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and now exploded enactments, the "code of pains and penalties." The pains and penalty statutes were the "good laws." What was become of them? To the honour of England, they were every one repealed. And yet, was it possible to imagine a greater measure of absurdity? We retained and cherished the restriction which was set up to support those laws, 30 years after all trace of the laws themselves had disappeared. Why, then, if this fact, and the general conviction that nothing like the second moving cause to the statute of Charles II. (the danger or terror of the popish plots) now existed-if this left the advocates of the existing tests to rely upon what had been declared at the time of the revolution, then he (Mr. Twiss) maintained that those hon. gentlemen mistook that for a measure of principle which was a measure of expediency; for the real object looked to, in what was done at the revolution, had been to secure, by all possible means, the then precarious sovereignty of the Prince and Princess of Orange. He repeated, that the house must not take that to have been admitted as principle, which had merely been endured to serve a temporary necessity. The true principle of the constitution, to which we were bound to revert the moment that temporary necessity ceased, was, that every subject was entitled, not merely to toleration and to security, but to every possible degree of right and liberty to which the state could admit him without danger. Besides, the mere course of population-the mere change of numbers-would alone alter the fair

view of a subject at any time. That course might have been reasonable and tolerable in the reign of King William, when the catholics of Ireland were 1,000,000, and the protestants 700,000, which could never be borne in a state of things like the present, when the catholics to the protestants were in the proportion of more than five to one. He took the case to stand exactly thus-All the original causes for enacting the present restrictions had ceased to exist; and the vindicators of those laws stood just in the same position as though they had expired, and they were demanding to re-enact them. What had the hon. gentleman to say in favour of such a course— what dangers had England now to apprehend? Why, did not every man feel, now, that cruelty, and bigotry, and tyranny, and intolerance, had belonged to ages, and to individuals, rather than to systems? If Mary had burned protestants, and Cranmer tortured catholics; and if Henry the Eighth had plundered either side, and tyrannized over both, did any hon. member believe that such courses could be repeated, or were likely again to be attempted, in the present day? hon. gentlemen who objected to the present time for passing the proposed bill, lest it might be apprehended that the house was alarmed into concession by the measures of such societies as the Catholic Association, was it not giving to such associations more weight than they were entitled to, to suppose that the house of commons could be influenced by such a feeling? Let the house be sure that it was better for England to make the concession now, than to

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make it when she must make it whenever next a war broke out. She would make it then, and properly, far better then than never; but certainly she would go nearer to be suspected of apprehension then than she could possibly do at present. The hon. gentleman sat down by contending, that at all events the Catholic Association was now at an end; and that as it had been fit to put a period to the exaggeration of Irish grievances, so the house could scarcely do better than now to put a period to the grievances themselves. Ireland was now enjoying a degree of tranquillity to which, for years past, she had been a stranger; and, so far from seeing any thing objectionable in the present time to passing the measure of emancipation, he doubted if we should easily again meet with an opportunity so fortunate.

Mr. Hart Davis contended, that the constitution of England being essentially protestant, no concession of power should be made to the Roman-catholics beyond that which they possessed at the present moment. He was the less disposed to consent to any further concession, because he had no guarantee that the catholics would be more satisfied with those now proposed, than they were with what they had already obtained. Was it, he would ask, decent or just to the sovereign of the country, that he must be protestant, while at the same time he might be surrounded by catholic counsellors? He, for one, was not disposed to trust the catholics. He had no confidence in the professors of that religion; for he believed, that if they got what they now sought, they would strive

to become equal in the state to the protestants, and when they obtained that, they would strive for the superiority. With those impressions on his mind, he should give his vote against the bill.

Mr. C. Grant thought the proper mode of looking at the bill was to consider what the state of Ireland would be without it; he contended that in the event of a war the relief must be granted, and that it had better be granted now.

