revenge; and in those of the catholics an apprehension of merited and merciless retaliation. In this state of men's

minds in France, differing happily from any thing that exists in Ireland, did Henry IV. think that he did not better provide for the general tranquillity and safety of the state than by extending equal political privileges to all religious descriptions of his subjects. Our squabble and difficulty here is about the admission to a few political offices. Hear, sir, what was the enactment of Henry IV. of France upon that subject.

"The better to unite the affections of all our subjects, as it is our intent to do, and to prevent all complaints in time to come,—

"We declare all those who profess or may hereafter profess the pretended reformed religion, capable of holding and exercising all situations, dig. nities, offices, and public trusts whatsoever, royal and seignorial, or belong. ing to the cities or towns of our said kingdom, or to the countries, lands, and lordships in allegiance to us, not withstanding any oaths to the contrary, and to be indifferently admitted and received into such places; and our courts of parliament and other judges shall content themselves with enquiring into the lives, morals, religion, and honest conversation of those who are or may be invested with offices, as well of one religion as another, without exacting any other oath from them than that in the exercise of their charge, they will well and faithfully serve the king, and keep the ordinances, such as they have been observed heretofore. And as to such of the said situations, trusts, and offices, as are in our own gift, any vacancy arising therein shall be filled up, indifferently and without distinction, by any person capable of executing the same; as being a thing which tends to the uniting of all our

subjects. It is our intention likewise, that those of the reformed religion may be admitted into all councils, deliberations, meetings, and functions, which belong to the situations above mentioned, without the possibility of their being, on account of their said religion, rejected or prevented from enjoying the same.”

"Such, then, was the opinion of one of the greatest monarchs that ever reigned over that or any other nation, in times when he had not barely to calculate upon possible disturbance and discontent, but to encounter open opposition. His opinion is thus practically shewn to have been, that even in such circumstances, the best course of proceeding was by conciliation. This was his notion of tranquillising a country. Such an authority is surely not to be despised. not to be despised. And, however difficult it may have been found, in times of so much turbulence, to act fully up to the spirit of this benevo lent edict, and to hold the balance of impartial toleration with a steady hand, yet no man who compares the period during which the edict of Nantes was in force, with that which succeeded its revocation by Louis XIV., will venture to state that the system of toleration tended to cramp the energies, and blight the prosperity of that king

dom.

If the reign of Louis XIV. is always cited as the epoch during which the glory of the French monarchy was matured, if his court was at once the model and the terror of Europe,-it is from that period of his reign, when, under the influence of a mistress and a confessor, he repealed the edict of Nantes, and became the persecutor of his subjects, that we are to date the decline of that glory.

"It is a singular fact, however, that, independently of the edict of Nantes, and even after its revocation, France was allowed to benefit by services,

such as we consider as incompatible with the safety of the dominant religion. Sully was placed at the head of her councils; Turenne, Schomberg, and Saxe, were entrusted with the command of her armies.

"What is it is there any thing which makes intolerance more natural, or more necessary to this country? Is it that a free state must necessarily be more rigorous in withholding political privileges on account of religious opinions, than a government purely monarchical? I have referred to the history of other countries to show the unsoundness of the proposition, that difference of religious opinions is incompatible with political equality. Our own history will show, that, so far from a contrary system being absolutely natural and necessary to this country, so far from its either being indigenous to the soil, or growing out of the freedom of our constitution, our restrictions upon the Roman catholic religion have generally originated in causes external to this country. I infer, that in proportion as those causes cease to operate, the necessity of those restrictions, and consequently their justification, has become less strong.

"From the period of the Reforma tion, during the remainder of the 16th, and part of the following century, a considerable portion of the continent was agitated by wars and quarrels of religion. From the time when this country finally adopted the reformed religion, the British government lost no opportunity of expressing its sympathy with those professing the same creed in foreign states, sometimes in. terfering in their favour by negociations, and sometimes assisting them by arms; and it was in its turn exposed to the machinations of foreign powers of the catholic persuasion, and to the vengeance and intrigue of the catholic church. In this state of things the

government naturally entertained a strong and just jealousy of its own catholic subjects; and accordingly we find every attack upon the crown of England, whether by the arms of a fo eign catholic power, or by the spiritual head of the catholic church, followed by new and more rigorous restrictions upon the catholics of these kingdoms. In Ireland especially, where the Reformation did not make its way, where it must be confessed that little pains were taken to propagate it, in Ireland, which both from the predominance of the catholic religion, and from its being the most vulnerable point of the British empire, was chiefly the scene of foreign intrigue, and the point of foreign attack, these restrictions were multiplied and enforced with peculiar severity.

