just driven from the throne for principles of arbitrary power, and governed, too, as it happened, by the principles of that religion, which first incurred the antipathy of the English, from their viewing it as a means by which arbitrary power was to be supported; and yet, under those circumstances, a freer policy and more liberal had been hazarded than that we now proceeded on. For, with respect to the connexion of catholicism with arbitrary rule, the important operation of that faith deserved to be adverted to. In all times there had been a distinction between the spiritual and the temporal quarrel -between the catholic of religion, and the catholic of the state. The former had always been safe: it was the last who had been crushed and persecuted-- suspected of correspondence with the see of Rome, the exiled family, and the enemies of the new government. With a new government, therefore, at home, a popish pretender, supported by foreign powers, abroad; it was not wonderful that the people of England had looked with jealousy on a faith which they thought naturally connected with principles of tyranny and slavery. But after William III. had made good his footing in this country, and after James had been expelled from it, and sought protection from his subjects in Ireland-after by his weakness and pusillanimity, he had disgusted even these last who adhered to him; and William had, in the meantime won some admiration among them by displaying qualities of a contrary characterthen, while the countries were still divided, and Louis XIV. of France was supporting the pretender, the king of England, to win and pa

cify Ireland, had sent over an offer of any terms,-for his proposal had actually been unlimited,what had been the conduct of the catholics of Ireland? They had entered into a treaty, which provided only for their liberty of conscience-that was, the free exercise of their religion: with all those advantages to be possessed by them which were enjoyed by others, the king of England's subjects in general. Now the Irish, previous to this arrangement, had not stood in the condition of insurgents: at that time England and Ireland were not united. James was king of Ireland when he went over to that country; Ireland, in defending him, only fought the battle of her lawful sovereign. In fact, the English were rather the rebels; they were justified in what they did, because the interest of their country was at stake; but still, in fighting several battles for James, which they did with great devotion and courage, the Irish had only taken up arms in defence of the constituted king. Then, afterwards, when king William was desirous, by almost any treaty, to put an end to that dangerous war, they had submitted, on their liberty of conscience and participation in civil rights being granted to them. They had done this, even at the moment when a French fleet was entering the mouth of the Shannon; they had put it out of their own power again to be dangerous to England, by delivering up their arms. It was a curi ous fact, that at that time, the Irish catholics had not been compelled to take the oath of supremacy; and, notwithstanding that there were persons who thought the terms granted to them too

good,

good, parliament had never been prevailed upon to reconsider the subject; the treaty of Limerick had been fully completed; Ireland had been restored to peace and tranquillity; and William, relieved from apprehensions at home, had been enabled to bend all his force against his opponent Louis XIV. Now, of all the infringements which had since been made upon the treaty of Limerick, not one could be held to have been taken as a security. In the hour of danger, these new guarantees had never been found wanting; it was in the hour of triumph and security that an angry faction had lost sight of justice and sound policy. Infractions of the covenant had then followed, by degrees, one after the other; each constituting some infraction of the most atrocious character upon all honour and good faith; and the whole ending, by imposing upon Ireland a tyranny the most sanguinary, and a yoke the most oppressive, to which any nation had ever been subjected. Now, unjust as that course of policy had been, it was now quite unwise as well as wicked. The effect of it had been immediately to bend the people of Ireland to the earth; if persisted in, it would soon have left England without any thing to dread in the way of disturbance from her neighbour. If followed up, it would probably have rooted out the Irish, as a people, in the end; and though wicked tyrannous — murderous -there would have been something, perhaps, like common sense and meaning in it. But in better times, the establishments of later days had deemed such a course too inhuman to be persevered in. By degrees those severities had

