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which adds to their solicitude and apprehension, in the firm belief that this power would be exercised in every degree of influence which can be acquired in this United Kingdom by the Catholic See, to the immediate prejudice and final subversion of its religious and civil establishment; and for these considerations, and for others which the petitioners confidently entrust to the accustomed vigilance and discernment of the House, the petitioners are disposed firmly to believe that they shall still have the happiness of seeing those securities which were provided in the wisdom of our ancestors at the enlightened æra of the Revolution, for the protection of our reformed Church and the preservation of our civil liberties, faithfully maintained, and in a grateful sense of the blessings which, under Providence, they have conferred on us, transmitted inviolate to posterity, and remain. ing the stability of our revered constitution to a distant futurity."

A Petition of the archdeacons and clergy of the archdeaconries of Lincoln and Stow, was also presented; setting forth,

Claims of the Roman Catholics, vied by other nations, and enjoyed by none; and that, were the disabilities and disqualifications of the petitioners' fellow subjects professing the Roman Catholic religion such as would affect their liberty of conscience, their free exercise of religious worship, or any of those privileges which are essential to the happiness of social or domestic life, the petitioners would be the first to promote their removal, but being, as they are, mere restraints against political power, legislative authority, and that influence in the state, from which, for the security of our reformed and established Church, it has been deemed necessary by the Act of Settlement, and by other acts of the legislature, which are esteemed the very basis of our valued constitution, to exclude those who refuse her communion, the petitioners feel every ground for confidence that the House will pause before it compromises or infringes in the first instance, those fundamental laws of the state by which our religious and civil liberties have by the wisest of our statesmen been hitherto considered as best secured, and by which our revered monarch and his august family became entitled to and seated on the throne; and that the petitioners are aware that some men of enlightened understandings and sincere professions, who are advocates for the concession of these claims, have been forward in expressing a desire that other securities of the state should be substituted in the place of the disabilities and restrictions which now exist; but, as far as the petitioners have been able to learn, none have hitherto been publicly proposed, or sufficiently explained, to reconcile contrarieties of opinion, or calculated to give equal stability to the Protestant establishment, or to conduce, however desirable, to the general satisfaction and concord of all his Majesty's subjects; and that the petitioners are unwilling to bring before the consideration of the House those religious tenets which, however revered by their Roman Catholic fellow subjects, are in their tendency and nature inconsistent with a Protestant ascendancy, and a Protestant creed; they therefore merely presume to submit to the House, that while the spiritual influence of the Pope continues undiminished, his temporal power has become subject to the unrestrained controul of the most inveterate and unrelenting enemy his Majesty and his dominions have ever known; the petitioners, therefore, feel a new danger, (VOL. XXIV.)

"That most sincerely attached to that reformed Protestant Church, of which they are ministers, and duly grateful for the peace and tranquillity which this their Church has so long enjoyed, the petitioners feel in their minds the most serious apprehension and alarm at the claims recently laid before parliament by the Roman Catholics; and that, on a careful comparison of the object and extent of these claims, with the principles and policy of those who make them, the petitioners find themselves imperiously called upon to offer the strong, but respectful, expression of their sentiments, in opposition to such dangerous demands, conceiving that it would be utterly contrary to all reason and prudence to put power in the hands of those who, in spiritual matters, openly maintain the supremacy of the Papal authority within this realm, and who, in other respects, are well known to hold opinions incompatible with the safety of the constitution; and that having amply experienced the efficacy of the laws, which the wisdom of our ancestors enacted for the protection of the Protestant establishment, and being thoroughly convinced that they contain in them nothing inconsistent with religious toleration, (which it is matter of the highest satisfac(2 G)

A Petition of the Protestant gentry, clergy, and householders, within the district of Hang West, in the North Riding of York, was also presented; setting forth, "That, with earnest wishes to live on terms of amity and conciliation with their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, they feel with concern, and observe with alarm, their strenuous and persevering exertions to obtain the unqualified repeal of those laws on which the remaining Roman Catholic disabilities depend, and which, if conceded, the petitioners humbly con

tion to the petitioners to see the Roman Catholics in full and complete possession of,) they earnestly pray that these laws may not be repealed, and that if, notwithstanding, for reasons which the petitioners are not aware of, there should appear to the House a paramount necessity for the repeal of those laws, their next prayer is, that the House would substitute such others in their place as, though in different form, may seem equally calculated to produce the same effect, seeing in any thing less strong than the existing securities much hazard to the Protestant in-ceive, would tend to subvert the Protesterest, whilst, from an unqualified compliance with the demands of the Roman Catholics, they could look for little else than its subversion; and that, under the influence of these impressions, the petitioners beg leave, with all humility and respect, to tender this their Petition to the House, confidently trusting, that on an occasion in which the interests of the reformed religion are so vitally concerned, the voice of its ministers will not be disregarded; and that in the wisdom of the House they will adopt such measures as will best maintain the Protestant ascendancy in Church and State, and give stability and permanence to the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the country."

