certainly was not in its origin a catholic war; | relief are her circumstances, if this her fond the principal leaders were not catholics, expectation, her last, her only remaining rewhose object it was to depress one religion, in order to elevate another. On the contrary, they aimed to destroy every thing that had been established, every thing that had been held sacred. They declared themselves to be alike enemies to the purity of the protestant worship, and to what they called the superstition of the catholic faith; their intention was to extinguish the monarchy, to put an end to the connexion between Great Britain and Ireland, and in their room to erect a republic without a king, a priest, or a noble. The leaders of that rebellion were certainly too able not to have taken advantage of any circumstance which might have led in the most remote degree to weaken the government, and to render their cause triumphant. They consequently appealed to every bad passion, to every malignant feeling of the human heart. It is impossible that any contest can take place in Ireland, into which the bitterness and poison of religious and sectarian prejudices will not enter: all men who entertain views inimical to the public peace, would naturally seize every occasion to increase those dissensions. It is to be lamented that these arts sometimes operate on the minds of the low, ignorant, and vulgar part of the catholic community; but one cannot be at all surprised when we reflect that the protestant, though generally of a higher class, and much better educated and informed, was too often the dupe of these artifices, and suffered his mind to be biassed, his understanding controuled, and his generous feelings warped by the existence of those very prejudices of which he so loudly complained.—It is impossible to pass over in silence many things which have fallen from noble lords in this debate, without an endeavour to rescue the character of my country and my countrymen from aspersions which, had they been uttered in any other place, I should not have hesitated to have called most unfounded calumnies. As long as there was a resident parliament in Ireland, it was the ignoble poJicy, the wretched practice of the representatives of the people to libel and malign their constituents. I am sorry to see such conduct imitated here. It was the strongest argument in favour of the union, that an appeal was made from the passions and prejudices of a little country to the temper, the moderation, the cool and deliberate wisdom of a great nation. Miserable indeed is the situation of Ireland, hopeless and without

fuge is to be disappointed; if by so many sacrifices she has only obtained the dearly bought permission of displaying her miseries on a more extended theatre, where the errors, the misfortunes, the crimes of Ireland are to be re-echoed from one house of parliament to the other, in order to give them publicity to Europe, and that, in future, no foreigner should doubt how weak and vulnerabie the empire is in that quarter! Do not, I beseech you, my lords, believe that the Irish are a nation of degraded beings, insensible to the blessings of law, order, and government. There is neither candour nor justice in estimating the character of a whole people by the standard of the conduct of a few atrocious criminals, by excesses committed in moments of heat, irritation, and civil war. By this mode of reasoning, the whole of the French nation would be made answerable for the infuriate and sanguinary spirit which governed and disgraced for years of the revolution the populace of Paris. The virtues of the inhabitants of Ireland, and they do possess virtues, belong at least to themselves, and are peculiarly their own: their faults are the faults of their situation, and of the calamities which have too often distracted and oppressed their unhappy country. The frequent changes of property during the seventeenth century, the persecuting code of the eighteenth, the marked line of separation between the old inhabitants and the new, have established distinctions which nor time, nor circumstances, nor christian charity, nor political necessity have yet been able to remove. It appeared to be the wish of the legislature to create two distinct and separate nations, possessing separate and distinct interests. Unhappily they succeeded but too well-violence will beget violence oppression will create resistance. When one part of the community enjoys a free constitution, and the other is in chains, the natural consequences must be, that the governors will acquire a spirit of domination, incompatible with every degree of equal liberty; and the governed a spirit of licentiousness and resistance, little reconcileable to law and subordination. This has been the state of Ireland; it is not however the ordinance of the Almighty, but the policy of man. None of those libellers of their country will maintain that it was preordained that man in Ireland was to be indolent, ferc cious and savage, and in England civilized and industrious. Seek for the effects ati

