than the Catholic Association, Mr. Goulburn stated, that the bill passed in 1823 had, in some parts of Ireland, attained its object. In many districts, the societies which it was meant to suppress had not re-modelled themselves so as to elude the bill, but had altogether abstained from meeting. Those societies, which did re-model themselves, had substituted for their illegal oaths, the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; and a written certificate of such oaths having been sworn before a magistrate, was necessary to the admission of any member. Even those societies, however, he was anxious to suppress. Mr. Goulburn concluded by stating the objects of the proposed bill. These would be, to prevent the permanence of the sittings of any association, or the appointment of committees beyond a certain time, and also to put a stop to any levy of money for the purpose of redressing private or public grievances. It would further render illegal all societies which were affiliated; which corresponded with other societies; which excluded persons on the ground of any particular religious faith; or in which any oaths were taken other than those directed by law. There would of course be exceptions in favour of meetings on the subject of trade, agriculture, charity, and others of a similar description. The parties charged with belonging to any prohibited societies would be proceeded against by indictment alone; so that, in the event of any vexatious prosecution, the attorney-general might have an opportunity of interfering.

Mr. J. Smith was the first member who spoke against the motion; and he was followed on the same side by Mr Abercromby. The

reasoning of these gentlemen was at least very simple, if it was not very conclusive. "The Catholic Association has done nothing illegal: therefore no act ought to be passed to check its operations.All the evils of Ireland spring from the refusal of concession to the Catholics; the Association is the natural result of that refusal: the government of Ireland is bad in principle and practice, and consequently a body acting as a sort of antagonist to that government must be good." These propositions varied in phrase, constituted the speeches of Mr. Smith and Mr. Abercromby; but the latter gentleman diluted them more largely than the former with the usual common places on the condition of Ireland. "For years," said he, "the finger of scorn and contempt had been every where raised against his majesty's ministers, for their conduct towards Ireland; but they had been reviled in vain, and upon them the lesson of experience seemed to have been lost."

Sir Henry Parnell spoke on the same side, and entered more accurately into the question. He contended that Mr. Goulbourn had not given a fair account of the mode of collecting the rent. The course actually adopted was this. When the inhabitants of a parish wish to contribute to the rent, a meeting of the parish is summoned; at the meeting a chairman is appointed, frequently, though not always, the priest. Resolutions are proposed approving of the collecting of the rent, and a committee is appointed, with a secretary and a treasurer, to manage the collections: but in no case, out of some hundreds which he had read, had he ever found the priest appointed to act as treasurer.

In

point of fact, the priest has no more concern in the business than any other person, and either supports or opposes the plan, as he thinks proper. It ought to be observed however, that this statement of sir Henry Parnell, even if correct, does not contradict any one of the important points on which Mr. Goulburn had relied.

Sir Henry Parnell further insisted, that the purposes for which the Catholic rent was collected, were clear and defined. The As

sociation had itself stated them to be 1st, To forward petitions to parliament: 2nd, To procure legal redress for all such Catholics, assailed or injured by Orange violence, as were unable to obtain it for themselves: 3rd, To encourage and support a liberal and enlightened press, as well in Dublin as in London; a press that would readily report the arguments of our enemies, and expose the falsehood of the calumnies upon us and our religion: 4th, To procure for the various schools in the country cheap publications: 5th, To afford aid to Irish Catholics in America, to attain religious instruction : 6th, To afford aid to the English Catholics for the same object. A committee of twenty-one persons was to superintend and manage the expenditure of the subscription money; and no monies were to be expended without an express vote of the Association upon a notice regularly given. The honour able baronet gave also a detail of some instances, in which he conceived that the interference of the Association in judicial proceedings had been beneficial; and he ascribed the alarms which existed in Ireland at the end of last year, to the proceedings of the Bible and Hibernian school societies.