A Petition of the dean and chapter, archdeacon, and clergy of Worcester, was also presented; setting forth,

tant settlement and the principles of the British constitution as established at the Revolution; and that, whenever the Roman Catholic Claims shall become the subject of discussion in the House, the petitioners humbly implore, if the House in its wisdom should resolve that any further privileges (consistent with the spirit and principles of the constitution) may be safely granted to the Roman Catholics, that the same may be so guarded as to afford full and perfect security to the Protestant establishment in Church and State, and to shield it from future encroachments."

A Petition of the mayor, aldermen, and capital burgesses of Harwich, and the clergy and other inhabitants of the same borough, was also presented; setting forth,

"That they are justly alarmed at the "That the petitioners, considering rehigh tone assumed by the Papists in Ire-ligious toleration as one of the most strikland in their late petitions to parliament; and that the petitioners have no wish whatever to abridge the religious toleration they enjoy, but they dread an increase of their political power, and do therefore most earnestly intreat the House in their wisdom to consider whether such power, if conceded, would not tend to endanger the Protestant establishment, interwoven with the constitution of these realms; by the statements of the Roman Catholics themselves, the character of their Church is known to be inconsistent with our civil and religious liberties, and to be subversive of the king's ecclesiastical supremacy; and that dear to the petitioners is the liberty they enjoy, and revered the constitutional power of the monarch, but dearer still are the tenets of our holy faith, and the pure doctrines of our apostolical Church, which by the most sacred ties they are bound to continue and uphold."

ing features in the constitution of the united church of Great Britain and Ireland, have viewed, with the greatest satisfaction, the gradual amelioration of the condition of their Roman Catholic brethren, and rejoice in seeing them possessed of the most unbounded liberty of conscience, and the full, free, and public exercise of their religious worship, together with the most perfect freedom of both person and property; warned, however, by the recording page of history, the petitioners look back with horror to that period, when armed with political power, the Catholic religion deluged this happy country with blood, and now, notwithstanding the great respectability of numerous individuals attached to that communion, the petitioners feel the strongest apprehensions that similar causes may, at some future period, give rise to si milar events; and that these apprehensions are very much increased by the manner in which (as the petitioners understand),

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claims of the Roman Catholics, was filled
from beginning to end with quotations
made from the Anti-Jacobin Review, of
the Third Part of "A Statement of the
Penal Laws affecting the Roman Catholics."
It was well known to every individual at
all acquainted with the subject, that this
third part was a malicious and contemp-
tible, fabrication, published for the pur-
pose of defeating the just objects of a
much injured portion of the king's sub-
jects, and it betrayed the grossest igno-
rance on the part of the person who cited
it, as any authority to justify a Petition
in opposition to their claims. This for-
gery, had, however, been successfully
employed on this and on many other oc
casions; it had been circulated through-
out England with an industry that would
Not
have well become a better cause.
only was the work itself transmitted to
every country town, to mislead the igno-
rant, but pamphlets were written, and ar-
guments employed, founded upon the
false data supplied by this gross, malig-
nant, and mischievous imposition upon
public credulity. The House and the
country, from such statements, might
the
judge of the weight due to petitions, most
frequently obtained by working upon
feelings, and deceiving the ignorance of
the people of England.

Claims of the Roman Catholics. their Romish fellow subjects are endeavouring to obtain political power and authority; and they think it a bad presage of the use hereafter to be made of those acquisitions, when, instead of approaching the House in the language of humility, many of their accredited and most popular leaders demand them as their indisputable rights, at the same time refusing to give any adequate security in return for the preservation of the civil and religious rights of their Protestant brethren; and that another weighty cause of apprehension to the petitioners arises from the situation in which the spiritual head of the Roman Catholics is at present placed, he being completely in the power, and entirely at the command, of the most artful and inveterate enemy this country ever had to contend with; how the unbounded influence he possesses over the minds of his too faithful adherents would be exercised when under such controul, the petitioners consider so apparent, that they should not have submitted it to the House but from the strong conviction that that influence which, from the present state of political power in this country is innocuous, would then be employed to arm our Catholic fellow subjects against us, and might ultimately be productive of the destruction of our most glorious constitution; and that, confiding however as the petitioners do in the unshaken fortitude and wisdom that has hitherto always been displayed by the House, in the most trying emergencies, they humbly trust that, should it be found expedient to alter any of the existing laws in favour of the Roman Catholics, it will be on such terms as shall secure in violate to the latest posterity that happy constitution in Church and State which has been purchased by the dearest blood of our ancestors, and which has so long made us the envy and admiration of surrounding nations."