parliament on this subject, I never before heard the accusation seriously maintained. If such a record there be, I challenge the noble viscount to produce it-where is it kept? in what families does it exist? The noble viscount also made an implied panegyric on the penal code, when he asserted that during its existence in full force, Ireland enjoyed an uninterrupted state of tranquillity and peace. At this auspicious and vaunted period all the rights of Ireland were invaded, her commerce could hardly be said to exist, her principal manufacture was annihilated, her constitution was subverted, her population was reduced to twelve hundred thousand. This might be peace, but it was the repose of desolation, the tranquillity of a jail, undisturbed by any sounds but the rattling of chains. The protestant was a despot, the catholic was a slave; the protestant surrendered his liberty that he might enjoy his tyranny, the catholic abandoned his country to seek for bread, and found renown

sing from human conduct, in human causes. their hands for five generations; the famiPersecution may have been driven from the lies of the original claimants are generally walls of parliament, but it has entered into extinct, or resident in foreign countries and the privacies of domestic life, poisoning the a considerable number of catholics have pursources of social enjoyment, diffusing dissen- chased and hold their property under the act sion and not union, discord and not charity, of settlement and explanation.-A noble viswidening instead of closing the breach be- count has thought it right to assert, that a tween the protestant who conceded with re-registry of the forfeited property was in the gret, and the catholic who consequently re- possession of the families of the ancient proceived without gratitude. The legislature prietors. In all the heat and agitation of appeared to have advanced in vain, the pub-debate which has taken place in the Irish lic mind was retrograde, liberality was in the mouths of all, but persecution and rancour were in the hearts of many; the effects of the abominable code of popery laws, survived the code itself; the extent of mischief it had occasioned was not discovered till those laws had ceased in a great measure to exist. What now remains to be granted only insults the catholic without securing the protestant. How the state would be endangered because a catholic peer might sit in parliament, or a catholic gentleman enjoy any office, or represent any county in which he had a large property, I am at a loss to imagine, particularly when the peerage who have the choice, the government who have the disposal of office, the property who have the influence in elections, would still continue protestant. The virtues of men, or the effects arising from their virtues, are transitory and perishable, why therefore should their follies and their prejudices be immortal? Why should religious hatred last for ever? It is certainly a created and not a na-in every service of Europe.-I must contural cause of difference. He who believes plain of the want of candour, I must lament in transubstantiation and he who rejects it, the infatuation which prevails on this delimay certainly think alike on other subjects, cate subject. I am sorry to see the belief of and be governed by motives equally pure the catholics estimated, not by their own and honourable as men, as citizens, as chris-profession's and declarations, but by the tians. The protestant may rejoice in the su- charges and accusations of their enemies, perior purity of his religion, and lament the whom no denial will silence, no test will sadarkness which overshadows the mind of his tisfy. The catholics of the nineteenth cencatholic brother: but surely it is not neces-tury are to be judged and doomed to perpesary that matters of conscience or of specula-tual exclusion for doctrines and opinions tive belief should interfere with the active which they renounce, abjure, and abhor, but conduct of either. Every relaxation of the which were formerly held in remote ages by penal code has been opposed by the same the bigoted zealots of popery before the -arguments, which have been again and again dawn of reason, truth, or philosophy had -answered and refuted. I beg pardon-truth purified religion, and broken through the and candour oblige me to confess that in the clouds of superstition. The fate of those list of charges and accusations, the pretender who profess the catholic religion in these has lately been omitted; but the power of kingdoms has been rather singular; in the the pope, whether he be the prisoner of the last century, they were proscribed for hold directory, or the slave of Buonaparté, whe-ing opinions subversive of liberty, and for ther he vegetate at Rome or be in chains at -Paris, is still alike formidable and portentous. The protestant property is still in danger, though that property has been in

loving monarchy too much-in this they have been accused of loving it too little, and of changing their doctrines of high preroga tive, passive obedience, and divine, inde