The Solicitor General contrasted the extemporaneous evidence of Dr. Doyle with the deliberate writings of that individual, under the signature of J. K. L., and stated, that with all the respect that he felt for a catholic bishop, he could not believe him as a witness, when he heard him uttering sentiments directly in the teeth of all that he had written. The three measures of catholic emancipation, of the elective franchise bill, and of the proposed establishment for the catholic clergy, were so blended together, that he could not oppose the first without saying a few words in condemnation of the other measure. With regard to the elective franchise bill, he would declare that it was one of the most unconstitutional measures he had ever heard of. The defenders of it said that it was made an adjunct to the catholic relief bill, in order to conciliate Ireland. Good God! to conciliate Ireland! Was the admission of Lord Fingall and Mr. O'Connell to parliament-was the emancipation of the patrician and equestrian orders of Ireland from the disabilities under which they laboured, calculated to reconcile the general mass of its population to the loss of one of its best

and

and dearest privileges? In his apprehension a more unconstitutional measure had never been at tempted since the grand forfeiture of the charters before the revolution. No borough had ever yet been disfranchised without due investigation of the charges brought against it, and without a considerable mass of evidence being taken upon oath to substantiate them; and yet the house was now precipitately going to disfranchise half the voters of Ireland upon evidence of the most conflicting and unsatisfactory nature, without having got any two individuals whom it had examined to agree as to the qualification which the freeholders of Ireland were hereafter to possess. Having said thus much on the elective franchise bill, he would now proceed to the resolution relative to the proposed remuneration of the catholic clergy. By that resolution they had determined to establish a papal church, armed with all the jurisdiction belonging to papacy. He thought that the house could not be aware how large, how extensive, how perfectly intolerable that jurisdiction was. Were hon. gentlemen aware that the rite of baptism, the rite of marriage, the rite of sacrament, the rite of entering the church, that of confirmation, that of receiving charity, and that of burial, were all spiritual rites which could be withheld or not, according to the will of the clergy? Supposing them to be withheld, what relief could the Irish catholic receive? If the house gave the title of bishops to any of the catholic clergy, along with the title, they must give them all the spiritual jurisdiction of their church; and if they did give them such

jurisdiction, how could they provide against the abuse of it? He threw these points out to the consideration of the house, and trusted that they would not be without their due weight in this discussion. Connected with this subject was the form of oath to be taken by the catholic bishops of Ireland. Why did these bishops refuse to take the same oath as was taken by the catholic bishops of Spain? The bishops of that country admitted the supremacy of the sovereign in the oath which they took on their investure; for in their bath was this clause, “salvis regalibus et usitatis consuetudinibus et totâ subjectione domini Ferdinandi." Why could not the bishops of Ireland swear with a similar salvo? He complained that there had been a considerable doctoring with the oath to be taken by these prelates. It was different in the bill of 1816, in the bill of 1821, and again in the present bill. could not say that the present form of it was auctior than it had previously been, because it was shorter; nor emendatior, because it was less correct. The honourable and learned gentleman went on to describe the jealousy with which the policy of the French government watched the conduct and correspondence of a nuncio resident within their territory, and the regulations by which they secured to the chief officers of government the inspection of his communications from and to Rome, as well after his departure as during his stay. Such was the caution used in a catholic state in admitting any emissaries or delegates from that dangerous power- a state, too, which took care previously to secure itself as much as possible by

He

retaining

retaining for the crown of France, against all the papal pretensions, the right of nominating its own bishops. There was no catholic state in Europe-not even Spain, where the abominable tribunal of the inquisition prevailed-that did not show something of a corresponding jealousy, in its regulations of the intercourse between the clergy and the see of Romethat did not compel, by some means, a recognition of the right of the government to keep the ecclesiastics in submission and subjection to the secular power. The term securities, though a word of mere cant as now used, was ridiculous in its application to the present rude and vague law. What security could there be in a commission of popish bishops, empowered to inspect all communications from Rome, and report thereon to the privy council? What security would there be for abuses in the treasury, if, instead of those continual checks put upon the financial administration by the house and its members, the chancellor of the exchequer could prevail upon parliament to appoint instead, a commission to inspect the affairs of the treasury, composed of four lords of the treasury? Would not the constituents of the hon. baronet twit him with the fallacy, if he were to propose no better securities for the administration of the money of the na tion? Yet such was his provision for the protection of the national religion. He would not reason gravely upon such securities. A great man would be ashamed to throw away the powder and shot of a good argument upon so wretched a position. These were not the penalties provided by Mr. Grattan,

