of the statutes, to find, or fancy that I had found, such anomalies, obscurities and contradiction in the present state of the law as I have stated, I felt, and I feel that I should be guilty of cowardice, and treachery, to my personal honour, and to the public interests, nay, to the interest of the church itself, if I did not state the impressions which I had received, and submit them for refutation, if they should be found erroneous, and, if they should be found correct, for further consideration; and I hope it is no small proof of the sincerity of my motives, that I have taken this the earliest opportunity of exposing my opinions thus explicitly and candidly to the full investigation of parliament.

Here perhaps, Sir, I should end; but feeling still uppermost in my mind an anxiety not to be confounded with those who are indifferent to the supremacy of our church establishment, I am anxious to fortify myself with the opinions of a man whose affection for the constitution in church and state cannot be doubted, and who, by his admirable writings, has done good service, and great honour to both, I mean Mr. Justice Blackstone. That eminent judge after having enumerated the penal laws, which, even in his enlightened days, still sullied the statute books, proceeds to say: "This is a short summary of the laws against the Papists, of which the president Montesquieu observes"—

Here we have the greatest authority of France, combining with the greatest authority of England.

of the queen of Scots, obliged the parliament to counteract so dangerous a spirit, by laws of a great and then perhaps necessary severity.".

-Perhaps necessary severity! Blackstone, we see, speaks doubtingly of the expediency of these measures, even in those times of the crisis and emergency. He proceeds: The Powder Treason in the succeeding reign struck a panic into James the 1st, which operated in different ways; it occasioned enacting new laws against the Papists, but de terred him from putting them into execution."

A valuable admission from this great judge that the severity of such laws defeats their intention, and does not give the security for which they were framed. "The intrigues of queen Henrietta, in the reign of Charles 1st; the prospect of a Popish successor, in that of Charles 2nd; the assassination plot, in the reign of king William, and the avowed claim of a Popish Pretender to the crown, in that and subsequent reigns, will account for the extension of these penalties at those several periods of our history."

Heretofore this admirable author has spoken as a lawyer and a statesman; but, in what follows, he is almost a prophet. He supposes a state of things, and recommends a system of measures so applicable to the present day, that had I had his wisdom and his eloquence, I could not have used more appropriate expressions to describe our present situation and to inculcate our actual duties: -"But, if a time should ever arrive, -"The president Montesquieu ob- and, perhaps, it is not very distant, when serves, that they are so rigorous, though all fears of a Pretender shall have vanot professedly of the sanguinary kind, nished, and the power and influence of that they do all the hurt which can possi- the pope shall become feeble, ridiculous, bly be done in cold blood; but, in an- and despicable, not only in England but swer to this, it may be observed (what in every kingdom in Europe, it probaforeigners, who only judge from our sta-bly would not then be amiss to review tute-book, are not wholly apprized of), that these laws are seldom exerted to their utmost rigour; and, indeed if they were, it would be impossible to excuse them, for they are ratherto be accounted for from their history, and the urgency of the times which produced them, than to be approved, on a cool review, as a standing system of law. The restless machinations of the Jesuits, during the reign of Elizabeth, the turbulence and uneasiness of the Papists under the new religious establishment, and the boldness of their hopes and wishes for the succession

and soften these rigorous edicts; at least till the civil principles"- And here Blackstone marks the word civil with emphasis, in order to show his opinion that their religious principles cannot be a just cause of exclusion:" Till the civil principles of the Roman Catholics should again call upon the legislature to renew them."*

Such, Sir, are the sentiments which I feel, but could not have so well expressed. Such, Sir, are the sentiments of a man

* Commentaries, vol. 4, p. 57, 58.