feasible, hereditary right, for wild, fantastic, where you are now vulnerable, you would heremischievious notions of republican liberty after be invincible. Six centuries have elapsed and equality. These contradictory charges since the English first appeared in Ireland. against the religion of the most numerous Whether that country was or was not conbody of the Christians of Europe are neither quered, I shall not stop to enquire: to be wise, liberal, or founded. Catholicity has informed, it is not necessary to open the been the faith of some of the most illustrious page of history. All the rugged, shapeless nations, and the belief of many individuals | features of conquest are too visible every who have done honour to the name of man. where. A mile from a great town, every Notwithstanding this acknowledged truth, shape and semblance of England vanishes. which bigotry itself will not venture to deny, Religion, language, manners, habits, not how often has it been insinuated that they only distinct, but opposite; the great charter cannot be good subjects to a protestant king, of liberty suspended; the law inoperative; because they are not bound by oaths? This party violence tearing asunder every Christmischievous opinion has been sustained with ian charity, every endearing connexion; vulgar and mischievous asperity. If it were the protestant in his wrath seeking for his true, why are the petitioners at your bar? lately emancipated slave; and too many of Nothing but their regard for the sanctity of the lower class of men, in their despair, an oath, nothing but the restraints imposed willing to trample on their allegiance: such upon them by conscience, obliges them to is the faint outline of a most disgusting picsubmit to the various disabilities of which ture, such the state of a country inhabited they complain. I certainly despair of carry-Ly a brave, active, intelligent race of men, ing this question now, but at the same time I am convinced, that it will hereafter be found absolutely necessary to comply with the prayer of the petitioners; for believe me there is discontent: danger does exist in Ireland, the amount or extent no man can tell.

Llessed with some of the choicest gifts of Providence, rising in power, population, wealth, and strength, amidst the bitterness of religious acrimony, popular delusion, and lurking rebellion. No stronger proof can be given of the natural and inherent energies of a country which has still flourished and prospered, notwithstanding the miserable system which has been pursued, and the vicious administration of the government. Ireland is the only country in the world, where it was thought necessary tọ proscribe by law a great majority of the in

Suffer not therefore the majority of the inhabitants to remain longer under any disabilities; take away every pretence for disaffection, and try a system of conciliation and concession. Procrastination is the fool's resource policy, state necessity, the situation of Ireland, the critical circumstances of the empire, the willing or unwilling sub-habitants, where the parliament legislated mission of the continent of Europe to the not for the people, but against the people. power of France, all demand this measure. I voted for the union with a firm conviction, What must be done sooner or later had bet- with an assured hope, that it would fortify ter be done now: what will assuredly be the connexion between Great Britain and granted, had better be given with the best Ireland, heal the wounds of a distracted possible grace. I am sure it is necessary to country, and ensure the future adoption of repeal those laws in order to lay the basis of the catholic body. I voted with that doubt, the future tranquillity of Ireland. After so hesitation, and reluctance, which every man many ages of wretchedness, confusion and must experience, who, in the triumph of blood, of degradation without, and smother-duties over affections, ventures to shock the ed war within, a final settlement and peace feelings, the passions, the honest prejudices is required; a real, solid, founded, substan- of his country. I know that I adopted a tial peace, not an empty, hollow, treacher-hazardous experiment. I know that I difous truce; a settlement which 'would give fered from some of the best and wisest men security at home, and respectability abroad, in Ireland. I am sure, at the time, it was which would be the commencement of a my honest, genuine, unbiassed sentiment. new era in Ireland, when every man might Possibly I might have despaired too soon; forget the prejudices of a sectarian, and re-pressed by a sense of present evil, I fondcollect the duties of a citizen. All the power, all the energy, all the exertion of a happy and united people might be brought to the assistance of your threatened empire. That which constitutes your present weakness, would become your future strength; VOL. IV.

ly, perhaps vainly imagined, that nothing would tend so much to stifle jealousies, to allay the restless, ferocious, sanguinary spirit of intolerance, to subdue the fears of the loyal, and the hopes of the disaffected. I may have been mistaken; if such has been