"From the reign of Elizabeth downwards even to the present reign, the statute-book exhibits a series of penal provisions, rendered necessary, or assumed to be so, for the purpose of keeping down catholic disaffection; a disaffection of which the dread appears uniformly to have increased in proportion to external danger. The war of Philip against Elizabeth, and that which followed the Revolution in 1688, were alike the era and the occasion of new penal restrictions upon Ireland. But is it not equally true, that the abatement of external danger has allowed a proportionate relaxation in the system of internal jealousy and restraint? Was it not reasonable that it should do so? And has not the fact been conformable to the reason of the thing?

"In 1685, the period of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the shores of this country were covered, with a multitude of fugitives from France, imploring asylum and protection: Fugitives of what description? Protestant clergy. Flying from what? A popish persecution. When the

spirit of popish persecution was thus active abroad, we naturally increased our guards and securities against a similar spirit at home. In 1793 again our shores are covered with a banished clergy. Of what persuasion? Roman catholic. Flying from what? An atheistical persecution. Were these events calculated to produce similar impressions? Or did they call for si milar precautions? Undoubtedly they did not. And blind indeed must those persons be to the signs of the times, who would apply to cases so different the same reasoning, or act upon them by an undistinguishing and inflexible rule of conduct..

“But, sir, we did not so reason or so act. The year 1793, the period to which I have last referred, when the dissension of catholic and protestant appeared to be swallowed up in the wider difference between christian and anti-christian: that was the period chosen, and wisely chosen, by the crown, for recommending to the legislature of Ireland, the relaxation of the penal laws against the Irish catholics. The lesser danger disappeared before the greater; and the restraints which were no longer necessary, were properly considered as no longer just.

"As much was done for the Irish catholics at this period as perhaps could be done, while England and Ireland continued separate kingdoms. The question of admission into political office was wisely, if not of necessity, deferred till after the Union. The Únion happily did away that argument from numbers, which, in my judgment, has been always as unwisely urged on one side of this question, as unfairly answered on the other. Most unwisely is it urged by the friends of the catholics; for the boast of numbers sounds too like an attempt at intimidation; but most unfairly is it held out on the other side, to intimidate us the other way, and to induce

us to withhold even what it might be right to grant, because the claimants form a large proportion of our population.

"The Union, however, puts an end to the danger of this argument, without destroying whatever is its legiti mate force. The numbers of the Irish catholics, merged in the whole population of the united kingdom, have ceased to be formidable from their relative, without ceasing to be respectable from their positive amount.

"Such being the advantage derived to this question from the Union, I confess I am astonished to find, that some among the catholics call for a repeal of the Union; and that an honourable gentleman, a strenuous advocate of the catholic cause, has given notice of a motion to that effect.Repeal the Union! Restore the heptarchy as soon!-The measure itself is simply impossible. But with such a question depending in the House, I doubt how far it is possible to entertain the consideration of the present subject to any useful purpose. For, suppose the honourable gentleman to succeed in procuring the repeal of the Union, not only might it become unsafe to concede the catholic claims at all, but in this House we could not even discuss them with propriety. This House could not presume to determine on a subject which would then belong to separate Ireland alone.

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Scarcely less unfair than the use of the argument derived from numbers, is that which is often made of the concessions heretofore granted to the catholics by the legislature. It is affirmed, that those concessions have been extorted in times of trouble and danger; that advantage has been taken of the distresses of the crown, to bring forward claims at the moment when it had no means of resisting them. Nothing can be more untrue than this statement; which proceede

entirely on a confusion between the claims of Ireland, as against England, and those of the catholics of Ireland, which are totally different things. I will not now enter into any enquiry, whether the concessions made to Ireland in 1782, were or were not wrung from the British government by the necessities and difficulties of the times. It is sufficient to remark, that those concessions were not concessions, to the catholics, but to the protestant parliament of Ireland; that in the boasted adjustment (as it was called) of 1782, not one word was contained which ameliorated the situation of the catholics, or in any degree affected their interests. So far is it from being true, that what has been granted to them has been granted to menace, that it has not, in point of fact, been granted even to supplication. Their petitions had been rejected by the Irish parliament; and the crown afterwards voluntarily came forward, and suggested to that parliament a spontaneous compliance with the prayers which it had previously refused. And to this is to be added, that in almost every statute which has passed to improve the situation of the catholics, their uniformly peaceable and loyal conduct has been recited in the preamble, as occasioning and justifying the concession.

