adopted, would directly lead to the subver- | distinction, a distinction made by the law, sion of the constitution in church and state, propounded by ourselves, and essential to the and let in an universal deluge of atheism, state, between temporal and spiritual power, infidelity, democracy, and anarchy. The is a vain discrimination, that the Irish repeal of the laws enjoining the taking the people, to be good catholics, must be bad' oath of supremacy, will be a constructive subjects; and finally he has emphatically admission of the justice of the claim of the said, "that an Irish catholic never is, never supremacy of the pope.-The adoption of was, or will be, a faithful subject to a British this measure would be a violation of the protestant king they hate all protestants conditions of the two unions of England and all Englishmen." Thus has he proand Scotland, and of Great-Britain and nounced against his country three curses: Ireland, and a notorious breach of the pub- eternal war with one another, eternal war lic faith. The adoption of the measure with England, and eternal peace with France; would tend to a violation of the coronation so strongly does he inculcate this, that if a oath; it cannot therefore be supposed that catholic printer were in the time of invahis majesty will ever agree to it: the tender- sion to publish his speech, that printer ing a bill to him for the royal assent, to car- might be indicted for treason as the pubry this measure into effect, would be an in-lisher of a composition administering to sult to him.-For all these reasons I shall give my hearty negative to the motion.

Mr. Grattan rose and spoke as follows:Sir, in offering to the house my sentiments upon this most important subject, I shall endeavour to avoid the example set me by the learned member who has just sat down. I shall deprecate all animosity on the one side or on the other. As the causes have ceased, I think all animosity arising out of those causes should also cease; and instead, therefore, of calumniating either party, I rise to defend both. I do not wish to revive in detail the memory of those rebellions to which the learned member has alluded.The past troubles of Ireland, the rebellion of 1611, and the wars which followed, (said the hon. gent.) I do not wholly forget; but I only remember them to deprecate the example, and renounce the animosity. The penal code which went before, and followed those times, I remember also, but only enough to know that the cause and reasons for that code have totally expired; and as on one side the protestant should relinquish his animosity on account of the rebellion, so the catholics should relinquish their animosity on account of the laws. The question is not stated by the member: it is not whether you will keep in a state of disqualification a few Irish catholics, but whether you will keep in a state of langour and neutrality a fifth of your empire. Before you impose such a sentence on yourself, you will require better arguments than those which the member has advanced. He has substantially told you that the Irish catholic church, which is more independent than the catholic church here, is the worst in Europe; that the Irish catholics, our own kindred, conforming to our own terms, are the worst of papists; that the

the catholics a stimulative to rise, and advancing the authority of their religion for rebellion. His speech consists of four parts, 1st, invective uttered against the religion of the catholics; 2dly, invective uttered against the present generation; 3dly, invective against the past, and 4thly, invective against the future: here the limits of creation interposed, and stopped the member. It is to defend those different generations and their religions, I rise; to rescue the catholics from his attack, and the protestants from his defence.-The civil interference of the pope, his assumed power of deposition, together with the supposed doctrine that no faith was to be kept with heretics, were the great objections to the claims of the catholics; to convict them the learned doctor has gone forth with a sinister zeal to collect his rueful materials; and behold! he returns laden with much comment, much doubtful text, much of executive decrees, and of such things as are become obsolete, because useless, and are little attended to, because very dull and very uninteresting, and wherein the learned gent. may for that reason take many little liberties in the way of misquotation, or the way of suppression. All these, the fruits of his unprofitable industry, he lays before you: very kindly and liberally he does it; but of this huge and tremendous collection you must reject a principal part, as having nothing to say to the question, namely, al. that matter which belongs to the court of Rome, as distinct from the church; 2dly, of the renmant after that objection you must remove every thing that belongs to the church of Rome which is not doctrinal, and which is not confined to doctrine, regarding faith and moral, exclusive of, and

