But if it be otherwise, and if, as I hope and trust, our sons shall continue to be, as their' fathers and our' fathers have been, the staunch supporters and assertors of Protestant ascendancy, depend on it all efforts to shake that glorious cause will fail; and Penenden Heath will be again in future times, what it has so lately been, the scene of the triumph of the Protestant cause.

I beg leave to conclude by reminding you of the excellent advice of our noble lord-lieutenant, that whatever degree of irritation may have been excited by circumstances preceding or accompanying the meeting of yesterday, might be forgotten as soon as we left the Heath, and that the men of Kent would only remember each other as neighbors and friends. I sincerely trust it will be my happiness to meet every one of my brother freeholders, of whatever party, with whom society or business may bring me into intercourse, on those terms only, and I have the honor to be, Gentlemen,

With the sincerest respect,

Your faithful and obedient servant,

Foot's Cray Place,

Oct. 25, 1828.

BEXLEY.

SPEECH

OF

THE MARQUIS OF WESTMEATH,

DELIVERED AT MULLINGAR,

ON THE 29th OF OCTOBER, 1828.

LONDON:-1828.

ON an occasion like the present, which is no common one, I think it is incumbent on me, in as few words as I am able, to I should prefer being silent, being express my sentiments.

unused to public speaking; as indeed I should have preferred not to have attended, retirement being more suited to my disposition, if I were permitted to indulge in it, than to obtrude myself into public affairs-and especially in times like the present, when the best intentions may be misinterpreted. But when one's country is rent to the heart by dissension, and when that dissension may arrive at something worse, perhaps even a person who is unused to mixing himself in popular discussion ought to recollect he is a citizen, and that he should in such an extremity set forth to avow his opinions, while yet the voice of reason may not be wholly extinguished. The Union has left me no choice as to the manner in which this sort of call should be answered. The only opportunity which I have of meeting it in a befitting manner is, to appear here in the county of which I am a native, and to give my opinion as a Christian, a Protestant-and an Irishman, that the present state of disqualification in which the Roman Catholics are held, owing to their religious profession, produces a state of society which is perfectly intolerable, and if protracted, the miseries of it can only be appeased by a sort of crisis which no one who has an atom of consideration would not prefer, rather to make any experiment, than attempt to precipitate. This is the result of every man's experience who lives in Ireland, and who is not either blinded by ignorance or bloated by selfishness. To none of these then should parliament be so misled as to attend. If this meeting, or meetings like it, can influence the legislature, the voice of truth will not be wanting to warn and inform it. I am certain there are multitudes of the Protestant persuasion, like myself, in Ireland, who think the world is capacious enough for us all, and who are not desirous of seeing that system con

tinued, which has only served for centuries past to keep our common country in a state of suppressed civil war; and, for the little that is known of us on the continent, as a people, to render us insignificant and contemptible. I speak of course respecting the Irish nation as such; for, of individuals, even among the persecuted Catholics, who have been driven into the service of foreign countries, the splendor of the Irish character has always. been conspicuous. It is perfectly unaccountable to me that any favorite theory can mislead any resident of this country, so far as to persuade him of the bare possibility of the penal laws on the Roman Catholics remaining unrepealed. It seems, to my humble comprehension, that supposing such a system defensible on any Christian principle, it is utterly impossible to continue it. The Roman Catholics have increased immensely in wealth, and, as we well know, in numbers also, since 1793, when the elective franchise was extended to them, and that their wishes and their ambition should be commanded, under those circumstances, to stand still, and that they should, as a body, be content under the existing inconsistent absurdities, is an experiment which has been made, and has got its answer. I am treating the subject in the most phlegmatic manner. I should not know how to arouse the passions of this assembly, if I were to attempt it; and, indeed, I think the only useful way to treat this subject is as a Protestant. To put it to the sober senses of those of our persuasion, whether any country on earth can prosper while a part of its inhabitants assume, no matter for what end or under what pretence, that it is expedient to lord it over their fellow-subjects, who are increasing in every thing which can be said to constitute power in every civilised nation on the face of the earth-population and wealth. This brings me very much to the pith of the contest. We have recently seen set on foot, in the sister kingdom, a self-constituted society, called a Brunswick club, and great pains taken to promote a similar one in this kingdom. The state of the Catholic claims, or the means taken to advance them, is the excuse on which these societies were originated, and the question taken for granted of an existing necessity to justify them. That the protracted discussion, for years, in parliament on the Catholic claims, and the repeated refusals to concede them, should have produced irritation, when it is not penal to complain, is natural. It is not difficult to see that any degree of boldness used by the Roman Catholics, in speaking of their disqualification, would have been displeasing to the Brunswickers; because with a boldness which I should designate bravery, if its authors had experienced themselves what they seem so anxious to precipitate amongst us, they refer, in stubborn language, to 1688, as the golden period by VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII.

