pursued have indeed been a contrast a separate assembly, but are merged in to the dark and bigoted system of his the general parliament of the empire; predecessors. Under his auspicious and the same prudential considerations rule a system of progressive ameliora- which forbade the admission of Cathotion has been introduced, by measures lics into the Irish parliament, where which were the more effectual because they would have formed a dangerous they were gradual, which have by de- majority, recommend their entrance grees reversed the whole former system. into the British, where they can never You have given them full toleration, exceed a small minority. It cannot be and the benefits of education; taken denied that the Catholics of Ireland away those odious measures which pro- conceived great hopes, that by the duced the disunion of families; restor- operation of the Union they would be ed the industry of the country, by relieved of their disabilities. No authogranting to the people a participation rised assurance was ever given, no in the fruits of the soil, and allowed promise was made to them, that such a them a full share of its benefits, with- measure would result from that step: holding from them only the exercise of but still, by the arguments of those who the elective franchise. By these means supported it, and the course of reasonthe people have rapidly advanced in ing both within and without doors, wealth, agriculture, commerce, and hopes were given that the subject of general civilisation: the magnanimity Catholic emancipation would be more of Great Britain acknowledged the right favourably considered than it had of an independent government, and at hitherto been; and those who prolength, in 1792, they were admitted, moted the measure undoubtedly gave by being permitted to vote at elections the Catholics to understand, that their for members of parliament, to a full claims would meet with the most imparticipation of all the privileges of partial consideration from the united British subjects, excepting those for parliament. It is this pledge which which the present petition prays. Here, you are now called upon to redeem : therefore, was a system of gradual re- you are required not to concede Catholaxation introduced; and here, for a lic emancipation, but to go into a comtime, a stand was made: not because mittee to consider whether their dereasons existed which rendered it mands can with safety be granted. doubtful whether any further concessions should ever be made, but because there were many considerations which made it appear desirable that the last relaxations should not be made in the Irish parliament. That parliament had not arisen, like the British, from the wants and necessities of many centuries, but it was constituted at once, with the defined object of making the legislature a Protestant one, to the exclusion of three-fourths of the population. In these circumstances it was more than doubtful whether the sudden admission of Catholics into that legislature, founded as it would have been on a constituency embracing a great majority of persons of that persuasion, might not have endangered the Protestant interests of Ireland, and possibly its connection with this country. 19. "Every government unquestionably has the power to impose restrictions and disabilities upon a particular and suspected class of its subjects: but it must ever be a question of expedience whether such power should be exercised or not. What valid objections can be now urged against the removal of religious disabilities? We are not now to go back, in the nineteenth century, to a disquisition on the justice as well as expedience of the great principles of toleration. They are universally admitted: it lies with the opponents of emancipation to make out the exception of their case from the general rule. We are told that it is impossible for a Roman Catholic to be a loyal subject, and great pains have been taken to inculcate this doctrine. If true, this principle would lead to this result, that 18. "But that obstacle is now remov- you must undo all that you have done; ed; the Irish members no longer form | recall every concession you have made, 130p.1860 and begin a crusade to drive the Catho- or indeed fifty or sixty Catholics do to accomplish such an object, in the midst lics out of Ireland. But does history 20. The period has now arrived when one of two things must be done with respect to Ireland. Either you must go back and restore the degrading and exclusive system of Queen Anne, or you must go on and conciliate the Catholics, by admitting them to a full participation in the blessings of the British constitution. No middle course is practicable. They have already received too much to be coerced by force; too little to be won by affection. They have got everything, excepting the right to seats in parliament and eligibility to the higher offices in the army, the navy, and the law. It is in vain to say that such exclusion is not an injury. To many it is a most substantial disadvantage, because it deprives them of the just reward for their talents and exertions to all it is a galling bar, a badge of servitude; and he knows little of human nature who is not aware that such vexatious restraints, though accompanied with little real hardship, are frequently productive of more violent heartburnings than serious personal injuries. If they came into this house, do you really believe they would attempt to overturn the hierarchy of the country? What could five or six, 21. On the other hand, it was strenuously argued by Lord Hawkesbury, Lord Sidmouth, Mr Perceval, and Lord Chancellor Eldon: "Independent of the obvious reasons against this measure at the particular time at which it is now pressed upon the country, there are other objections applicable to every time and to any circumstances under which this subject can be brought forward. In considering this question, it is indispensable to distinguish between toleration and the concession of political power. The first should ever be granted in its fullest extent; the second should be withheld when the granting of it may endanger the other institutions of society. The Catholics have proved themselves, by their conduct in Canada and elsewhere, to be as loyal subjects in some places as the British empire can boast; but their present claims in Ireland do not relate to their condition as subjects, but to their title to political power. No system, it is true, can