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unmixed with, any temporal matter what- | views objected to them. They have gone

further, they have desired the protestants to name their own terms of abjuration; the protestants have done so, and here is the instrument of their compact; it is an oath framed by a protestant parliament, principally manufactured by the hon. member himself, in which the Irish catho lics not only abjure the imputed doctrine, but are sworn to the state, and to the present establishment of the protestant church

ever, After this correction you will have reduced this gentleman of the 15th century to two miserable canons, the only rewards of his labour, and result of his toil, both centuries before the reformation, and therefore not bearing on the protestants or the reformers. The first is a canon excommunicating persons who do not abide by a profession of faith contained in a preceding canon, which notably concludes with the following observation, that virgins and mar-in Ireland, and to the present state of proried women may make themselves agreeable testant property. This oath has been unito God. Now I cannot think such a canon versally taken, and by this oath both parcan excite any grave impression or alarm in ties are concluded, the catholics from rethis house; passed 600 years ago, 300 years sorting to the abjured doctrines, and the before the birth of the reformation, made protestants from resorting to the abjured by lay princes as well as ecclesiastics, and charge. Therefore, when the member innever acknowledged or poticed in these putes, as he has done, to the catholic the islands even in times of their popery. The principles hereby abjured, it is not the caother canon, that of Constance, goes to tholic who breaks faith with him, but it is deny the force of a free passport or safe- he who breaks faith with the catholic. He conduct to heretics, given by temporal acts in violation of the instrument he himprinces in bar of the proceedings of the self formed, and is put down by his own church. Without going farther into that authority. But the catholics have not only canon, it is sufficient to say that it is posi- thus obtained a special acquittal from the tively affirmed by the catholics, that this charges made against them in this debate, does not go farther than to assert the power they have obtained a general acquittal also. of the church to enquire into heresy, not--The most powerful of their opponents, withstanding any impediments from lay the late earl of Clare, writes as follows: princes; and, farther, there is an authority" they who adhere to the church of Rome for that interpretation, and in contradiction are good catholics, they who adhere to the to the member's interpretation, not merely court of Rome are traitors ;" and he then above his authority, by any that it is in his quotes Lord Somers as his authority, in studies to produce; I mean that of Grotius, which he entirely acquiesces, and acknowwho mentions that the imputation cast on ledges their innocence in their adherence to the catholics on account of that canon is the church of Rome as distinct from the unfounded. Here I stop, and submit that court.-A test, such as I have already men the member is in the state of a plaintiff, who tioned, is formed, abjuring the doctrine of cannot make out his case, notwithstanding the court of Rome, and reducing their rehis two canons that he has failed most ligion to the church of Rome. This test, egregiously, and has no right to throw the together with a number of other articles, is other party on their defence: however, the reduced to an oath, and this oath is introcatholics have gone, as far as relates to him, duced into an act of parliament, and this gratuitously into their case, and have not oath is taken universally. Here again are availed themselves of the imbecility of their the opponents to the catholics concluded by opponents; and they have been enabled to their own concessions. By tendering an oath produce on the subject of the above charges, to catholics, they allow oath to be a test of the opinion of six universities, to whom sincerity; by framing that oath under the those charges, in the shape of queries, circumstances, they make it a test of pure have been submitted: Paris, Louvaine, catholicism; and, by their own arguments, Salamanca, Douay, Valladolid, Alcala. The they pronounce pure catholicism to be inuniversities have all answered, and have in noxious. But the hon. member has gone a their answers not only disclaimed the im- little further than pronouncing the inno puted doctrines, but disclaimed them with cence of the catholics, he has pronounced abhorrence, The catholics have not stop-the mischievous consequences of the laws ped here: they have drawn up a declaration that proscribe them; he has said in so many of nine articles, renouncing the imputed words that an Irish catholic never is, and doctrines, together with other doctrines or never will be faithful to a British protestant

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-PARL. DEBATES, MAY 13, 1805.—on the Roman Catholic Petition.