When the Petition from Anglesea was presented,

Dr. Duigenan thought that the worthy baronet was needlessly alarmed, since, even supposing that the pamphlet were such as he had described it, it could not make that deep impression upon the minds of the sensible people of England which he had imagined: it was unfounded to assert, that the petitions against the Catholic demands were founded upon statements and arguments derived from the Third Part of the Statement of the Penal The resistance offered throughout Laws. the country, and in the House when the debate should take place, would be grounded upon the first and second parts of the Statement of the Penal Laws, written under the direction of the Catholic committee, and containing their exposition of the grievances under which they labour. He recommended the worthy baronet to read them, that he might be prepared against the discussion of the Catholic question, if he had not already perused them; and if he was acquainted with them, he defied him to maintain that they were not authorised by the Catholic body of

Sir Henry Parnell rose for the purpose
of stating some extraordinary circum-
stances that had come to his knowledge
respecting the Petition now offered. At
the meeting which was convened for the
purpose of suggesting it to the county,
the gentleman who proposed it, made a
speech of an hour and three quarters long,
in order to prevail upon his hearers to
adopt it. This address, instead of detail-Ireland.
ing facts, or urging arguments against the

Sir H. Parnell replied, that although he

did not know what right the right hon. doctor had to catechise him, he had no objection to answer, that the two first parts of the Statement of the Penal Laws were authentic: he believed them to be the production of a gentleman who was employed by the general body of Catholics, to lay an exposition of the laws before the public. He feared that the learned doctor had not himself perused them, or he would never have persisted in his opposition to the just rights of four millions of the King's subjects. That the two first parts of the Statement were accurate he had no doubt, since he had found all the references made to the statute book to be correctly given.

Dr. Duigenan begged to ask if the hon. baronet did not know that those two first parts were the work of the whole body of Catholics?

which their arguments would be seconded by the country. Their arguments were founded in falshood, and their support was obtained by forgery.

Mr. Tighe observed, that the Roman Catholics would concur in any fact adduced in the two first parts of the Statement upon them they would willingly rest their cause. Who was the author of this scandalous fabrication he did not know, but he trusted that the criminal would soon be dragged from his lurking place into public view. Although it must be known to be a malicious calumny, it had been industriously circulated free of postage, to every part of the kingdom, and it had actually issued from one of the government presses of Ireland. Whether it were intended for wit or for malice he knew not-the author had failed in the former; in the latter he had been too successful; it was the dull work of some dull underscribe of the Irish government; its dullness was only exceeded by the stupidity of those who could for a moment give credit to it.

Mr. B. Paget adverted to the number of respectable signatures affixed to the Petition; it had been in Beaumaris only two days, and yet 800 names were subscribed.

Mr. Grattan remarked, that the Third Part of the Statement of the Penal Laws had been expressly denied by the Catholics of Ireland to have originated with them, and he read to the House the fol

Mr. Whitbread wished to make one or two observations on what had fallen from the right hon. doctor, who now appeared in the hey-day of his triumph. Time had been when the learned doctor had taken a most active part against the Catholics; time had been, when for a whole session, he had maintained a most unaccountable silence: the House was now threatened that a time would come when another speech would be heard from the same quarter; and the learned doctor took upon himself to say, not only that his own, but that the arguments of all gentlemen on that side of the question, would be drawn from the two first parts of the State-lowing Resolution the body had come to ment of the Penal Laws: they had concerted together as to the line of their proceedings, and they were to fasten themselves on what the learned doctor called the work of the whole Catholic body. It appeared that the Petition now offered was founded upon a fabrication; it originated in a disgraceful forgery, and the House was called upon to listen to the language of those who had been cheated into a resistance to those claims, which, but for the gross imposition, they might have supported. The third part of the Statement purported, like the two former, to be the work of a Catholic, but it was in truth the production of some venal Protestant, who had attributed to the Catholics sentiments that they abhorred. The learned doctor had thought it right to volunteer a declaration of the mode in which his colleagues would resist the reasonable claims of some most injured individuals, and this Petition would afford a specimen of the mode in