After a speech from Mr. Leslie Foster in support of the motion, and from Mr. John Williams against it, Mr. Secretary Peel rose. He first considered the Association as a body interfering with the administration of public justice. On this part of the argument he pressed the other side of the House very strongly with the opinions which their leading members had repeatedly and deliberately expressed in the discussions in a former session on the Constitutional Association. He further argued, that every Catholic, who had subscribed even one farthing to the Association, was disqualified from sitting as a juror on any prosecution which it might institute; for the very fact of his subscription was a proof of his unindifferency. Now the House had been told, that every peasant in Ireland was a member of the Catholic Association. If this were so, was not justice likely to be tainted in its administration, when nearly every person, who was qualified to sit upon a common jury, was disqualified by his own act? Did not such a system neutralize and render null the various benefits which parliament had recently conferred upon the Catholics of Ireland? Parliament had recently enabled them to act as jurors and grand jurors; and yet here was an act of their own body, which set them aside as jurors, if they had subscribed one farthing to the Catholic rent. Suppose that an offence, which involved a party question and excited party animosity, came on for trial; in what a situation would the court be placed? How could a panel be formed of parties perfectly indifferent? The objection was not merely to the evil in any particular case, but to the

taint which was thus cast upon the administration of justice. In addition to the instances given by Mr. Goulburn of the mischievous interference of the Association in the administration of justice, Mr. Peel mentioned, that at a meeting of the Catholic Association on the preceding Wednesday, a report was made on the case of John Cahill, and a magistrate, the rev. Allan Cavendish. Here, then, was a body with large funds at its disposal, which it expended in instituting an inquiry previous to trial, and which brought in its report declaratory of the party's guilt or innocence, before it even placed him upon his defence. In the present instance, the committee had even done more than make a report declaring the guilt of Mr. Cavendish; for the conclusion they had come to was-that a memorial should be presented to the lord-lieutenant on the subject of that gentleman's improper and illegal conduct. Nay, more; the gentleman who brought in the report actually moved, that the action in the case of Cahill should be defended at the expense of the Association, and that a petition should be presented to parliament praying that Mr. Cavendish might be removed, as being an unfit person to act a as magistrate. The Association, if its aim were justice, might at least have postponed the petition to parliament till after the conclusion of the judicial in quiry. But no-at the self same moment the association published the memorial which they presented to the lord-lieutenant, and sent the magistrate to trial, not only with the disadvantage of a previous condemnation, but also with the disadvantage of having it known that a petition was to be presented

to parliament against him. He (Mr. Peel) had no means of knowing any thing of the merits of this transaction except from a letter of the earl of Donoughmore on the subject, which a gentleman had read to the Association. In that letter lord Donoughmore declared, that, as governor of the county, he had examined into the charges made against Mr. Cavendish, and had found them groundless; that he had transmitted fourteen folio pages of depositions, which he had taken during the examination, to the lord chancellor, who had not only acquitted Mr. Cavendish of the charges adduced against him, but had applauded his conduct on the very grounds intended to criminate him; and that he considered the further persecution of that gentleman to be an act of oppression on the part of the Association. Now, when such was the opinion of a nobleman who had always been friendly to the Catholics, was it possible that the gentlemen of Ireland would undertake the duties of the magistracy, if they were to be liable to such attacks in the performance of them?

Mr. Peel proceeded in the second place to examine the political nature of this Association. Here was a body, which had now been in existence for more than a year, under the pretence of preparing a Catholic petition to parliament. That body imitated, or, rather travestied, all the proceedings of that House-a matter of little importance in itself, but which, combined with others, assumed a certain degree of consequence. It separated in summer as the House of Commons did. It met again in the month of October, and it had been sitting ever since. It possessed also a complete organization throughout the

country; an organization, which, if it was not for the purposes of mischief, at least was calculated to excite suspicion. The spirit of our constitution was founded upon suspicion; and he had a right to assume that this body, though it might not intend evil at present, might be turned to it at some future period. They had their agent in every parish, and their correspondent in every town. Their intentions might be good, but with such machinery, how easily might they be converted into a political engine of the greatest mischief? Was it not a fit subject of jealousy, when it was found that they had instituted committees of finance, of grievances, and of education? The assumption of such powers was inconsistent with public liberty, and ought therefore to be put down without delay. The House was accustomed to admire the popular part of our constitution; and justly, for the checks by which it was guarded were extremely wise. It held its deliberations under the will of the Crown, which could suspend them at any moment. No such check existed upon the Catholic Association; which held its meetings in no definite place, and was free from all control as to their time or duration. The House never instituted a criminal prosecution without great precaution, and always with the consent of the Crown, to which it previously sent an address. The House, too, always guarded against bearing down an individual by its weight but no such scruple existed in the members of the Catholic Association; it was under no control as to the prosecutions it instituted, and even went deliberately to create prejudices against the accused, by distribut

