minds. Yet the fact shews, that no dangers have arisen from such propensities even under the present system of separation and to apprehend any after that system shall have expired, and leaving to religious distinctions only their natural force, shall have restored to all other motives their due preponderance, would be a ridiculous, if it were not also a very melancholy delusion. I am confident it is to the full as absurd an alarm, as it would be for my hon. friend, the member for Yorkshire, (Mr. Wilberforce,) who is one of the most distinguished ornaments of the episcopalian establishment, to be apprehensive of losing the support of those numerous and respectable sectarian voters, to whom his

have changed their nature; and that religious views and feelings are the only motives which are known to bear any sway on the hustings. Is it really so, Sir? Is religion the only ground of voting; the sole principle of selection in these pious and primitive times? What has become of land, and money and family? Has the relation of landlord and tenant all of a sudden lost its influence? Do customers cease to be looked upon with favour by tradesmen? Has personal kindness no sway? Have long established family connections no longer any virtue? I speak not of any undue employment of authority; I allude to no illegal use of wealth; all such means I place out of view; but give me leave to ask, whether religion has now-a-days triumphed over every fair and legitimate source of influence, and placed itself paramount, nay sole, in the minds of all electors? Or, if not, will the law which allows Catholics to sit here, suddenly abolish every other principle of election, make men deaf to all but religious considerations, and banish from their minds every prepossession and feeling in the choice of a representative, except the question, what is his form of faith? No doubt, while your disqualifying statutes separate the Catholic from his fellow subjects, while by exclusion from the pale of the constitution, you draw a circle round one part of the Irish people, and ordain that those shall be kept distinct and insulated whom a common nature and allegiance and birth meant to consolidate with the rest of the (VOL. XXII.)

have rendered him dear; and by whose united, though various voice, he, a zealous member of the Anglican Church, has so often been placed in the enviable station of representing that vast county.

The fears of the learned judge, he has likewise said, are all directed towards the Catholics. From no other sect, either within or without the bosom of the Church does he see any cause of alarm: all but Romanists may be safely trusted. Is it, I demand, Sir, from experience that such distinctions are deduced? Has the Church History, have the most noted pages of the History of the State in England, taught the learned judge this lesson? Is hostility to the Establishment confined to the Catholics? Are they alone, of all sects, to be charged with the design of overturning it, because they are the only sect who bind themselves by multiplied solemnities to compass nothing against it? But have they in fact ever put it in jeopardy? Have they ever shook its foundations? Have they ever torn it in pieces with internal schisms? Have they ever, I ask, overthrown it, and with it overwhelmed the state itself? Yet history tells us that these things have been done by other sects. And I fancy it would not be speaking very wide of the fact to say that in such doings, almost every other leading religious sect had a hand except the Catholics alone. Nay, it is thought by some, that in the present day there be perils more near the bosom of the Establishment than any which can be even pretended to menace (3 M)

her from the Romish faith. I have heard of Methodists, and of parties springing up within the pale of the Church, whose proceedings excited her livelier fears for her safety than any which the great necessities of the present argument have conjured up. To all those quarters the learned judge shuts his eyes, Do I then feel apprehensions from them? Am I telling you the Church is in danger from the Protestant sects either without her circle or in it? No such thing. I can see no risk to her while the laws protect and endow her; and while those laws are observed, I can feel no alarm from Dissenters, or Methodists, or any other class of the religious world. From universal toleration, and even liberal kindness to all sects, I can conceive no possible danger to ensue. But from an opposite line of conduct, from singling out one sect and running it down, from confining your intolerance to a single sect, and that a far more numerous and more powerful one than all the rest together, or from capriciously granting it certain immunities, and unreasonably withholding others, I confess I can see probable dangers; and from no one mode of treatment do I conceive such dangers more likely to result than from the strange perversion of fact, and that utter blindness to all history, and of every day's experience, which leads some men to cry out when they have no other ground whereupon to justify their conduct towards that one sect that the Church is safe on all its other quarters, and only in danger from them.