3 D

my misfortune, I have much to lament, and something to atone for; but the act is done; I was one of those who surrendered for ever the legislative independence of my country. During the discussion of the question, many persons of the best intentions, who had before opposed the claims of the catholics, declared that, after the adoption of that measure, they could see no objection to the repeal of every remaining disability I therefore entertained a sanguine hope that tardy justice would at length have been rendered to this numerous and deserving body of men, and that the adoption of the catholic body would have consummated and confirmed the union. If, on the contrary, you are only corrupted by our example, and adopt the same prejudices which have so long agitated and distracted Ireland, the union will be no relief to her misfortunes: it may be an union by act of parliament, but it is not an union of interests and affections; it is a settlement which has given dissatisfaction to great bodies of men, without having hitherto afforded contentment to any. The noble lord concluded by reading several extracts from lord Redesdale's speech of the night before; he contradicted many of the assertions of that noble lord, and called upon the Irish peers to rise in their places and vindicate the Irish nation from aspersions highly injurious to their honour, and which tended to degrade that country from the rank of civilized nations.

of his assertions by any contradiction of that nature; he repeated that his assertions were correct, and referred in still further support of them to Mr. M'Kenna's pamphlet, an authority which he did not think would be disputed. On the former evening he had likewise referred to the catholic hierarchy of Ireland, and he now maintained that that hierarchy existed in defiance of the law of the land, the persons who now held the dignities of that hierarchy being the successors of those whose offices the law had declared should be abolished.

The Earl of Ormond.-My lords; I trust I shall not be contradicted by any man who really knows any thing of Ireland, when I say the noble and learned lord has stated that which is not a fact, at least in the opinion of any man but himself; and therefore I cannot sit silent and hear the country to which I have the honour to belong, so foully traduced, without rising in my place, to contradict such unfounded aspersions upon the national character of Ireland. The noble lord has asserted, that protestants dare not live in the same families with catholic servants; and that the catholic servants, from their hatred to those of the protestant religion, combine against them. My lords, I know not what may be the state of the noble lord's household, I never was in his house, I never wish it, and I never will be in it; but, my lords, I do know that in my own house, in the houses of all the protes tant gentlemen around it, intermixed and surrounded by catholics, and in one of the most catholic counties in Ireland (Kilkenny) catholic and protestant servants live together like brothers. The noble lord has stated, that in Dublin a protestant servant cannot get employment in a protestant family, on account of the combination formed against

Lord Redesdale felt himself so peculiarly called upon, in consequence of some observations which had been made by the noble lord, that he trusted their lordships would indulge him with a hearing for a few moments. He was not induced by what had fallen from the noble lord to retract an assertion which he had made on the former evening of debate. He asserted, in con-him by catholic servants. In all my interfirmation of what he then stated, that, from course in Dublin, during a very long resithe prejudices of the catholics in Ireland, it dence there, much longer indeed than that was extremely difficult to put protestant of the noble lord, I never once heard any children out to service. (A cry of no! no!) such thing. The only complaint I ever reHe knew the fact, he said, from his official collect to have heard on this point was, that situation in Ireland, where being a trustee protestant servants enough could not be had for several charitable institutions he knew to supply protestant families who had a prethat the greatest embarrassment arose from dilection for such servants--that class of the the extreme difficulty which existed of put-people in Ireland being by much the greater ting out protestant children from those in-part catholic. From the tenor of the speech stitutions to service. It was also equally true that the greatest prejudice existed in catholic families against protestant servants, and that every means were used to render their situation uncomfortable (A cry of no! no! from some noble lords, and of order! from others.) He was not, he said, to be driven from any

spoken by that noble and learned lord on a former night, and the weight with which every statement respecting the country where he presides in a situation so eminent, must fall under the sanction of his grave authority, I own I did expect this motion would have met, this night, the most viru