that they had for a century past been in would, therefore, be at the mercy of the full possession of the object of their pur- informer.-Amongst all the laws referred suit. Even the office of lord chancellor to by his hon. friend, he would say with had been quite open to their ambition.-perfect confidence, there was not a clause He took leave, as a lawyer, to say, that that would afford him a shadow of defence. he differed entirely from his hon. friend. He admitted, that if the first year should The argument professed to rest itself on elapse without such information being the confusion which was imputed to 160 proceeded on, the annual Indemnity acts, statutes relating to oaths and declarations, so long as they should be passed, would but resolved itself finally into the simple afford a practical security; but there was proposition that the annual Indemnity act no security whatever except in the forreceived within its protection the Roman bearance of informers, during the first Catholics equally as every other descrip- year of the experiment-and here lay the tion of Dissenters. He could not agree fallacy of the argument of his hon. friend. in this conclusion; the very recital of It made no distinction between the years the act forbade such a construction of safety which the Roman Catholic might -"whereas divers persons have, through ultimately attain, and the year of vital ignorance, absence, or unavoidable acci- peril through which he was to proceed dent, omitted to take the oaths ;"-would towards the enjoyment.-The case with it be said that it was either ignorance, ab- respect to parliament admitted of no doubt sence, or accident that prevented Roman whatever. Every member whom he addressCatholics?-Every Roman Catholic, every ed, was liable at the pleasure of the House member of the community knew that to be called at any moment to the table, they were prevented by a religious and and to take the oaths anew; and this was moral impossibility; and was it to be con- provided for by the statute of Charles 2nd, tended, that the legislature alone should expressly for the purpose of preventing be ignorant of the circumstance;-farther, the possibility of Roman Catholics sitting he denied that the annual Indemnity act among them. did afford any practical protection to a person entering into office, and neglecting to take the oaths. It did not receive such a person within its pale until the second year of his official existence: during the first he was at the mercy of every informer, and subjected to the most grievous forfeitures and penalties that every proceeding in the way of information could inflict: for instance, he would suppose a Roman Catholic promoted to the bench of justice, admitting, for the sake of argument, that he could be seated on it without taking any preliminary oath; and supposing, with his hon. friend, that the new judge should insist upon his privilege of postponing the taking of the oath; how long, he would ask, might he postpone it? Only till the next term, or next quarter sessions ;-the law of Ireland was express upon that point. And after such term or sessions should have elapsed, where, he would ask, was the bar to an information? Not in the Indemnity act which had then last passed, for its operation is expressly confined to neglects, absences and accidents, that had occurred prior to the passing of the act. Nor yet in the Indemnity act, which was to follow, for at the time in question, it would by the very supposition, not have been called into existence; the Roman Catholic judge

He could not pursue this branch of the subject any farther. He really did not feel himself at liberty to endeavour to follow his hon. friend in his ingenious course through the mazes of all the statutes, repealed or unrepealed, that had a reference to the subject; for the purpose of disproving an opinion, which for aught that appeared, had never before been entertained, and which if well-founded would only lead to the conclusion that the Catholics were so unreasonable as to press their petitions upon the legislature, for the attainment of a good which they already actually possessed. The House was assembled that night in the unusual numbers which he had the honour to address, not for the purpose of being amused by a dis. play of legal ingenuity, but for the graver purpose of determining on the substantial merits of a question of great state policy. Whether the interests of the empire would best be promoted by conceding or withholding the objects of the petitioners.

He opposed the concessions on several distinct grounds. The first was, the actual state of the Protestant feeling in Great Britain on the subject. The symptoms of that feeling were not ambiguous: he felt certain that in that House, at least, he should not be contradicted, when he asserted, that at no period since 1807 were

the Protestants of Great Britain so indisposed to the entertainment of the question. The number of their petitions was so great, that he knew not which to select for reference. It was more easily felt than avowed that the House going into a committee was likely to increase this feeling to a degree that Protestants as much as Catholics ought to wish to avert.

might lead to the imitation of the Roman Catholics. A petition, signed by about 400, calling itself the petition of the Protestants of Belfast, had been presented by an hon. baronet in favour of the claim; but he had the authority of the representative of the county for saying, that 4,000 Protestant inhabitants of the same town had signed the petition which had been presented against them. Of the petition which had emanated from the Dublin rotunda, he wished to speak with every

His second ground was, the indisposition of what he must consider as the vast majority of the Protestants of Ireland. It was easy to deny that such was their feel-respect; it ought not, however, to have ing; but he must be permitted to assert, that the number of Protestants in Ireland who wished the success of this petition bore no sort of proportion to those who resisted it. The number of Protestant petitions was certainly considerable in favour of the measure; but the number of petitioners was comparatively few. Such petitions proceeded principally from the Catholic districts of Ireland, where the Protestants were thinly scattered, and for obvious reasons inclined to comply with the wishes of their Roman Catholic neighbours; besides, he was far from denying that very many Protestants sincerely desired their success; still, however, he must consider them as few when compared with those who were of a different opinion. They who wished to estimate the Protestant mind of Ireland, must look to the northern province. Colonised by James the 1st, and possessing at this time far more than its natural share of the population, industry, knowledge, and civilization of the island, the circumstance reflected no discredit on the rest of Ireland. It was the necessary consequence of the more Catholic provinces having been more exposed to the destroying and barbarizing energy of the penal code; a system, of which, on every occasion, he had been foremost in expressing his reprobation, but which had long since been done away. Looking then to the Protestant counties of Ireland, he saw Antrim come forward with 19,000 signatures; Fermanagh, he believed, with 20,000; the counties of Down and Sligo, he knew not with how many thousand.

