To a repeal, then, of that fatal measure, they look for a relief from their present sufferings, and for a protection from those more dreadful evils by which they are menaced. Your constituents, therefore, Sir, feel justified in the hope, that when their petition is considered by their most Gracious Sovereign, his Majesty's parental affection will induce him to attend to their prayers. They also feel confident that when the representatives of Great Britain have the true causes of Irish grievances fairly and fully stated to them, they will sympathize with their fellow subjects, and feel this incontrovertible truth, that by whatever right the people of England enjoy a free and local legislature, by the same right the people of Ireland are justifiable in claiming a regeneration of their native Parliament, under the authority of which alone they can feel themselves safe, happy, or free. Your constituents are persuaded, that such a re-establishment of a national constitution, is the only means by which commerce can be revived, or that the cheerful contributions of the people to the payment of taxes, for the support of the honour and safety of the empire, can be permanently secured. GENTLEMEN, Signed by order, FREDERICK W. CONWAY, Sec. Mr. Grattan's Answer. I HAVE the honour to receive an Address presented by your committee, and expressive' of their wishes that I should present certain petitions, and support the repeal of an Act, entitled the Act of Union. And your committee adds, that it speaks with the authority of my constituents, the freemen and freeholders of the city of Dublin. I beg to assure your committee, and through them my much beloved and much respected constituents, that I shall accede to their proposition, I shall present their petitions, and support the repeal of the Act of Union, with a decided attachment to our connexion with Great Britain, and to that harmony between the two countries, without which the connexion cannot last. I do not impair either, as I apprehend, when I assure you that I shall support the repeal of the Act of Union. You will please to observe, that a proposition of that sort in Parliament, to be either prudent or possible, must wait until it shall be called for and backed by the nation. When proposed I shall then, as at all times I hope I shall, prove myself an Irishman, and that Irishman whose first and last passion was his native country. As to the personal approbation with which you have honoured me, it is, I must say, your kindness that overrates my pretension; but I have one pretension which neither age, nor time, nor distance can efface, an attachment to Ireland, unaltered and unalterable. I have the honour to be, with the greatest esteem, Your very humble Servant, HENRY GRATTAN, Dublin, 4th October, 1810. ROMAN CATHOLICS. Ar a Meeting of the General Committee of the Catholics of Ireland, held in Dublin, at 4, Capel-street, on 22d December, 1810. OWEN O'CONNOR, Esq. in the Chair. RESOLVED, That the Right Hon. HENRY GRATTAN, be respectfully requested to present our petition to the Commons House of Parliament the ensuing sessions. Resolved, That the cordial and grateful thanks of the Catholics of Ireland are eminently due, and hereby given, to the Right Hon. HENRY GRATTAN. Resolved, That our chairman be requested to communicate the above thanks to Mr. GRATTAN, in the most respectful manner. SIR, OWEN O'CONNOR, Chairman. To the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. Dublin, 24th December, 1810. I HAVE the honour to enclosing to you two Resolutions, which were agreed to at the last Meeting of the General Committee of the Catholics of Ireland. I am directed to request that you will have the goodness to communicate to me your determination on the subject of presenting the Catholic Petition to the House of Commons. I am also directed to add, Sir, that the Catholics of Ireland confide their claims, with a species of filial confidence, to the support of their long-tried-their best-their brightest advocate; and that they reckon on having their rights again distinguished and advanced by a display of that eloquence which has been, without deviation devoted to the interests of Ireland. They feel, Sir, that it is not in language to express the tribute of gratitude which your country owes you; or to describe those sentiments of respectful affection which the Catholics of Ireland entertain for you. Permit me to say, that it affords me personally great satisfaction to have this opportunity of assuring you, that I participate most warmly in the general feelings of respect and gratitude towards you. I have the honour to be, with great respect, Sir, To Owen O'Connor, Esq. Ballinagar, near Elphin. SIR, London, 1st January, 1811. I HAVE the favour of the Resolutions of the General Catholic Committee and your letter. I inclose my answer to the Resolutions. To your letter I dare say with great truth, that I feel very deeply the friendly expressions which it contains; expressions most valuable, when I con -320 EDUCATION OF THE IRISH POOR. [Appendix. sider that they are directed by the Catholics and approved of by you-happy to assure you that I shall go on in support of their interests to the best of my abilities. I beg to add, that in so doing, I do no more than pursue my duty and my inclination; my duty which orders me to try to restore to their privileges my countrymen and my equals my inclination which most powerfully coincides with that duty. I am with respect and esteem, Sir, Your most sincere and faithful humble Servant, HENRY GRATTAN. To the General Committee of the Catholics of Ireland. GENTLEMEN, London, 1st January, 1811. I HAVE received from the General Catholic Committee two Resolutions ; one wherein I am honoured with their thanks, and a second which honours me with the Catholic Petition; in answer to both I beg leave to say with warm acknowledgments, that I feel in their favourable opinion a most sincere satisfaction, and that I shall present the Petition with an everlasting attachment to their cause and to their interests. I have the honour to be, With the most sincere respect and regard, Gentlemen, LETTER from Mr. GRATTAN, to the Secretary of the Board of SIR, Education. Welbeck-street, 25th March, 1811. I HAD the honour to receive your letter, written by the commands of the Board of Education, expressing their desire that the absent members of that body should communicate by letter their plans on the subject of the education of the poorer