lent opposition from the right revered bench | opposite to me. But, unlike the noble lord, nothing has fallen from that quarter but the most calm, decorous, and moderate arguments so truly characteristic of the tolerant spirit and charitable principles of that established religion over which they so worthily preside. But from the noble lord, instead of a most legal, liberal, enlightened, and argumentative speech, becoming the gravity of his character, what have we heard? A collection of old womens' stories, which I do verily believe not even the most prejudiced protestant in Ireland this day would accre dit. I have been in Ireland the greater part of my life. I have repeatedly travelled through, and had intercourse with the protestant gentlemen from every quarter of it, and never, in the course of my life, did I hear such statements as those made by the noble lord; and not one of them which will, I am sure, be avouched by any independent man in this house. I hope when the noble and learned lord returns to that bench, on which he presides over the public justice of Ireland, he will divest himself of that violent antipathy towards one sect of the people, and that obvious partiality for another, which he has so conspicuously evinced in this house. My lords, I most cheerfully support the motion before you, convinced as I am of its sound policy, its wisdom, and its justice,

:

cidedly hostile to the measure; he did not rely merely upon the adverse petitions upon the table, but upon the notoriety of the fact: he believed that if the motion was adopted, a degree of uneasiness and discontent would arise to which no one could be able to look without apprehension and anxiety as to the consequence. He did not, however, look to the continued duration of such sentiments, but spoke only as to their present existence. He objected further to the motion of the noble lord, as its object was single and separate it went merely to take into consideration the subject matter of the petition, with the avowed view of granting the concessions in question. Those concessions ought at no time to be made without connecting other matters with them. A noble and learned Lord (Redesdale), who had just spoken in explanation, had stated that the Irish Roman catholic hierarchy existed contrary to the law: if that was the case, he inferred that the law not being enforced resulted from prudential considerations, and that it might possibly be found upon a general settlement that the catholics might also have concessions to make. How absurd therefore would it be in their lordships thus immediately and hastily to make these concessions, and thereby limit the means and increase the difficulties of a final arrange, ment and settlement at a future opportunity? He thought that the Irish Roman catholics Lord Boringdon said, he had no scruple in giv-publicly and ordinarily calling themselves by ing it as his opinion that the existence and full titles and appellations which by the law of the security of the established church was in no land belonged to others was very offensive way involved in this measure, that whenever to the law. Perhaps, in any attempt to come it was adopted there could be no possible to an amicable settlement of existing dif, ground for thinking of repealing any part of ferences, they might agree to discontinue or the act of settlement, or, as had been men- moderate such practice; perhaps in such tioned, the 5th article of the act of union; an arrangement they would consent to have that he fully approved of the terms of the their bishops nominated by his majesty, a petition on the table; that he saw with sa- measure in his mind eminently calculated to tisfaction the reasonable and moderate prin- connect the catholic body with the govern ciples entertained by those on whose part it ment; and to give to each a common inte had been presented; and that he had no rest and a common feeling, and to remedy doubt that in due time and at a fit opportu- many existing evils. This, however, would nity their claims would have their proper be a concession on the part of the catholics, weight with all who valued the principles and one perhaps which they might not be of the British constitution, and who in con- disposed to make, if we should thus in the sequence wished that its blessings should be first instance have inconsiderately granted perpetuated and extended. He argued all that they require us to concede to them, that though vulgar outcry and popular cla- He doubted much whether the great body mour should never influence the conduct of of the Irish Roman catholics had really that house, yet it could not be maintained wished this question now to have been that their lordships, in their decisions, were brought on. Mr. M'Kenna, an Irish Roto be deaf or insensible to what they be- man catholic writer of much celebrity, lieved to be the general sentiment and opi- whose opinions could not but have much nion of the large body of the public. He be- weight with his brethren, unequivocally exlieved that that sentiment was at present de-pressed in a recent publication his wish that