of the learned lord when this subject was last before parliament, as well as from his knowledge of the laws and constitution of his country, that he would vote against the motion, and not for it. For his own part, he should fail in his duty if he did not declare most decidedly, that his objection to granting the prayer of the petition did not rest on times and circumstances, but on principle. This opinion was founded on his conviction that a protestant government alone was consistent with the laws and constitution of the British empire. The noble baron by whom the question had been brought forward had said, that it would be no injustice to keep a Roman-catholic from the crown, because no person who could have any pretensions to the crown was a catholic. But such a case might exist the presumptive heir to the crown might be a catholic, and then his exclusion would be a hardship; but that was not to be set against the safety of the protestant establishment. Our allegiance to the house of Brunswick was paid, not because it was the house of Brunswick alone, but because it was a protestant house. If it was necessary that the king of Great Britain should be a protestant, was it not necessary that his advisers should be so too? that the lord chancellor (the keeper of the king's conscience), the judges, and the great officers of the state, should be protestants? And if this were so, was it not more wise and expedient to exclude catholics from these situations by law, than to throw upon the king the odium of rejecting them? For let the house bear in mind, that the principle of the prayer of the petition went to the attainment of all powers, on equal terms with the protestants, a principle no monarch could venture to apply practically without endangering the constitution." must be recollected, that the catholics were not at present excluded from places of the highest trust by any direct law. They excluded themselves because they would not take the prescribed tests (prescribed to all the subjects of the empire indifferently); and particularly because they would not take the oath of supremacy, by which they abjured all foreign temporal and ecclesiastical dominion in these realms. The first question therefore was, whether or not this oath was founded in reason and principle? Was it just, as long as the country possessed a protestant government and a protestant establishment, to require that the members of the legislature, and the great officers of VOL. III.-1808. 2 H

It

the state, should abjure foreign temporal, as well as foeign ecclesiastical, dominion? Consistently with the security of the protestant government, and the protestant establishment, it was not possible to dispense with this test. The large proportion of the population of Ireland which the catholics formed, had been stated as a reason for acceding to their request. This question must be viewed in one of two points: if the empire were considered (and in his opinion we were bound so to consider it) as a whole, then in any legislative regulation, parliament ought to be influenced, not by what was the majority of a certain class in a part of the empire, but by what was the majority of that class in the whole empire. On this footing, the claim of the catholics was indefensible; and it was that the two islands might thus be considered as a whole empire, that the union had been projected. If the other view of the, subject were taken, if the majority in a part of the empire were to determine the regulations of the legislature, the consequence would then be, that if the present question were carried, the catholics might go further. They might then say, that as their having a majo rity in the population of Ireland had been admit'ed as a ground for their admissibility into the high offices of the state, the same circumstance would entitle them to substitute a catholic for a protestant establishment in that country. This was a question directly affecting every catholic who had an acre of land in Ireland; every man who now paid to the support of two churches, would be very ready to get rid of that burden by the subversion of protestantism, as the establised religion of the country. ile allowed that no such object was hinted at in the petition, but experience had pronounced decidedly on this subject. Was it not within every man's recollection, that in 1793 and 1794, the catholics of Ireland were called upon to state the whole of their demands? They did state the whole of their demands. They were granted by the Irish parliament, and what followed? Why, that they urged fresh demands. In support of his opinion, with respect to the disposition of the catholics to presume on any indulgence that was granted to them, he read an extract from a work by sir John Throgmorton (a moderate catholic), in which their wish to insinuate a catholic establishment was sufficiently indicated. If there.fore the legislature of Great Britain were to surrender to

the catholics the barrier in question, that surrender would lead to the destruction of the present ecclesiastical establishment in Ireland. The next question to be discussed was the probability, should the prayer of the petition be complied with, that such compliance would benefit the Irish people at large. No one could more lament the disturbances that had recently occurred in the sister kingdom; but on a close examination he found that these disturbances had not originated in any political or religious cause. They chiefly arose from a demand made by the catholic priests for an increase of their dues, and from other local grievances, which, although they were severely felt, were still but local. If he were well-founded in this statement, what became of the noble baron's assertion, that a compliance with the petition would allay the general discontent of the Irish? No man could deny · that it was desirable to allay that discontent; but he would positively deny that the measure proposed was calculated to do so; on the contrary, he was convinced, that by inciting to new demands, demands which could not be complied with, it would give birth to new causes of discontent. The noble baron had dwelt on the necessity of compliance on account of the great danger to which the country was exposed in the present state of the world. The country certainly was in great danger; but in former periods it had also been in great danger (though perhaps not in such great danger as at this moment, yet in danger so great that the government would not have been justified had they not resorted to every means of defence within their power), yet the government at thoseperiods never sought for assistance by surrendering the barriers of the constitution. In the beginning of the reign. of king William, the country was exposed to a great foreign force; the French fleet disputed with the British the dominion of the seas; Ireland was in a most disturbed state; in England there existed a strong party attached to the exiled family. But amidst all these dangers, did the government think of surrendering the barriers of the constitution? No; they felt that the security of the country depended upon the constitution, and that the security of the constitution depended upon the protestant establishment. By uniting these firmly together, they were en