be considered as perpetual, and some power must everywhere exist capable of abrogating the laws of the state according as circumstances may render this necessary; but there are some landmarks between the governors and the governed non tangenda non movenda, except on the ground of the clearest expedience or the most overbearing necessity. The principles of the Revolution, as established by the Bill of Rights and Act of Settlement, and at variance, and the Catholic is compelled to decide between them, he must decide for his religion and against the state. The question is not, whether Catholics may be loyal subjects-whe obtain civil rights or civil liberty,-for all that they already have, but whether they are to obtain political power of every description, when they refuse, and on the principles of their religion ever must refuse, to acknowledge the complete authority of the state. have always been considered as of this | the civil and domestic concerns of life. description. That great and glorious If religion and the state are distinct change was not brought about by speculative opinion or the passion for visionary improvement; it was the result of necessity and of experienced evils; and the great statesmen by whom it was effected had the courage to put to them-ther they should enjoy toleration, or selves the question whether the inconvenience of having a king of a different religion from that established in the country, or the evil of breaking in upon the legal order of succession to the crown, were the greater calamity; and they decided in favour of the latter. Now, is it not a necessary consequence of this limitation of the crown to persons of the Protestant faith, that the immediate advisers, officers, and counsellors of the crown should be of the same persuasion? What would be more prepos-versal suffrage. It is the opinion of terous than in a government, where the law is above the crown, and has altered its channel of descent, to allow the ministers, the chancellor, the judges of the land, to be of the religion most hostile of all to the establishment? 22. "What would be the practical effect of a removal of the restrictions and limitations which our ancestors have adopted for the security of the constitution? There are many classes of Dissenters who differ from the Church of England as widely on doctrinal points, and more widely on ecclesiastical government, than the Roman Catholics; but the vital difference is, that they do not appeal to a foreign power for instruction or direction. It is this which constitutes the grand distinction between the Roman Catholics and all other descriptions of Christians; and it is this which it is in a peculiar manner of importance to consider, in judging of their claims to political power. It is not their profession of a different faith which renders them dangerous; it is the submission to a foreign authority-the constitution of an imperium in imperio, only the more dangerous that it is founded on a spiritual basis, which all conscientious persons will ever prefer to any temporal authority. In the Catholic religion, above all others, the jurisdiction and authority of the priesthood interfere in a great part of 23. "The practical effect of the extension of the elective franchise to the Catholics of Ireland has been, to produce in most of its counties something very nearly approaching to uni those best acquainted with the internal state of Ireland, that, if the doors of parliament are once thrown open to the Catholics, the influence of the priests will infallibly be exerted in favour of the Catholic candidates, and as certainly against the Protestants: and thus the influence of property would be operating on the one side, and that of religion on the other. Such a state of things would not only create much internal confusion and disorder, but it could not fail to operate most injuriously with respect to the lower orders of the people, who must unavoidably, and on many occasions, become the victims of these contending interests. The present condition of the Continent renders it in an especial manner inexpedient to make the proposed concessions at this time. Whoever contemplates the late extensions of the power of France, must be convinced that the Roman See is substantially under the power of Napoleon. The Pope has been compelled to travel to Paris, a thing unheard-of for ten centuries, to place a revolutionary crown on the head of that fortunate usurper; and he looks, doubtless, for some considerable return for so extraordinary a mark of condescension. Can there be any doubt, therefore, of the complete dependence upon the French government in which he is placed? and would it not be the height of madness in us, knowing Na- | from our forefathers that we can hope poleon's inveterate hostility to this to exist with safety, or to fall, if fall country, to weaken our means of re- we must, with honour." sistance by the admission to political power of those who are necessarily subject to a power over which he has such a control? The motion to go into a committee on the Roman Catholic petition was negatived by a great majority in both houses in the Peers by one hundred and seventy-eight to forty-nine: in the Commons by three hundred and thirtysix to one hundred and twenty-four. 25. In forming an opinion on this subject, interesting from the principles which it embraces, and still more from the consequences to which they lead, it is impossible to deny that it is involved in extraordinary difficulty. Not theory, but experience, is the antagonist with which liberal principles have here to contend. How convincing soever the argument in favour of the complete removal of religious disabilities may be, and how pleasing soever the prospect of constructing a society in which opinion is as free as the air we breathe, and actual delinquence alone can impose disability, it is impossible to deny that the experiment, when put into practice, has, hitherto at least, signally failed. Catholic emancipation has at length been car 24. "Mr Emmett and all the leaders of the Irish insurgents have declared, in their examinations before the Secret Committee of the Irish Lords, 'that the mass of the people do not care a feather for Catholic emancipation; neither did they care for parliamentary reform, till it was explained to them as leading to other objects which they did look to, particularly the abolition of tithes.' It is evident, therefore, from their testimony, as well as