[922

king; he does not say every catholic, for king. I must protest against the truth of then he would include the English catholics this position; the laws, virulent as they and those of Canada; nor does he say every were, and mitigated as for the last seventeen Irishman must hate the king, for then years they have been, the people better than he would include every protestant in Ire- the laws, never could have produced that land. The cause of the hatred is not mischief; against such a position I appeal to then in the religion nor in the scilit the conscious persuasion of every Irishman. mut be then in the laws, in something We will put it to an issue: the present chief which the protestant does not experi- governor of Ireland is both an Englishman ence in Ireland, nor the catholics in any and the representative of English governcountry but in Ireland; that is to say, in the ment; I will ask the hon. gentleman whepenal code. That code then, according to ther the Irish hate him? If I could believe him, has made the catholics enemies to the this position, what could I think of the proking: thus has he acquitted the catholics, testant ascendancy, and what must I think and convicted the laws. This is not extra- of the British connection and government, ordinary, it is the natural progress of a blind who have been for six hundred years in posand a great polemic. Such characters begin session of the country with no other effect, with a fatal candour, and then precipitate to according to this logic, than to make its ina fatal extravagance, and are at once under- habitants abhor you and your generation ? mined by their candour, and exposed by But this position contains something more their extravagance: so with the member, he than a departure from fact; it says, "strike hurries on he knows not where, utters he France; strike, Spain; the great body of cares not what, and is equally negligent of the Irish are with you:" it does much more, the grounds of his assertions, and their ne-it attempts to give them a provocation; it cessary inferences. Thus when he thinks teaches you to hate them, and them to think he is establishing his errors, unconsciously so; and thus falsehood takes its chance of and unintentionally he promulgates truth; generating into a fatal and treasonable truth. or rather, in the very tempest of his speech, The hon. gentleman having misrepresented Providence seems to govern his lips, so that the present generation, mistates the conduct they shall prove false to his purposes, and of their ancestors, and sets forth the past rebear witness to his refutations. Interpret bellions as proceeding entirely from religion. the gentleman literally, what blasphemies I will follow him to those rebellions, and has he uttered? He has said that the catholic shew, beyond his power of contradiction, religion, abstracted as it is at present in Ire- that religion was not, and that proscription land from popery, and reduced as it is to was, the leading cause of those rebellions. mere catholicism, is so inconsistent with the The rebellion of 1641, or let me be controduties of morality and allegiance, as to be a verted by any historian of authority, did not very great evil. Now, that religion is the proceed from religion; it did proceed from christianity of two thirds of all Christendom; the extermination of the inhabitants of eight -it follows then, according to the learned doc- counties in Ulster, and from the foreign and tor, that the christian religion is in general a bigoted education of the catholic clergy, and curse. He has added, that his own coun- not from religion. The rebellion of the pale trymen are not only depraved by religion, (for it was totally distinct in period or cause but rendered perverse by nativity; that is to from the other) did not proceed from relisay, according to him, blasted by their Crea-gion; loss of the graces; they resembled tor, and damned by their Redeemer. In order, therefore, to restore the member to the character of a christian, we must re-nounce him as an advocate, and acknowledge that he has acquitted the catholics which he meant to condemn, and convicted the laws which he meant to defend.-But though the truth may be eviscerated from the whole of the member's statement, it is not to be discerned in the particular parts; and - therefore it is not sufficient to refute his arguments, 'tis necessary to controvert his facts. The catholics of Ireland, he says, hate the #protestants, hate. the English, and hate the

your petition of right, except that they embraced articles for the security of property; disarmament of the catholics, expulsion of them in that disarmed state from Dublin; many other causes,-order for the execution of certain priests. You will not forget there was an order to banish their priests in James the First's time, and to shut up their chapels in Charles the First's. These were the causes. There was another cause: you were in rebellion, Scotland was in rebellion! There was another cause, the Irish government was in rebellion; they had taken their part with the republicans, and wished to