ing ex-parte statements of the evidence to be produced against him. In that House they were not accustomed to vote away money to individuals, without a committee being appointed to examine into his claims to remuneration. The Catholic Association, on the contrary, voted away money at will, without any restrictions, and thus arrogated to itself powers which were possessed by no other body in the country. What would be the consequence of establishing the principles on which it was founded?-the establishment in all directions of counter-associations by individuals for their own protection. The country would, in consequence, be filled with dismay, confusion, and anarchy; for if parliament would not provide protection for individuals, they would very soon provide it for themselves. Therefore, with reference both to the political mischief and to the corruption in the administration of justice which this Association was calculated to create, the House was bound to apply the remedy which had that evening been proposed.

Mr. Denman contended that there was no analogy between the present case, and that of the Constitutional Association. Was it, he asked, the object of the members of the Constitutional Association to repel attacks made on themselves-to complain of the unequal administration of justice to their own members? On the contrary, they acted as if the attorney-general was either blind, or negligent of, or inadequate to his duty; and instituted a series of jobs, which they called prosecutions, against individuals for offences, for which the accused, if guilty, ought to have been attacked by the attorneygeneral with ex-ofiicio informations.

The Catholic Association, on the contrary, subscribed only to proseeute those who had injured Catholics, and to repel aggressions under which, he trusted, no class of the king's subjects ought ever to rest quiet. They were aggrieved by degrading laws and unjust exclusions, and in consequence were treated, by the magistracy of Ireland, with a degree of partiality hardly credible in this country. They had therefore subscribed to repel injury and to organize a system of mutual defence. The Constitutional Association existed for no such purpose; for it prosecuted state offences, and was always engaged in attack, never in defence. The Catholic Association had never prosecuted any offences which were in their nature strictly political. They had indeed instituted proceedings against the "Courier," for a paragraph alleged to be libellous on the Catholic College of Maynooth: but a libel on the College of Maynooth, which afforded instructors to all the Catholic body, was in fact a libel upon themselves. The conduct of the Catholic Association, therefore, was in no respect similar to that of the Constitutional Association. Mr. Denman, after touching upon various collateral topics, concluded with a vehement invective against the Court of Chancery and the lord chancellor.

The debate was then adjourned to the following day.

In the second night's debate, Mr. Pelham, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Maberly jun., colonel Davis, Mr. Dominic Browne, Mr. R. Martin, Mr. Warre, and Mr. Calcraft, against the motion, and sir N. Colthurst, Mr. Dogherty, Mr. W. Williams, and Mr. C. W. Wynne,

in support of it, went over the common topics. After these gentlemen had spoken, Mr. Plunkett rose. The Catholic Association, he observed, proceeded on a plan. different from the other numerous defiances of the law which had existed in Ireland. A number of gentlemen had formed themselves into a club, not merely for the purpose of forwarding the Roman Catholic question, but "for the redress of all grievances, local or general, affecting the people of Ireland." They undertook the great question of parliamentary reform-the repeal of the Unionthe regulation of church-propertythe administration of justice-the visitation of every court, from that of the highest authority, down to the court of conscience. He did not deny, that if a set of gentlemen thought fit to unite for those purposes, it was in their power to do so; but then came the question as to the means which they employed; and those means he denied to be constitutional. They had associated with them the Catholic clergy— the Catholic nobility-many of the Catholic gentry, and all the surviving delegates of 1791. They had established committees in every district, who kept up an extensive correspondence throughout the country; and, though consisting originally of a few members, they had now increased to 3,000. They held permanent sittings, where they entered upon the discussion of every question connected with the peace and tranquillity of Ireland. Not satisfied with this, they proceeded to establish a Roman Catholic Rent; and in every single parish of the two thousand five hundred parishes into which Ireland is divided, they established twelve Roman Catholic collectors, who