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if this statement was not an additional argument for concluding the peasantry to he still more exposed to the predominating influence of their priests? He was aware that persecution never made proselytes; but certainly the reformed church had prior claims on our consideration, and it behoved us that their clergy should be always so supported as to command the respect of the catholic peasantry. He had listened with much attention to the offer that had been made, of giving the king a negative in the election of a Roman-catholic bishop; but in fact, however it might sound, it was nothing. Three persons were selected by the bishops; and to whichever of them the king made no objection, he was to be appointed. This in itself was nothing; and if it was much, it bore not at all upon the great principles of the present question. Dr. Milner had no doubt the best intentions in making the propositions ; but notwithstanding the arguments with which they were supported by a distinguished member of the other house, still he was of opinion, that the propositions did not touch upon the great and weighty objections. As he vaJued the principles of the glorious Revolution, as he valued the cause that placed the house of Brunswick on the throne, and as he wished to perpetuate those principles, and sustain that cause, he should vote against going into the committee.

The Earl of Moira said, that he could not let a moment pass, as soon as he had caught the attention of their lord- ́ ships, until he had met and combated the opinion of the noble viscount in the outset of his speech, where he had taken upon him to assert, that there was in the petition, or in the manner or the time of its being presented, any thing that could justify a suspicion of the loyalty or public spirit of the catholics of Ireland. They had come forward in no underhand way, nor had they pressed their claims in any intemperate language. They had, in the most respectful manner, submitted to this house a manly statement of the grievances they laboured under, and asked to be relieved from such. What then his noble friend could have seen in that petition, or the circumstances of it, that could have warranted such an imputation, he was totally at a loss to conceive. The noble viscount had further objected, that the prayer of the petition was circumscribed, and related only to few and partial exemptions. He was of a very different opinion. He could not be brought to think, that the disabilities under which the catholics at pre

219 sent laboured, were either few in number, or partial in operation. But the noble viscount was apprehensive, that if even the present claims of the oatholics were acceded to, they would not stop here. While that body was excluded from the participation of any of the rights and privileges of a British subject, he not only thought that they would not stop there, but that they ought not. The noble viscount had extolled the constitution, and was it unnatural that those who were so long witnessing its benefits should beanxious to share in it? Was it not an ambition natural to the mind of every Briton? and while the noble viscount poured out such eulogiums on the glorious Revolution, how could he consider it a slight and partial evil to be deprived of all the blessings of which it was the cause? But it was contended, that the prayer, if complied with, tended neces sarily to the subversion of the constitution; and this danger was to be illustrated by a most extravagant supposition of a case barely possible and most improbable, the appointment of a catholic to the office of chancellor. Why, it was certainly true, that the king might, if he pleased, appoint his groom to be his chancellor; but this he imagined, that the royal discretion would be as effectual a preventive against such an appointment as any law of parliament could be. In the same way no man could reasonably apprehend such an appointment. He was as much attached to the church as any noble lord,' and he did think, with his noble friend who spoke last, that the church was so rooted in the state, that it was impossible to affect the one without injuring the other; but with respect to the penal code, he could not agree with bis noble friend, that the principles which gave rise to that code were the result of religious differences. He had always looked upon them rather as the effect of political precaution. He severely deprecated the language of his noble friend, which, though not intended to be so, might be attended with mischievous effects. The present was not a time to alienate the hearts or damp the spirits of four millions of people willing to share our danger and our fate, and only wishing in return to share the common privileges of Britons. The crisis had been represented as an awful one: it was truly so, perhaps not to be parallelled in the history of the civilized world; and in the prevalent indifference, the smoothness of our passage, he feared, was owing to the rapidity of our descent; and at the first fatal