I must yet advert to another topic urged by the learned judge, because it struck me as novel, at least from the extent to which it was pressed, and the openness with which its principles were avowed. He talked of a kind of right possessed by the members of the Protestant communion over the legislature-that a sort of implied condition (if I rightly understood him,) under which they became attached to that communion, should not be broken. This condition it seems, is that a man worships God in a certain way, under the assurance that this mode of faith shall secure to him certain privileges and (for without this addition the argument has no sort of application,) that those privileges shall not be extended to others of a different persuasion. Here is a sweeping principle with a vengeance! Here is a new light indeed, let in upon us to shew the true foundations of religious belief! Why, is it to be maintained that

men attach themselves to the Protestant faith from motives like these? Is it, at any rate, to be said openly, and in plain terms, that as we worship according to the liturgy of the English church, and give our answers to the catechism of the Westminster assembly, for the purpose of gaining the immunities of the Protestant communion; and for the purpose of enjoying something from which others are debarred, therefore the government breaks faith with us, if, after we have entered upon those offices of religion, with such pure and spiritual views, it extends the same immunities to others, and leaves us without our distinctive badges of political preference and favour? Really, Sir, I had always, in the simpleness of my heart, fancied, that when I worshipped God, as a member of the English Church, I did so with a view to the safety of my soul, and from a conscientious conviction that its doctrines were true, and that all other were erroneous. I had vainly, as it now appears, imagined that my only motive for preferring this form of faith, was my belief that it was the scriptural one; a belief wholly involuntary on my part, and which I entertained because my reason led me to it; not because certain political, secular advantages were annexed to it, or rather to the outward profession of it; and as for supposing that any condition could be broken with me, by the government doing any one act of any kind whatsoever, such a thought never could have entered my mind, because I chose that form of worship without any reference to temporal matters at all. The learned judge has indeed cast a new light on this subject. According to him, men believe and worship, as they strike a bargain, voluntarily on certain conditions precedent for valuable considerations, or rather for considerations of no value at all, unless the gratification of a splenetic and exclusive spirit be an object of worth in Christian eyes. The plain English of all this, however, is abundantly obvious. It is the doctrine of proselytism by wholesale. It is a new view of the code of penalty and persecution. It is an avowal far more open and undisguised than has heretofore been made, and which we shall do well hereafter to keep in mind, that the main use of the restrictive laws is to induce, or compel men to leave their own faith, but not from persuasion of its errors, and betake themselves to ours, but not from conversion to its truths. This, the genuine language of proselytism, the lan

guage of that bigotry which we hear in the very same speech too, ascribed to the Catholics as the peculiar characteristic of their sect, was never yet, I venture to pronounce, uttered more plainly by any Romanist, mitred or cowled, who ever promulgated his anathemas from a council, or muttered the incantations of his supertition in a cloister.

From this part of his argument the learned judge then passed to the most trite of all the topics ever urged against us-a topic so worn out by repetition, that not even his ingenuity and eloquence could lend it any new grace. I allude, Sir, to the notable distinction which is always taken between toleration and power, and founded upon a false and hollow pretence that the Catholics are claiming not merely freedom from persecution, but a share of privileges, and the gratification of ambition. In the same spirit the right hon. gentleman, (Mr. Yorke,) who followed him, asserted roundly that this is a question only interesting to a few Catholic peers and wealthy commoners, but one in which the body of the Irish people have no sort of concern. Sir, I maintain fearlessly the opposite opinion. I appeal to my honourable friends around me, who from local connexions, from intimate acquaintance with Ireland, must needs be best informed of the state of her people; and I call upon them to say whether any thing can be conceived more unfounded than the assertion, that the great bulk of the Irish people are not affected by the penal laws, and feel no desire to get rid of those degrading restraints under which they now labour. But it seems all this is mere ambition. Good God! is it ambition that prompts a poor peasant or retail trader to wish for the power of carrying his goods to market toll free, or at least paying the same toll with his Protestant neighbours? Is it ambition to desire, when tried for his life, the chance of equal justice, which arises from having a jury partly composed of his own religion? Is the demand of the common benefits of the constitution, the trial by jury so justly dear to Englishmen, stigmatized in the Irish Catholics as an overweening lust of power? I will go no farther than this point. I might enumerate many of the rights now denied to Catholics, and ask if it be seeking dominion to desire the restoration of them; but I will stop here, because when I take my stand on trial by jury, I know I occupy an immoveable