upon the subject, on the 6th instant, at Dublin:-" Resolved, that a pamphlet entitled The Third Part of a Statement of the Penal Laws which aggrieve the Catholics,' having been industriously circulated throughout England, for the manifest purpose of misleading our fellow subjects, and counteracting the growing liberality of sentiment, is now disclaimed by the Catholic Board, who cannot suppress their astonishment at the success of the imposition: that the said pamphlet is a gross and defamatory mis-statement-a malignant and malicious forgery, slandering our views and principles-misrepresenting our just and reasonable complaints-falsely purporting to be the authorised publication of the Catholic Board, and really originating in a venal branch of the Dublin press, and which, however received and credited in the sister country, has not imposed upon a single individual in this." The right hon. gentleman

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Starch Prohibition Bill.

submitted, that petitions resting upon such a basis, could be entitled to no respect in that House or the nation.

Mr. Peel rose in consequence of what fell from the hon. member who had accused the Irish government of being the author of the work in question. To-night he had heard, for the first time, from what press it had issued, and he only was made acquainted with the fact of the publication, by receiving a copy of it, accompanied by a letter from the anonymous author. How far it was necessary for the Catholics to attempt to counteract its effect, he would not determine. It was said that no assertion or quotation made in the two former parts were incorrect; it might not be amiss to apprize the House, that the printer of them, a few days since, was convicted of a libel, charging the Lord Lieutenant with deliberate murder.

Mr. Whitbread. This is the first time I ever heard it said, that because a man had been found guilty of a libel, he could not correctly quote an act of parliament.

the argument of the right hon. baronet,
that the strict letter of the Act of Union
should be adhered to, were pushed to its
full extent, it might be said, that though,
by its provisions, they were allowed to
legislate for corn, flour, meal, and biscuit,
yet they must not legislate for bread.
The suspension of the manufacture in Eng-
land, had occasioned unbounded specula-
tion in the sister country; and he had
received a letter from a gentleman in Kil-
kenny, stating, that a person there had
thrown up the business of a tanner, for
the purpose of turning his premises into a
starch manufactory. Such speculations
as these must necessarily consume a vast
proportion of grain, proper for the suste-
For the sake of encou-
nance of man.
raging the manufactures of Ireland, when
the restriction took place in England, it was
not extended to the former country, there-
fore, he argued, that, if there was an infrac-
tion of the Act of Union, it was in favour
He then stated, that his right
of Ireland.
hon. friend, the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, having some reason to doubt whether
the Starch Restriction Act, introduced by

hoped, in preventing the manufacture of
that article, intended to repeal it: and it
was considered better that the subjects of
both countries, in compliance with one of
the articles of the Act of Union, should be
put on an equality, by permitting each of
them to proceed in the manufacture, than
by prohibiting them both.

Mr. Canning, from his own personal experience could declare, that this fabrication, in more than one instance, had pro-him last session, was so effectual as he duced an improper impression: it had induced persons before friendly to conciliation to become hostile to it, upon the Of this fact he was perusal of the work. apprized by letters he had obtained from several persons of respectability, who assured him, that up to the moment before they read this forgery, they were in favour of the Catholics; and that their change of sentiment was entirely to be attributed to it. He had never himself read it; but if it were what it was stated to be, he was happy that so public a disavowal had been given.

Mr. Ponsonby did not mean to discuss the merits of the measure which the hon. gentleman had abandoned; but he wished to observe, in consequence of what fell from the hon. gentleman, that it ought not to weigh with the House, whether an in

The Petitions were ordered to lie on the fraction of the Act of Union benefited the table.

STARCH PROHIBITION BILL.] Mr. Peel stated, that it was not his intention to persist in the motion of which he had given notice on the preceding evening, for leave to bring in a Bill to prevent the exportation, from Ireland to this country, of starch and blue. In abandoning the measure, however, he was not influenced by any of the arguments made use of by the right hon. baronet (sir J. Newport) in the short discussion which took place last night. For he did not see the impropriety of preventing the export of those articles from Ireland, when their manufacture was suspended here. Indeed, if

2

manufacturer of this country or of Ire-
land; their only duty was, to maintain
The articles were
the Act as it stood.
equally binding on both countries, and all
the House had to do was to see that they
were strictly complied with.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer concurred in the justice of the right hon. gentleman's observation; but was of opinion that the measure of his hon. friend, if carried into effect, would not have been contrary to the spirit of the Articles of Union. He then moved that the British Starch Prohibition Bill be entered as read; and gave notice, that he would to-morrow move that it be taken into consideration by a Committee of the whole House.

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