ters, for proposing in the parliament of Ireland a tax of regulation, which is particularly and exclusively to affect the property of those of his majesty's subjects, who possess lands in that kingdom, but whose ordinary residence is in this. It is in the same manner publicly understood, that this extraordinary design has been encouraged by an assurance from administration, that if the heads of a bill proposing such a tax, should be transmitted from Ireland, they would be returned with the sanction of his majesty's privy council here, under the great seal of England. My lord, we find ourselves under the description of those, who are to be the object of this unprecedented imposition. We possess considerable landed property in both kingdoms; our ordinary residence is in England. We have not hitherto considered such residence as an act of delinquency to be punished; or, as a political evil, to be corrected by the penal operation of a partial tax. We have had, many of us, our birth, and our earliest habits, in this kingdom; some of us have an indispensable public duty, and all of us (where such duty does not require such restriction) have the right of free subjects, of choosing our habitation in whatever part of his majesty's dominions we shall esteem most convenient. We cannot hear, without astonishment, of a scheme, by which we are to be stigmatized, by what is, in effect, a fine for our abode in this country, the principal member of the British empire, and the residence of our common sovereign. We have ever shewn the utnost readiness in contributing with the rest of

our fellow-subjects, in any legal and equal method, to the exigencies of the public service, and to the support of his majesty's government. We have ever borne a cordial, though not an exclusive regard, to the true interest of Ireland, and to all its rights and liberties: to none of which we think our residence in Great Britain to be in the least prejudicial, but rather the means, in very many cases, of affording them a timely and effectual support. We cannot avoid considering this scheme as in the highest degree injurious to the welfare of that kingdom as well as of this; its manifest tendency is to lessen the value of all landed property there, to put restrictions upon it unknown in any part of the British dominions; and as far as we can find, without parallel in any civilized country. It leads directly to a separation of these kingdoms in interest and affection, contrary to the standing policy of our ancestors, which has been, at every period, particularly at the glorious revolution, inseparably to connect them by every tie both of affection and interest. We apply to your lordship in particular. This is intended as a mode of public supply; and as we conceive the treasury of Ireland, as well as that of England, is in a great measure within your lordship's department, we flatter ourselves we shall not be refused authentic information concerning a matter in which we are so nearly concerned; that if the scheme, which we state to your lordship doth exist, we may be enabled to pursue every legal method of opposition to a project in every light unjust and impolitic.

The first essay towards relieving catholics from the severities of the penal statutes, was made in 1773. Two bills for this purpose, were brought in by three of the government party, Monk Mason, Sir Lucius O'Brien, and Hercules Langrishe; the one to enable them to receive land security for money lent; the other, qualifying them to take leases for lives. Both were lost; probably not from religious bigotry, a malady to which few statesmen are subject, but from the motives thus pointed out by Edmund Burke: "From what I have observed, it is pride, arrogance, a spirit of domination, and not a bigotted spirit of religion, that has caused and kept up those oppressive statutes. I am sure I have known those, who have oppressed papists in their civil rights, exceedingly indulgent to them in their religious ceremonies; and who wished them to continue in order to furnish pretences for oppression; and who never saw a man by conforming escape out of their power, but with grudging and regret. I have known men, to whom I am not uncharitable in saying, though they are dead, that they would become papists, in order to oppress protestants; if being protestants it was not in their power to oppress papists. It is injustice, and not a mistaken conscience, that has been the principle of persecution, at least as far as it has fallen under my observation."

Though rejected in so disdainful sort by her protestant countrymen, the disputes with America obtained some indulgence. When the British ministry contrasted the patient long-suffering of

the catholics, labouring under the most oppres sive code of penalties perhaps ever framed, with the refractory spirit of the protestant subject in the transatlantic colonies; when they also behold the submissive temper of the catholic province of Canada, lately conquered from France, and the stubborn resistance of the protestant colonies, founded and cherished into growth by England; they thought government called upon to reward the passive loyalty of the one, with some conciliatory mark of approbation. The first consisted, simply, in a permission to every description of his majesty's subjects to testify their allegiance, and is as follows.

"Whereas many of his majesty's subjects in this kingdom are desirous to testify their loyalty and allegiance to his majesty, and their abhorrence of certain doctrines imputed to them, and to remove jealousies which hereby have for a length of time subsisted between them and others his majesty's loyal subjects; but upon account of their religious tenets are, by the laws now in being, prevented from giving public assurances of such allegiance, and of their real principles, and good will, and affection towards their fellow subjects; in order therefore to give such persons an opportunity of testifying their allegiance to his majesty, and good will towards the present constitution of this kingdom, and to promote peace and industry amongst the inhabitants thereof, be it enacted by the king's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons in this

present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that from and after the first day of June, 1774, it shall and may be lawful for any person professing the popish religion, to go before the judges of his majesty's court of king's bench, any justice of the peace for the county in which he does or shall reside, or before any magistrate of any city or town corporate wherein he does or shall reside, and there take and subscribe the oath of allegiance and declaration herein-after mentioned; which oath and declaration such judges of the king's bench, justices of the peace, and magistrates, are hereby enabled and required to administer:

"I A. B. do take Almighty God, and his only Son Jesus Christ my Redeemer, to witness, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to our most gracious sovereign lord king George III., and him will defend to the utmost of my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatever, that shall be made against his person, crown and dignity; and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to his majesty, and his heirs, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against him or them; and I do faithfully promise to maintain, support and defend, to the utmost of my power, the succession of the crown in his majesty's family, against any person or persons whatsoever; hereby utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or allegiance unto the person taking upon himself the stile and title of Prince of Wales in the life-time of his father, and who since his death is said to