illustrious alike for his enlightened views and his patriotism, in his bill; nor by his hon. and learned friend the attorney-general for Ireland, in the bill which he brought in. Those bills did carry the principle, that the state must have the opportunity of viewing all documents coming from that quarter, and the power of inspection was given to the great officers of state accordingly; but it was said that the catholic religion prohibited the exposure of those sacred documents to the unhallowed eyes of laymen. Not so, thought the French government, which from Henry IV. down to this time, had always secured for the lay-officers of state that power of inspection. He compared the adjuncts of the bill to wings, by which it had promised as if for once it certainly would make an Icarian flight. And yet, for all its wings, he could not help thinking that down it must come. was said that circumstances were so altered, that popery was no longer dangerous, and still less obnoxious that the atrocities charged against it were taken from the iron ages of superstition and violence. They were, therefore, to look at its present state, green and fresh as it appeared. He proved by the petitions presented, 253 against and 54 for, that what ever sophistry might have been used on the particular occasions of presenting them, to show that the sense of the country was in favour of the bill, the opposite was the fact. As to the wings of the bill, the moral one for the disfranchisement of the freeholders must fail; and as a constitutional lawyer, "so help him God" he must, upon conscience and convic

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tion, oppose it to the utmost. The ecclesiastical adjunct of the bill for paying the clergy, was, if possible, more objectionable. Parliament never could vote money for the purpose of bending down six millions of people in a degrading and dishonourable slavery to a spiritual thraldom, which assumed the power of excommunication and eternal perdition, if its victims were only to venture to read the word of God, or to offer up their prayers to him without leave first obtained of a priest. He concluded by moving an amendment, "that the bill be read a third time this day six months."

Mr. Huskisson next spoke in favor of the bill, and Mr. Peel against it: he was followed by Mr. Brougham; after which the house divided, and the bill was carried by 248 against 227.

House of Commons, May 16. The West India company bill was read a third time and passed by 103 against 25.

Mr. Canning laid upon the table the copy of a treaty between Great Britain and the king of Sweden and Norway, for the prevention of illicit dealing in African slaves, The right hon. gentleman said, that Sweden herself was not at all suspected of being engaged in this nefarious traffic, but that, unfortunately, it was believed her flag had been made use of to cover the cargoes belonging to other nations. The object of his Majesty's government was, of course, to extend the power of searching for slaves in suspected vessels as far as possible; and this request on the part of Sweden had been acceded to. He was sorry that another treaty to the same effect, which had been alluded to in the royal speech--a

treaty with the United States of America-had not yet been accomplished.

Mr. Canning laid upon the table a copy of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, between the kingdom of Great Britain and the united provinces of the Rio de la Plata.

Sir Robert Wilson said, that he looked upon this treaty as only the first of a series which were to be formed between this country and the States of South America generally. The document was a glorious avowal, and one which he trusted would be long remembered, of the homage done by the greatest and purest country in the old world to the progress of civilization in the new. It was to the immortal honour of the powerful and rising people with whom we were now connecting ourselves, that, in casting off a yoke which degraded and enslaved them, they had sullied their triumph by no act of cruelty, or even of revenge. He could not but believe, that the policy which had been pursued by England would be as profitable to her as it was now creditable; and the right hon. gentleman opposite, who had laid the papers on the table, had his (Sir R. Wilson's) warmest thanks for the part he had taken in it.

The judges' salaries bill went through a committee. The cotton mills bill for restricting the labour of children, was read a second time.

House of Lords, May 17.The Earl of Liverpool laid upon the table the copy of a convention between Great Britain and Russia respecting the right to certain territory on the north-west coast of America; the copy of a treaty

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