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been relaxed; and he advised the catholics of Ireland never to forget, that year after year they had been receiving benefits from this country-benefits to which, no doubt, they were entitled; but which they, nevertheless, would do better to keep in mind than the injuries they had suffered. Let the Irish catholics bear in mind those benefits which they had received; let them carry their views but a little farther forward, and they would see how certainly, how necessarily, what yet remained to be done for them, must, sooner or later, be accomplished. He desired to talk to the catholics of Ireland of the abated rancour of those who had been their most determined opponents. He desired to impress upon them the absolute certainty of their final success, provided they would only so far keep a restraint upon themselves as to make the best use of all the advantages held out to them. They advocated claims which were borne out by reason, by humanity, and by the soundest principles of rational policy. If they would but exert themselves to forget old injuries-injuries which bade fair now to cease for ever-if they would only use common forbearance, and prudence, and discretion, it was impossible but that those claims must be successful. With only reasonable care-he repeated this-their cause, both out of doors, and in parliament, must triumph; because, they might rely on it, unless the peace of this country was disturbed, the feelings of the enlightened part of it were making rapid progress in their favour. He, therefore, by no means considered himself at the present

moment

moment as the advocate peculiarly of the people of Ireland; still less as the especial supporter of the Roman-catholic religion. He was no advocate of the Romancatholic faith; neither was he any opponent of it: nor did he oppose any of the different schemes of faith which different men, with different minds, had hit upon. In his view all religions were equally right, which the persons professing them followed with sincerity of heart, and which were founded upon principles of virtue and morality. Now that the catholic faith was so founded, and so followed, abundant proof, in the way of example, could be given. At the same time, for himself, he had no hesitation in saying, that, having been bred up in the religion of the Church of England, that alone, in his mind, would be a good reason to give for his preferring it. Farther, he certainly, upon reflection, did think, that if he had to choose his religion again, the Church of England was, of all others, the faith he would rather adopt. When he said this, he by no means meant to assert that objections might not be taken to parts of that system: many points in it, no doubt, might be altered and modified with great advantage; but his opinion applied to the system as a whole: and with respect to the clergy of the Church of England, take away only the ecclesiastical corporations, which, like all other corporations, showed generally a narrow-minded, intolerant disposition, and for the clergy of the Church of England he had no hesitation in declaring, as far as his judgment went--and though he might be partial, he believed he was not

so-a more enlightened, liberal body of men did not do honour to this or any other country. If, however, he was a disciple of the Church of England, his first care should be, not to forget one of her purest precepts-to do unto others as he would wish others to do unto him. The constitution of England held, that all men capable of bearing equal burdens, were, in a free state of society, entitled to the possession of equal rights. Upon those two grand axioms he fortified himself; and upon their authority he declared the present to be so little a catholic question, that, in fact, the catholics now stood upon protestant arguments, and maintained their claims upon the principles which assured the security of England. It was singular enough, the sort of change which had taken place in the views and situations of parties. Those who had formerly rejected catholicism for the alleged illiberality of its doctrines, were now acting upon the very principles which they had opposed, and refusing to proceed in conformity with their own; while the catholics were asking for nothing more than the protestants themselves had first desired-the right and the power of complete religious freedom. Now, certainly, when he remembered what danger had been encountered in the earlier periods of our history, and when he heard hon. gentlemen professing apprehensions with respect to the present question, he could not but imagine that there was some incongruity in the existence of such a feeling. What the perils apprehended were, he had never been able entirely to discover, but this was not perhaps very extraordi

nary;

nary; persons were often alarmed without knowing very well what at. The very name of catholicism seemed to raise in the minds of some persons ideas of danger which came from extraordinary quarters-images, half historical, half romantic, which had been impressed in youth upon the mind, and which had no more to do with the present state of the Romancatholic religion, or with the state of this world at all, than they had with that of the next. It had been said by a favourite poet-