If other northern counties had not come forward with similar petitions, he asserted in presence of their representatives, that it was only because the gentlemen of most influence among them had interfered to prevent it, on the principle of its being desirable to avoid, as much as possible, every demonstration that

denominated itself the petition of the Protestants of Dublin. It was unworthy of either party to assume titles to which they had no claim, and this claim of the Rotunda petition was disproved by a counter petition, with near 6,000 signatures, including the names of 15 peers, and of great numbers of persons, the most influential and respectable in every class and profession of the Protestants of Dublin. The next ground of objection which he felt to the concession was, the feelings of the Roman Catholics themselves; and he confessed, that this operated with him far more than either of the other grounds which he had stated. All the petitions were silent on the point of securities, safeguards, or conditions; but the House was not therefore to assume, that the Catholic mind had undergone any change on that subject. The cause of these important topics being not so much as glanced at, was, the consciousness amongst the petitioners of the wild irritation which the bare mention of them never failed to introduce. Upon this point, however, the House had the benefit of experience. Every thing that could be devised and proposed, had been devised and proposed already. He agreed with the right hon. mover, in the tribute which he had paid to the talents, the knowledge, and the virtues of the authors of the relief bill of 1813; but just in proportion as they possessed all these qualifications, the chances were diminished that a better measure than theirs could be devised; and after all their consideration, all their labours, how did the Catholics view the measures for relief which that bill suggested? The laity in county after county, and meeting after meeting vied with each other in search of expressions to do justice to the extent of their execration of it. They pronounced it to be a law of penalty; that they preferred to it their present state of exclusion; that if persevered

They were able to give, and able to take away, the affections of the people from the government, and if at any time these affections had been estranged, it was because, in time past, the government had waged a war upon that priesthood, which had produced an inevitable reaction on their part. He knew that he should be much misrepresented in Ireland upon this point, but he felt that he was not

ing degree, the patronage of the crown, but merely to confer on it the power of selection for a few of the sees of greatest consequence, from amongst Roman Catholic prelates, previously nominated, or ordained in whatever manner might be most agreeable to their own wishes.

in, it would shake the empire to its foundation. While the clergy in their pulpits, and afterwards in a solemn synod of their bishops, declared that they could not submit to it without incurring the guilt of schism, and that, with the blessing of God, they would lay down their lives for it. Would any gentleman assert that the Catholics were now prepared to view the securities proposed by the relief bill of 1813 in any other light; or had any gen-recommending any plan for an improper tleman any other securities to suggest? purchase of their clergy, but only what And here, he would ask, what would have might be sufficient to create that feeling been the situation of the country, if the of good will which he hoped was insepalegislature, in 1813, had thought proper to rable from human nature, towards the pass that bill for tranquillizing the Catho- source from whence benefit proceeded. lics of Ireland. The Protestants dissatis-Nor did he seek to extend, in any alarmfied, the Catholics indignant, every thing conceded; and when the first opportunity should arise for carrying into effect the securities provided, the executive government would find it necessary, as a small preliminary, just to inflict martyrdom upon their five and twenty prelates; and all to tranquillize the Catholics of Such a measure would, in his opinion, Ireland. He begged not to be understood soon prove itself more efficacious than all as approving of the securities provided by the oaths that his hon. friend had adverted the bill of 1813; he considered them to, or all the securities contained in the perfectly illusory; abundantly able to ir-relief bill. But it was useless to discuss ritate the Catholics, but completely inefficient, and some of them, he thought, almost ludicrous, when proposed to guarantee the constitution. For himself, he had never heard but of one principle of security that appeared to him worthy of consideration, and that was one which, under the present feelings of the Catholics, was perfectly unattainable. He would not term it a security so much as an arrangement, which, in his view, would go a great way to neutralize the dangers to the establishment which would otherwise result from the concession of political strength to the Catholics. He alluded to the creation of a connexion between the Roman Catholic clergy and the executive government, by the payment of regular stipends to the former, and communicating to the latter a certain degree of power in selecting the individuals who were to fill the highest stations; not a mere power of rejection, but of positive nomination. It was not a vote, but a vote which he thought likely to prove itself of any practical advantage. There never existed in any country a body of men who had so extensive an influence over the heads, the hearts, and he would add the hands, of the population, as the Roman Catholic clergy possessed in Ireland.

such an arrangement: there was no term of abomination that would not be now lavished on it by the Catholics-no form of reproach that would not be heaped on the proposers of it. The Irish parliament might have effected it. Perhaps hereafter the united parliament might have to deal with a degree of conciliation, moderation, and good sense, which might warrant the consideration of the question-but at present there was not one of the friends of the Roman Catholics who would seriously desire that it should be entertained.

It was a favourite supposition with many members, that it was possible to assign a limit, to which, if concession were carried, the satisfaction of the Catholics would be complete. The Irish parliament had fallen into this mistake, and he begged of the House to mark the progress of demand. In 1778 the whole penal code was repealed, and all rights of property conferred. No person approved more than he did of that measure of concession. In 1792, the claim for political power was first advanced, and accurately defined by the highest Catholic authority-a regular convention sitting like a parliament in Dublin.

By their secretary they promulgated their declaration that the whole extent of