from the reason of the thing itself, that the great body of the Catholics would not consider what you are now called upon to grant as any desirable boon or material concession. We are ready to give them every reasonable liberty or franchise, but not to surrender the state into their hands. The expectation that concession, as such, will lead to peace, is unfortunately contradicted by the whole history of Ireland, where it has invariably been found that yield-ried; but it has produced none of the ing has induced disturbance and anarchy; and the public peace has been preserved only by a severe code, which, how painful soever, was, in time past at least, indispensable. The severity of that code we deprecate as much as any of the advocates of the Catholics; but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that under it Ireland enjoyed absolute tranquillity for nearly a century, and that since its relaxation it has been disgraced by two rebellions, and has constantly been more or less the theatre of disturbance. Let us, therefore, seeing the results of the preceding parts of the experiment have been so doubt ful, avoid rash innovations and shun additional changes. The future destiny of our country is not in our own hands: kingdoms may rise and fall, flourish or decay; but let us not be ourselves the instruments of that blow which may occasion our destruction, and recollect that it is only by a steady adherence to that system which we have received benefits which its advocates anticipated, and realised many of the evils which its opponents predicted. When it is recollected that it was argued that concession to the Irish Catholics would only lead to additional demands; that the whole influence of the priests would be thrown on the popular side, and the peace of the country be perpetually disturbed by the conflict between numbers and property, it is impossible now to dispute the justice of the objections stated to the change; and melancholy experience has taught us that Mr Perceval's and Lord Hawkesbury's words were prophetic. Ireland has never been so distracted as since Catholic emancipation was granted: the total suspension of the constitution has in consequence repeatedly since been forced as a measure of absolute necessity upon government; and, without stilling the waves of discontent in the island, that long-debated change has fixed the firebrand of discord in the British empire. Consequences so dis- | discerned additional grounds for that astrous, so different from what they love of real freedom, and detestation of anticipated, have filled with astonish-revolutionary ambition, the enforcement the friends of toleration. Many ment of which constitutes the great have come to doubt whether its doc- moral of the present times. trines are in reality so well founded as abstract argument would lead us to suppose others have settled into the belief that, however just in themselves, they were inapplicable to the circumstances of an old empire, essentially founded upon an opposite set of principles; and that, in the attempt to draw a decayed beam out of the edifice, the whole structure has fallen into ruins.* 26. In truth, however, the total failure of Catholic emancipation affords no grounds for doubting, in the general case, the great principles of religious toleration; it only shows that other and deeper sources of evil were operating in Ireland, to which that measure, though founded in the abstract on just principles, could furnish no sufficient antidote and that Great Britain is experiencing, in the endless difficulties consequent on the possession of that island, the same law of moral retribution of which France, ever since the Revolution, has furnished so memorable an example. When rightly considered, the state of that country is pregnant with political instruction; it shows that nations which commit injustice cannot escape punishment: and in its present wretchedness may be * The following table exhibits the steady and rapid increase of crime in Ireland since the Catholic Relief Bill was passed : Com- Con1828, Catholic disabilities in mittals. victions. force, 14,683 9,269 1829, Relief Bill passed in March, 1830, . 15,271 9,449 Thus the committals in Ireland had increased a half in six years after the disabilities were removed from the Catholics. When it is recollected that not a third part of the atrocious crimes in that country are ever made the subject either of committal or trial, it may safely be concluded from this instructive table, that during that period crime has more than doubled over its whole extent, Parl. Papers, June 14, 1835. 27. I. The first circumstance which has left an incurable wound in Ireland, and through it in the whole British empire, is the enormous and unpardonable extent to which the confiscation of landed property had been carried in former times. Without referring to historical details, it is sufficient to observe, that at least four-fifths, probably five-sixths, of the soil of Ireland has, at different times, changed hands in this violent manner, and that the great majority of the persons on whom the forfeited estates have been bestowed were English soldiers of fortune, noble proprietors, or companies resident in Great Britain. The consequences of this spoliation have been to the last degree disastrous. As the unjust forfeiture of property is the most cruel of all acts of oppression, because it extends to distant generations the injury done to the present, so it is the one of all others which most certainly leads to its own punishment. Invariably it leaves the seeds of undying animosity between the descendants of the oppressors and oppressed-between the owners of the soil and the peasantry who till their lands. Landed confiscation has been to Ireland what a similar deed of injustice was to France-a festering sore which has In both counnever been healed. tries restitution has become impossible, from the multitude of new interests which have been created; therefore, by both countries retribution must be endured. 28. II. The ghastly wound thus opened in Ireland by the barbarity of feudal injustice might, however, in the course of ages have been healed, as the evils of Norman confiscation were in Great Britain, were it not for another circumstance, of peculiar and lamentable malignity, which has continually kept it open. This is the unhappy bestowing of the estates upon persons resident in this country, and the consequent introduction of the system of |