Pam.

U

which all future ages, while the British empire may subsist, must conform. No circumstance which the fluctuation of human affairs can produce is, in their minds, to vary the policy now, which was then expedient. Among the infinite and insensible revolutions which the state of society in Great Britain has since undergone, untraced by their sapient heads; but of the advantages of which they, nevertheless, must partake, may have been usefully buried, except the rule which in 1688, or at a period not long subsequent, consigned to the infernal penal code the destinies of a whole people.-Of a whole people, I repeat; for the Protestants were then but a handful, and they were hardly to be called or considered the natives of Ireland, as the pale had then but hardly burst its limits. The regulations of these Brunswick clubs remind me of nothing so much as a man who was made to appear in a farce as if he had arrived in London just when it was lighted first by gas, and after being almost for near a century complaining that that invention had broken in on the darkness which the citizens had a right to be permitted to enjoy as a prerogative of right. Complaining also that the fine River Thames had been choked up by the mass of stones thrown in, under the pretence of making bridges; and he was heart-broken to see that the streets were not resorted to the same comfortable, neighborly state, he said, they were in before the great fire in London, in 1666, when friends could shake hands out of the opposite windows, but that now people were perished by the currents of cold in the immense funnels miscalled streets. As well might the Brunswickers have issued their manifesto against inoculation or navigation by steam, as to persist in holding these kingdoms to a certain line of policy with respect to the Roman Catholics, on the reasoning they use, that such were the laws in 1688, or the reign of Queen Anne, and that such they must continue. I am not afraid that all this swaggering, and the fiery zeal by which it is at the moment kept alive, will dictate to parliament. Absurdity floats on the very surface of such ultimate violence; but besides that, the mode of fanning the flame has transpired in a police report in rather an amusing manner. Bills were in circulation in one place, where the people were especially asked if they were asleep? A happy way of proving the case against themselves, and that the apathy of the people required the holy Brunswicker crusaders to arouse them. I am not afraid that any man, however commanding his individual situation may be, can, on a great vital question like the present, give the tone to a nation instead of receiving it from the nation; and with respect to those persons who have in this country stood forward to be the leaders of the Brunswickers, it is not worth while to trouble ourselves about them. The English

people now know how this country has been for centuries ruled and treated; notwithstanding all the pains taken to conceal it, they know the truth, and the English people are too soundthinking to permit a continuance of injustice to be exercised towards this country as hitherto; nor are they disposed to pay for a large army, to pamper the privileged few who have bloated themselves on the fat of the land, since the Protestant ascendancy has been the stalking-horse of a faction. I am a Protestant, who will not yield in attachment to the doctrines of the Reformed Church with the best of them; but I can discriminate between what is plainly nothing more than the selfish interest of individuals, and the doctrines of that religion, which means nothing in our religion, if it does not mean that "we should do as we are done by." I do not mean to speak slightly of many of the Protestants who have followed the track of the Brunswickers in Ireland. The degree of re-action on the part of the Catholics, owing to their existing disqualifications, has been strongly marked, and, I do not doubt, has alarmed many a Protestant even for his own individual security; and it is on such fears that the Brunswickers have relied for their help and continuance in this distracted country. Who, or what are we to charge for this? Why, misgovernment. And that misgovernment is the same, whether it proceeds from the legislature or the executive. Ought it not to give the irreconcilable and unreasoning opponents of the Catholic claims some degree of diffidence on the subject, when it is recollected how many of the greatest statesmen England ever possessed have advocated concession on general grounds of policy -Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, Lord Grey, Lord Londonderry, Mr. Brougham, Mr. Grattan, Lord Plunkett, and many others. I confess it so operated on me, and was the first cause that brought me to change my opinion on the subject, by leading me from particulars to generals; and experience has since convinced me the experience of many years' residence in Ireland— that this country can never be sincerely united to Great Britain. unless the legislature shall leave all religious matters within it to find their own level. It is in this view I regard it as a Protestant question as much as a Catholic one-as a British question as much as an Irish one. I cannot conclude without urging the Roman Catholic body to remain in a constitutional attitude, seeking to attain their just rights. I am convinced no more is necessary. Remember we have a lord-lieutenant, who, I am convinced, is most sincerely desirous of seeing the administration of Ireland conducted with the strictest impartiality, and whom, on my soul, I am persuaded has never had an interested thought with respect to his public duty since he landed in this country. I would not