shock our fears would be lost in our despair. Therefore he thought we should rouse, awaken from our lethargy, and apply the remedy before it was too late. An hour should not be lost in acceding to the just, equitable, and unanswerable claims of our catholic brethren. If it be objected to him, why, such being his sentiments, did he, upon a former occasion, express his regret that the pe tition had been at the present period introduced; he was ready to answer, that his regret then arose not from any disapprobation of the time of presenting the petition, or still less of the prayer of that petition, but because he thought that at the present period there was not only no hope, but on the other hand, a certainty, that their claims would be rejected: and his regret arose from his dread of the exasperation produced by such rejection; for it was not in the nature of men to be disappointed, and not manfully to feel that disappointment. At the same time he was satisfied, that if the catholics had seen in his majesty's present government any wish to accommodate, any disposition to conciliate them, they would have waited more patiently; but from the ill-judged policy that had so recently been evinced towards that body, they were compelled to appeal to the constitutional organ for a legitimate object. In the late government, of which he had been an humble member, they had brought in a bill which, if its object had been literally translated into its title, might have been called a bill to prevent 100,000 men of his majesty's subjects from joining the French. This bill certainly was not meant to embrace any of the great objects had in view by the catholics: it was rather meant as a peace-offering, as a forerunner of better times; and might be said to have been sent forth as the dove with the olive-branch, to tell the persecuted catholics that the waters had subsided, and that the rising day would soon restore her original beauties to the face of Nature. He was grieved to find that such had been the po licy of the present governmen'; nothing to allay, sooth, or reconcile, but every thing to incite and exasperate. Why was this? At any time, such conduct would have been imp li ic; but, at the present crisis, it was such a union of folly and madness as never had been equalled. When the owers of Europe were wielded against us by one man, the most formidable, and at the same time the most inveterate foe England ever had to cope with, was it

immaterial in such a contest, whether the people of Ireland were fired with all their native ardour in our cause, or sunk by our injustice into a listless dejection and a coldblooded neutrality? With what face could the noble viscount ask the Irish catholic to brave every danger, to expose himself to the hazards of battle, for the mere purpose of securing to the Englishman what he refuses to share with him? The noble viscount could not make so selfish a proposal, and if he did, it would be met with merited indignation. He concluded with conjuring the house to think well of the fair and just claim that was made upon their justice, and to answer it in that manner that best became their character and the interests of the empire.

Bishop of Norwich. I rise, for the first time in my life, to address your lordships, and I rise with unaffected reluctance; not because I entertain the smallest doubt respecting either the expediency, the policy, or the justice, of the measure under cosideration, but because, to a person in my situation, it must be exceedingly painful (however firmly persuaded he may be in his own mind) to find himself impelled, by a sense of duty, to maintain an opinion, directly the reverse of which is supported by so many wise and good men, who belong to the same profes sion, and who sit upon the same bench with him. Important occasions, however, sometimes arise, on which an individual may be called upon to avow his own sentiments, explicitly and unequivocally, without any undue deference to the judgment of others. Such an occasion I conceive the present to be, and shall without further apology trouble your lordships with a few remarks. I have con sidered, with all the care and attention of which I am capable, the various arguments which are urged against the petition in favour of the catholics of Ireland, which has, this day, for the second time, been presented and supported by the noble baron on the other side of the house, with his usual abilities, and at the same time with that well known regard for the real interest of the established church, for its peace, its security, its honour, and its prosperity, which forms, and has always formed, so distisguished a part in the character of that noble lord. These objections, my lords, numerous as they are said to be, may all of them I think be reduced under four heads. In the first place, it is asserted, or rather strongly insi

nuated, that the religious tenets of the catholics are of such a nature, as, per se, to exclude those who hold them from the civil and military situations to which they aspire. It is next said, that if this were not the case, these situations are matters of favour, not of right, and therefore the catholics have no just cause to complain that they are excluded from them. In the third place, we are told, that if it were admitted that the measure was, abstractedly considered, just and right, it would be highly inexpedient to repcal statutes which were passed with much deliberation, and are considered by many as the bulwarks of the constitution in church and state. And, lastly, there are some who contend, that if there were no other objection, the words of the coronation oath present an insuperable bar to the claims of the catholics. I shall not detain your lordships long in the examination of these ob jections, because they have been repeatedly discussed, and, as it appears to me, very satisfactorily refuted, by far abler men, both in this house and out of it. With respect to the religious tenets of the catholics of the present day, it is not a little singular, my lords, that we will not allow them to know what their own religious tenets really are. We call upon them for their creed, upon some very important points, and they give it us without reserve; but, instead of believing what they say, we refer them, with an air of controversial triumph, to the councils of Constance or Thoulouse, to the fourth Lateran council, or to the council of Trent. In vain they most explicitly and most solemnly aver, that they hold no tenet whatsoever, incompatible with their duties either as men or as subjects, or in any other way hurtful to the government under which they live. In vain they publish declaration upon declaration, in all of which they most unequivocally disavow those highly exceptionable tenets which are imputed to them, and not only do they disavow, but they express their abhorrence of them. In vain they confirm these declarations by an oath; an oath, my lords, framed by ourselves, drawn with all possible care and caution, and couched in terms as strong as language affords. In addition to these ample securities for the principles and praetice of this numerous and loyal class of our fellow-subjects and fellow-christians, a great statesman, now unhappily no more, caused to be transmitted a string of very import ant queries to the principal catholic universities abroad,

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