"In looking at the nature and extent of the concessions which have thus been made to the catholics, and at the state in which they were left at the Union, will any man contend, that the point at which those concessions have stopped can have been selected as that at which it was seriously intended they should remain? Is it not obvious upon the slightest consideration, that to have opened the elective franchise to the catholics, and to preclude the exercise of it in favour of candidates of their own persuasion; that to have admitted them to the bar, and

to exclude them from the bench, would, if considered as a permanent arrangement, be one of a most per verse and dangerous nature? But it would be perfectly intelligible that such concessions should be made by degrees; and that the consummation of them, and especially that the admission to seats in the House of Commons, should have been purposely postponed till after the Union of the two parliaments.

"I protest, if I were to look upon the arrangement as permanent, I should doubt whether the seat in the House of Commons might not have been granted with less danger, than the right of voting for members, disjoined from the eligibility to serve. In the former case the conduct of the catholic member would have been influenced and controuled by his protestant constituents; but the irresponsible exercise of the elective franchise admits of no controul; and, powerful as the catholics are, and growing daily more and more powerful by the growing extent of their property, how is it to be supposed that the catholic constituents should not influence and controul the conduct of their protestant representative? It was natural to postpone the admission into parliament till the Union, lest there should be in time a preponderance of catholic members in the local parliament of Ireland; but as applied to the united parliament, I profess, I see no danger from the admission of catholic members from Ireland, which does not arise in an equal, or in a more eminent degree, from the power of returning members being vested in the catholic population.

"Look next to the situation of the Irish bar. In proportion as other walks of liberal profession are shut to the catholics, must the numbers of them be greater who will naturally flock into the profession of the law,

Comparing the amount of the catholics with that of the protestant population in Ireland, at no distant time a great proportion of the bar must be of the catholic persuasion. There is no reason on which to presume, that the talents of the catholic barristers will not be equal to those of their protestant competitors; and it is in the very nature of things, that so long as the catholic population are depressed below the level of their protestant fellowsubjects, they should feel towards each other with the spirit of a sect, and preferably throw their business into the hands of those of their own persuasions. I have the highest opinion of the profession of the law; a profession which has produced so many eminent men, ornaments and supports of the state; and which is generally characterized as much by liberality as by talents. But it is no disparagement of that honourable and able profession that great talents are won to the support of the state by honourable expectations, and by the prospects of just reward. And if the bar of Ireland are to be illiberalized, (if I may use that word to express my meaning,) and their views to be contracted and debased, by being confined merely to the acquisition of money, to the exclusion of any object of honourable distinction-would not the character of the bar be materially altered? And ought we not seriously to consider what might be the danger to the state from a body of such ability and influ. ence, if an impassable limit and barrier were to be put to the hopes and exertions of a generous ambition?

to say,

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They who refer to the French revolution, and justly refer to it, as a lesson of dreadful warning, would do well to consider some of the leading principles, and predisposing causes, I will not say from which it arose, but by which the mass of the French people were prepared for it. None of

these causes was more prominent, or more universally acknowledged by all thinking men, than the existence of those fanciful and artificial barriers, by which an insuperable line of sepa ration was drawn between the higher ranks of the community, and those whose wealth, or talents and services, might raise them to acquired eminence. This line was drawn with precision, and observed with rigour; but it was drawn only in the manners and prejudices of society. Here you have established it by statute; and established it against a profession, whose daily studies are conversant with the consti tution of states, and with the general principles of human society,-whose daily practice is of a nature to kindle and keep alive the spirit of aspiring ambition,-whose habits and qualities fit them to be leaders of the people.

"Look forward a few years to the period when the mass of the bar being catholic, and the mass of the business in their hands, a briefless protestant must nevertheless be selected to fill any vacancy on the bench. Every one knows what is the reciprocal influence of an enlightened bench and an enlightened bar; the mutual check and controul of authority on the one side, and of opinion on the other. Conceive a state of things in which that check should cease to operate on one side, by the loss of that eminence which is the soul of all authority on the bench, conceive a catholic bar pleading to catholic juries, before judges who have been placed upon the bench, not for their wisdom but for their faith, and imagine what conse. quences must follow!

"I do not say that this is now the case, I know it is otherwise; but I am tracing the inevitable operation, in times to come, of principles to which the concessions already made to the Roman catholics have given life and activity. I am contending against

the