923] PARL. DEBATES, MAY 13, 1805.--Mr. Fox's Motion for a Committee

[924

that against evidence by which that vileșt caitiff would be acquitted, against the authority of four acts of parliament; the act of 1778, which declares their loyalty for a long series of years, that of 1782, that of 1792, and that of 1793; and farther against the declared sense of, government, who, in the year 1762, proposed to raise four catholic regiments, because the catholics had proved their allegiance; and against the authority of the then Irish primate, who supported that measure, and in his speech on that subject, assigns as his reason, that, after his perusal of Mr. Murray's papers, nothing ap

connection whatsoever with the rebellion of that period. The member proceeds to the rebellion of 1798, and this he charges to the catholics; and against his charge I appeal to the committee of the Irish house of commons in 1797, in which it sets forth the rebel muster, containing 99,000 northerns énrolled in rebellion, and all the northern counties organised. At the time in which the committee of the house of commons states the rebellion of the north, the dis

draw into treason the Irish freeholders, that with the forfeiture of another's rebellion they might supply their own. I go back with concern to those times: I see much blood, no glory; but I have the consolation to find that the causes are not lodged in the religion or the soil, and that all of them but the proscriptive cause have vanished. I follow the member to another rebellion, the which should properly be called a civil war, not a rebellion; it proceeded from a combination of causes which exist no longer, and one of those causes was the abdicating king at the head of the catholics, and another cause was the violent proscription car-peared against the Irish catholics of any ried on against the catholics by the opposite and then prevailing party. These causes are now no more; or will the member say there is now an abdicating prince, or now a popish plot, or now a pretender? There are causes, most certainly, sufficient to alarm you, but very different, and such as can only be combated by a conviction that, as destinies are now disposed of, it is not the power of the catholics which can destroy, or the exclusion of the catholics which can save you. The conclusion I draw from the history above al-patches of government acknowledged the alluded to, is very different from that drawn legiance of the south. To those dispatches by the member, and far more healing; con- I appeal, written at the time of Hoche's proclusions to shew the evils arising from fo- jected invasion, and applauding the attachreign connections on one side, and from do- ment and loyalty of the southern counties, mestic proscription on the other. If all the and their exertions to assist the army on its blood shed on these occasions; if the many march to Cork to oppose the landing of the fights in the first, and the signal battles in French. If you ask how the rebellion spread, the second period, and the consequences of and involved the catholics, I will answer and those battles to the defeated and the trium- tell you, that as long as the proscriptive sysphant, to the slave that fied, and the slave tem continues, there will be in our country that followed, shall teach our country the a staminal weakness, rendering the distemwisdom of conciliation, I congratulate her pers to which society is obnoxious, not only on those deluges of blood: if not, I submit, dangerous, but deadly. Every epidemic disand lament her fate, and deplore her under-case will bring the chronic distemper into standing, which would render not only the blessings of Providence, but its visitations fruitless, and transmit what was the curse of our fathers as the inheritance of our children. The learned gentleman proceeds to mistate a period of 100 years, namely, the cen-gion; in the fallibility of man, not of God. tury that followed the revolution, and this he makes a period of open or concealed rebellions. The sources of his darkness and misinformation are to be found in history and revelation. Of his charges against that period he brings no proof; none of those on the same side with him can bring any. They heard from such a one, who heard from such : a one I neither believe them nor such a one, and I desire so many generations may not be convicted on evidence that would not be admitted against the vilest caitiff; and

action. It is the grapestone in the hand of death, which strikes with the force of a thunderbolt. If you have any apprehension on this account, the error is to be found in yourselves; in human policy, not in reli