ground. What then is it the Catholics now enjoy of this sacred English right ? I will grant that in ordinary cases the Protestant sheriff, (for Protestant he must be,) may return a pannel composed fairly enough of Catholics and Protestants. I may admit that in cases where it signifies nothing how the jury is composed, it will be fairly selected, that where there is no reason to fear partiality or injustice, no attempt will be made to pick the pannel and exclude the Catholics. But I demand to see one instance in which there was a difficult or delicate question between parties of opposite sects, involving or hanging upon religious diversities, or political feelings connected with matters of faith, and the jury was fairly chosen from the two sects. I go further. I demand the instance of this description, in which the sheriff has put Catholics on the pannel. Why, I ask, do gentlemen prize the trial by jury above all the other blessings of their free constitution? Not surely, because in the ordinary questions of property, twelve uninformed men are fitter to decide than a bench of learned judges. No, Sir, nor yet because in such common cases the twelve men are capable of deciding so well as the judges. But still the method of trial is inestimable, for a most sufficient reason, because every now and then a question occurs, where some bias may exist in the judge's mind; where his feelings may be swayed by the influence of the crown which appointed him; where his connection with the people is too slender to inspire him with the proper feelings; where the habits of his profession, or the prejudices of his rank may interfere with the full discharge of his high functions. Then it is in the rare and not in the ordinary case, that the interposition of a jury is thought, and rightly thought, to correct the supposed partialities of the judge, or to supply the proper feelings; and whether by checking or by prompting, to restore to the scales of even handed justice, their due force. Now in all such cases, that is to say, in the very cases for which the benefits of jury trial are calculated; in the only cases, in which, according to some, jury trial is a real good; in the only cases in which, by the admission of most reasoners, this mode of administering justice is wholly unexceptionable; in the only cases, in which, by the confession of all, it is productive of the greatest benefits; the Catholic enjoys it not; he is tried only by aliens to his faith; by enemies of his order; by members of the body whom this very distinction, and others of the same odious and stigmatising nature have rendered separate from, and hostile to his class; he enjoys not the privilege granted by our justice to every foreigner who transgresses our laws, that of being judged by persons tolerably impartial to his race.

But is it mere ambition-mere love of power, which makes Catholics wish to have the doors of trading corporations flung open to them? Is it even a culpable desire of power to covet relief from the stigma which at present points them out as the only persons in the state unfit to be intrusted with places of confidence and honour? And here let me say one word of the elective franchise as now enjoyed by them. They have obtained, we are told, quite enough in possessing the right to elect; it signifies little to shew whether their representatives be Protestant or Catholic. What, Sir! is it of no importance to the right of election, that the choice is hampered? Has freedom of chusing nothing to do with the option of selecting whom you please? Is it quite the same thing to be told I may pitch upon any body I think proper without exception; and to be told I must confine myself to one class which another points out to me? And what is the limitation in question? What is the exception? Who are they from amongst whom I may not chuse my representative? Why, exactly those of my own order; those who profess the same religion with myself! And upon what is this restriction founded? What is the reason given for not allowing me to look among them for my representative? Precisely because they are of the same class and religion! Good God! is this nothing? Is this no stigma? Is there nothing hateful and humbling in this? Sir, it is this stigma, this useless, this needless, this odious stigma, which, while it imprints a mark of suspicion upon the Catholics, affords no security to the Protestants; but like all the other inventions of the persecuting code, irritates every generous feeling, rouses each evil pasion, insulates the degraded sect, and points its animosities against the favoured order, whom it opposes at once to be hated and overthrown.

The learned judge has many fears, it seems, from the spiritual ascendancy of the Roman priesthood, including the head of that hierarchy; and he has worked himself up to a persuasion, that were the penalties

repealed, we should see that over-bearing influence of the Papacy revived, which distinguished and disgraced former ages. But to make good his assertions, he must not only shew the existence of grounds of apprehension from that quarter; he must execute a still more difficult task; he must prove that the continuance of the penalties removes those grounds; he must prove that the persecution which degrades and separates the Catholics, which throws them into the arms of their priests by opposing and irritating them; secures the establishment from the power of those priests working through those flocks. I need not refer to the securities offered by the tests which you have imposed; the oaths which all the Catholics willingly, cheerfully take; and the declaration which they heartily subscribe, that "there is no article of their faith which binds them to believe that the Pope possesses any temporal power, superiority, or ascendancy, directly or indirectly, that can, in any way, affect their allegiance to the state." But what further security does the learned judge offer us? He is for perpetuating a system of tests and disqualifications, which exasperates as much as it oppresses, but does not at all weaken or disarm, and which must dispose all who have taken these oaths to break them. An intimate union, he says, will still subsist between the Pope and the priesthood, and between the priests and the Irish peasantry. Is there less of this union, this chain of influence and spiritual ascendancy at the present moment? The learned judge constantly forgets that in order to scare us from emancipating the Catholics, by such stories of danger from their hierarchy, he must both shew us the ground for such fears, and prove that by leaving matters as they now stand, the danger, whatever it may be, will vanish.

The learned judge, after enlarging so amply on the merits of the question, was pleased to express his no small indignation at the constant renewal of the discussion in this House; and he called upon us on this side to give peace to the empire, by suffering the subject to lie at rest for an indefinite period of time. This is his recipe for conciliation, by which he seriously hopes, it seems, to lull all sects into tranquillity. I fear, however, Sir, that there is another party to be consulted before this notable compromise can be effected. What would he think, for instance, of first having the consent of the