abled successfully to battle with the enemies by whom they were surrounded. In declaring his conviction that the mass of the people of Ireland would not be benefited by the concession which it was proposed to make to them, he was supported by very high authori y. Arthur O'Conner, Messrs. M'Nevin and Emmett, had distinctly stated, that they would not. But it was to him most obvious, that those who, under a protestant establishment, were allow ed to make and to administer the laws, ought to submit to some test of their determination inviolably to maintain that establishment.

Lord Holland did not think it necessary to enter into a discussion of the various polemical points which had been brought forward in the course of the debate. The question for parliament to consider was, what was the State of Ireland, and what the remedy proper to be ap plied to it in the present exigency. If the good-will of four millions of the people were necessary to the safety of Ireland, if Ireland were necessary to the safety of the With the empire, this measure ought to be acceded to. danger of the present day he contended that no preceding period could fairly be compared. The reign of William the Third, which had been quoted, had no ana logy whatever to it, and therefore the existence of the penal laws, at that or any other period that had been mentioned, could present nothing in their justification) at this moment. These penal laws were, in his mind, always odious, but peculiarly so at present, when all the pretexts for their original enactment ceased to exist. The noble lord vindicated the book of Dr. Milner against the misrepresentation of it which appeared in the speech of one of the reverend prelates; but he contended that whateyer that book, or the book of any other individual, however high in talent or character, might contain that should be reprehensible, could not fairly be alleged as a ground of censure upon the whole sect of which that individual might be a member. He replied to the assertion, that the peasantry of Ireland cared not a farthing about the object for which the higher orders of their persuasion were now seeking. What, he would ask, bound a man to the glory of his country? What made the lower orders rejoice in the honours and achievements of their generals and admirals? What made their hearts beat with exultation at

:

the mere mention of such names as Nelson's? What, but the principle and feeling which must excite pleasure in the Irish peasant's breast, when informed of the advancement and distinction of one of his persuasion and way of thinking. As to the attempt made to identify the Revoln tion with the abominable code against the catholics, he protested against the identity. He also protested against the Revolution, as being provoked by catholicism, or by the peculiar partiality of James II. to that creed. No; it arose out of his perseverance in urging that dispensing power which his unfortunate father attempted to establish. But the main question to consider on this occasion was this by whom had any of the riots or commotions, as cribed to the catholics, been excited and directed? Certainly not by catholic generals, admirals, or senators, whatever concern the catholic populace might have in them. Therefore no precedent can be adduced from bistory to justify any apprehension of danger from such persons as this petition referred to. Indeed as to history, it would not be the interest of either sect to refer to it, as a great deal of excess might be shewn on both side. To the assertion of the noble baron (Hawkesbury), that the catholics owed their exclusion to their own conduct in refusing to subscribe to the oaths of supremacy and abjuration, he would shortly reply, by referring to those oaths, and then he would ask any candid man, whether it was possible for any catholic to swear such oaths; to subscribe to tests which absolutely proscribed his own faith: the proposition was mockery. The noble lord concluded with a commentary upon the principles and objects of those with whom the penal laws originated, and pronounced the conduct of the old whigs of the Revolution who sanctioned them as highly disgraceful.

Lord Auckland said that he should state very shortly the motives of his adherence to the opinion which he had expressed so fully on a former occasion. He had even been inclined to give a silent vote; for it did not appear to him that any new circumstances had arisen, or that any new arguments had been adduced to shake or controvert the solemn décision of 1805. Without entering into any details, he felt himself compelled by his sense of public duty to resist any further indulgences to the Roman-catholics of Ireland. From 1778 to 1793 concession had