If you wish to strip rebellion of its hopes, France of her expectations, reform that policy; you will gain a victory over the enemy when you gain a conquest over yourselves. But I will for a moment accede to the member's statement against facts and history: what is bis inference? during one hundred years of the proscriptive system, this state has been in imminent danger: therefore, adds he, continue the system; here is the regimen under which you have declinedpersevere. But the member proceeds to ob

serve, that you cannot hope to reconcile whom you cannot hope to satisfy; and he instances the repeal of the penal code. I deny the instances: the repeal in 1778 and 1782 did reconcile and did satisfy; and accordingly you will find that the Irish cathoTies in 1779, 1780, 1781, and 1782, were ac-tlemen now in parliament to whom they tive and unanimous to repel the invasion communicated their sentiments, that they threatened at that time, when the French would prefer their situation before the repeal rode in the Channel, and Ireland was left to of 1793, to the situation which followed; the care of 6000 regulars, and was only de- inasmuch as they experienced in the then fended from invasion by the spirit and loyalty Irish government a more deadly and more of the catholics, in harmony and in arms active enemy than before they had expewith their protestant brethren. The repeal rienced in the law. I refer to the speeches of a principal part of the penal code, in delivered and published at the time by the 1793, did not reconcile, and did not satisfy: ministers and servants of the Irish governit was because the Irish government of that ment, and persisted in and delivered since. time was an enemy to the repeal and to the There you will see an attack on all the pro catholics, and prevented the good effects of ceedings of the Irish from the time of their that measure. That government, in the address for free trade, such as were glorious summer of 1792, had sent instructions (I as well as those that were intemperate; know the fact to be so) to the grand juries, without discrimination or moderation: there to enter into resolutions against the claims of you will see the Irish ministry engaged in a the catholics. Their leading minister op- wretched squabble with the catholic composed himself at one of the county meet-mittee, and that catholic committee replying ings, and took a memorable post of hostility on that ministry, and degrading it more and publicity. When the petition of the ca- than it had degraded itself; and you will tholics was recommended in the king's further perceive the members of that minis speech in 1793, the Irish minister answered try urging their charges against the members the king, and with unmeasured severity at- of that committee, to disqualify other cathetacked the petitioners. When the bill in- lics who were not of the committee, but op troduced in consequence of his majesty's re-posed it: so that by their measures against commendation was in progress, the same the one part of the catholics, and their inminister, with as unmeasured severity, at- vective against the other, they take care to tacked the bill, and repeated his severity alienate, as far as in them lay, the whole against the catholics. When the same bill body. The fact is, the project of conciliaof reconciliation, in consequence of the re- tion in 1793, recommended in the speech commendation and reference of the petition, from the throne, was defeated by the Irish was on its passage, the Irish government at- cabinet, which was at that time on that subtempted to hang the leading men among ject in opposition, and being incensed at the the petitioners, and accordingly Mr. Bird British cabinet for the countenance afforded and Mr. Hamil were by these orders indict- to the catholics, punished the latter, and ed for a capital offence, I think it was de- sowed those seeds which afterwards, in confenderism; and so little ground was there junction with other causes, produced the refor the charge that those men were triumph-bellion.-I leave the member, and proceed antly acquitted, and the witnesses of the crown so flagrantly perjured, that the judge, I have heard, recommended a prosecution. These were the causes why the repeal of 1793 did not satisfy; and in addition to these, because the Irish government took care that the catholics should receive no benefit; therefore, opposing these with their known partisans and dependents in the corporation of Dublin, when they sought for the freedom of the city, seldom giving any office (there are very few instances in which they got any) in consequence of the act of parliament, and always attacking their cha

racters from a court press; so that the aversion of the Irish government stood in the. place of disqualification by law, and the hostility of the Irish minister succeeded to the hostility of statute. The catholics, some of them I know, thought so, and there are gen

to discuss the differences now remaining that discriminate his majesty's subjects of the protestant and catholic persuasion. Before we consider how far we differ, it is necessary to examine how far we agree. We acknowledge the same God, the same Redeemer, the same consequences of redemption, the same Bible, and the same Testament. Agreeing in this, we cannot, as far as respects religion, quarrel about the remainder, because their merits as christians must in our opinion outweigh their demerits as catholics, and reduce our religions distinctions to a differenc about the encharist, the mass, and