orders of the people of Ireland. In obedience to the wishes of the Board I venture to submit, what I do not presume to call a plan, but instead of one, a few ideas founded on that plan which the legislature has already recommended. I would pursue the suggestion of the Act that established parish schools, with such alterations as must arise from the change of time, circumstances, and condition. According to that Act, I would recommend parish schools as bringing education to every man's door; but parish schools better endowed than the present, and on a more extensive, and by far a more comprehensive, foundation. And I would submit, as a proper subject matter of education in those schools, not only the study of the English tongue, reading, 1 writing, and arithmetic; but also the study of certain books of horticulture and agriculture, together with treatises on the care and knowledge of trees. I would recommend that such studies should be pursued in the English schools already established. I should recommend that in those parish schools the Christian religion should be taught; but that no particular description of it should form a part of their education-in the place thereof, it might perhaps not be improper to devise some general instructions regarding the four great duties of man, duty to God, duty to one another, duty to the country, and duty to the government. I beg to add, that one great object of national education shouldbe to unite the inhabitants of the island, and that such an event cannot be well accomplished, except they are taught to speak one common language. I think the diversity of language, and not the diversity of religion, constitutes a diversity of people. I should be very sorry that the Irish language should be forgotten; but glad that the English language should be generally understood: to obtain that end in Ireland, it is necessary that the schools formed on a plan of national education, which teach the English language, should not attempt to teach the English religion; because the Catholics who would resort to our schools to learn the one, will keep aloof if we attempt to make them proselytes to the other; and we should, by that attempt, reject one great means of uniting our people; and we shall continue to add to the imaginary political division, supposed to exist in a difference of religion, a real political division formed on the diversity of language. I have the honour to be, Your most faithful Servant, SIR, ROMAN CATHOLIC BOARD. THE Address of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. To the Right Hon. Henry Grattan. Dublin, 8th May, 1812. THE Catholic Board should have feebly discharged the duty they owe to the people, with whose confidence they have been honoured, if they had omitted the first opportunity which presented itself, of sending forth to the British empire, the warmest expressions of their thanks, for the late splendid and astonishing efforts of their powerful and revered advocate, in the cause of the Catholics of Ireland. Grateful is the task, Sir, to be the chosen medium of that feeling, which now throbs in every bosom, and swells in every heart. Grateful is the task to be the organ of that proud and dignifying Y sentiment, which triumphantly claims you, the unequalled champion of Irish rights - which now calls you the hope of the British empire, and holds you up to your countrymen, as ONE of those firm and unbending anchors by which that empire is to be steadied in the storm that blows round her. But, Sir, doubly grateful is the task, to generous minds, of remunerating an age of services, by the ardent and passionate homage of the heart, and of putting on the records of our history the thanks of a calumniated and injured people, to him who has devoted gigantic talents, and spotless integrity, to the vindication of their feelings, and the assertion of their rights. Rising in your efforts, with the difficulties of your country, you have called back our memories to that glowing period of our history, when every heart hung with rapture upon your words when every eye beamed at your name and every peasant in the land walked firm and erect, under the proud feeling your eloquence created. In the enthusiasm of the present moment, we imagine the regeneration of our freedom, and are almost seduced to believe, that the genius of Ireland has only extended the circle of her power from a kingdom to an empire. Such is the fascination of an eloquence, which at once delights, persuades, and instructs: which is unwearied in the vindication of the injured, and unconquerable in the cause of justice. In 1792, you told the Irish legislature, and the English secretary, that Catholic Emancipation would enrich the Protestant, and communicate strength and vigour to the empire. The Protestant property of Ireland has more than doubled by the Emancipating Bill of 1793-and the Catholic people of Ireland advanced in numbers, in prosperity, and in character. That country, which for six hundred years, was a burthen to the English minister, became an ex-fountain of supply- the unclogged industry of Ireland poured forth its offerings of gratitude, and repaid with a miser's profit, the blessings of her freedom. Such was the effect of that liberty, of which you were the great and eloquent parentsuch the effect of that policy, which you have laboured to preserve and extend. The union, it is true, has thrown down the noble edifice, which you had so gloriously erected and now the question remains to be decided, whether the wisdom of the Imperial Parliament will throw the freedom of the Catholic, into the scale, against the injuries of the union? But why ask the question? The last struggle — your commanding minority of two hundred and fifteen, has been the victory of reason, of eloquence, and of truth, standing at the head of the Protestant property of the Protestant rank-of the Protestant character of the British empire; you may securely proclaim the triumph of your favourite cause to an admiring world. Like Fox, your great and immortal predecessor, your last and greatest glory will be, the striking off the chains of intolerance from millions of your fellow creatures. The children of Ireland, yet unborn, will be taught to lisp the name of GRATTAN; and her gratitude, as lasting and as fruitful as her soil, will preserve the memory of that man, who, for fortyyears, pleaded her cause with an eloquence unequalled — a spirit undaunted-and a patience unconquered and unconquerable. |