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

Now, no doubt in this case ignorance must be bliss, compared to having the mind occupied with a mass of antiquated tales and prejudices, exaggerated greatly, perhaps, as to the times in which the statements had been made, and which had no longer any existence, or chance of future existence, whatever. A curious example of this failing was to be found in the fears entertained of the power of the Pope. A gentleman had said to him (Sir Francis Burdett) the other day, that he, (the hon. baronet's interlocutor) was greatly alarmed at the Pope. Now, it was a little extraordinary that the ministers of government, or at least that portion of them who were most hostile to the catholic claims on the ground of this apprehension of the Pope-it was rather singular that they should be the very persons who had expended the blood and treasure of this country to replace the Pope, with great difficulty, in that very place in which they now thought fit to be afraid of him. Surely it was a little unreasonable for the right hon. gentlemen first

to raise this phantom, and then go out of their wits with terror at it. If there existed now, as had been the case on a former day, a league of foreign catholic princes abroad, caballing with a catholic king of England at home, to subvert the liberties through the religion of the country-if there existed any danger at the present day of this description, then, perhaps, there might be some ground for apprehension; but if any danger like this did exist, he (Sir Francis Burdett) should say that ministers ought to be impeached for having created it. They themselves were the authors of the existing continental system. They had caused English soldiers to mount guard at the Vatican, to protect this dignitary, who was now the cause of their alarm. What imbecility was all this-what a premunire had these hon. gentlemen drawn themselves into, if, at this time of day, we were to be told that there was so much danger in the papal power, that to avoid that peril, we had no other choice but to keep six millions of our subjects in discontent and disability? The peril from the Pope was so imminent, that it was better to meet the hostility of six millions of people in Ireland than to face it! Why, this was a pleasant situation! We had agreed to the destruction of all the secondary powers of Europe. We had given up all those minor states which England had been accustomed wisely to support, and, up to a certain point, always to rely on. Every thing like the balance of power was gone; we had distributed Europe out among two or three great powers, who might at any moment take offence at our conduct, and were not unlikely to

do

do so, if we refused to keep pace with the measures of their unholy alliance. It was avowed that one of these potentates was galled already at our having consulted our own interest by recognizing the independence of South America. We had obliged another so far, as to allow him to lay hands on Spain -to continue military occupation of that country, which at no former period England would have suffered for a moment. We were surrounded by these holy allies, whose strength we had created or upheld with the loss of our blood and of our money, and at the expense of the liberties of Europe. These powers were, every one of them, objects of alarm to us rather than security; and yet we still refused to secure that best of all alliances-the firm adherence of our own subjects, by keeping six millions of men close to our own shores in a state of constant hostility against our government. That very neglect of Ireland-or contempt of her, for it was worse than neglect-made an opening for the first of our holy allies who should find it convenient to do so, to invade us. Instead of Ireland being a barrier which our foes would be unable to pass, she would become the readiest point of all others through which they would be enabled to wound us.

If ever

England was destined to sink, Ireland was the sea in which she would be swamped.-Ireland was worthy of English alliance. Our holy friends, in the hour of danger, we should call upon them in vain; and yet we obstinately refused to make the best of leagues with six millions of the brave inhabitants of the sister kingdom. Could any man repress his astonishment could he account, on any principle

short of miracle, for the factswhen he reflected on the hairbreadth escapes which England had got out of with respect to Ireland during the late war? That fleet which arrived in Bantry Bay; had it not so happened that the commander-in-chief had been separated from his force; had it happened that the second in command had possessed enterprise enough to land; let either of those events have fallen out; and Ireland was gone, and the sun of England would have set in eternal night. The failure of that attempt on Ireland could only be attributed to the extreme ignorance of the enemy as to the temper and position of that country. They had not known how to take advantage of the opportunity which was offered to them. But we must not presume upon this good fortune again; the ignorance which had saved us existed no longer. The powers of the continent had held intercourse with us: they had been too much upon our territories. He (Sir Francis Burdett) said distinctly-their eyes were directed towards Ireland. They were reproaching us from time to time with our conduct to that unhappy country. Several of their court journals seemed to take a most tender interest, a most sensitive interest, lately in her concerns. A variety of parties with whom we should not always be friendly, had become most seriously desirous to promote the welfare of Ireland. lectured us upon this subject; laughed at our exertions about slaves and negroes; and protested that there was not, in all the world, a tyranny so odious as that which we exercised upon our Irish catholic subjects, nor any

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