the hon. general had expressly enjoined the Catholics to forbear petitioning the throne; but he had advised them not to petition the legislature, and in his apprehension the throne was a component part of the legislature. obtain a sight of the Petition till the other day, when it was shown him by a gentleman in the town of Cashel; and he be lieved that to this hour it had never been seen by his colleague. He was sorry that he was obliged to correct the statement made by the hon. gentleman of what he had said at the hustings at Clonmell. That he did make use of strong language he was ready to admit he had addressed the people from the top of the mail-coach; the assemblage was pretty numerous too, as had been stated; he was fond of speaking to a large audience; and what he had then said, he would very willingly repeat to-morrow in the House, thus redeeming the pledge to which the hon. gentleman had adverted. He had, indeed, expressed a most violent animosity to ministers, and recommended that no effort should be spared to bring about their downfal; to which, he had added, he would himself contribute with every possible energy. He was obliged to contradict what the hon. gentleman had stated with respect to his having dissuaded his auditors from petitioning the throne. He had never done so, and he was glad that the present opportunity was offered him of making that assertion, because he had heard that the hon. gentleman had, in the morning, made the same charge against him in private which he had now done in public, and that in the presence of a person for whom he had the greatest possible esteem; and, moreover, that the charge had been coupled with another, purporting, that he had spoken unfavourably of that person, That he had never done so, he solemnly protested, nor ever cherished a sinister feeling towards the person in question, but, on the contrary, felt entirely grateful for the kindness he had experienced from him. He had most strenuously advised him not to have any thing to do with the present ministers, and this, he must be satisfied, was a service he would not have perform ed towards any one to whom he did not wish well. As to what he had said to the Catholics, with respect to their rights, he was always of opinion, that to what they were now seeking, they had a right by virtue of the treaty of Limerick; and he had not only on the recent occasion, but on all others, counselled them to demand instead of petition, for the restitution of their rights; and he regretted much, that he had always found his entreaties to that effect unavailing. Colonel Bagwell would not allege that The Speaker then required to know, if the hon. gentleman had any reason to doubt the originality of the signatures affixed to the Petition? And, having received an answer in the negative, He next required to know, if the hon. general had any reason to doubt whether they were original? To which question general Mathew having replied that he had none but public report, the Petition was ordered to lie on the table. On presenting the Petition from the Protestant noblemen, &c. of Kilkenny, Lord Desart said, he had in his hand a Petition from the Protestants of one of the most Catholic counties in Ireland, signed by men who were not merely theoretically conversant with the nature of the claims now preferred by the Catholics, but who, living among the Catholics, and thereby attaining a thorough understanding of their feelings and dispo sition, were thoroughly qualified to form a judgment as to the expediency or inexpediency of complying with their demands. At the meeting from which this Petition had emanated, colonel Gore was in the chair, a gentleman who had formerly expressed his inclination to promote the interest of the Catholics; but whose change of opinion, not showing any undue versatility in him, which it cer tainly did not, should impress the advo. cates of the Catholics with a strong sense of the necessity of moderation in their endeavours to serve them. Sir J. Newport denied that the Petition could be considered as what it purported to be-a Petition from the Protestant inhabitants of Kilkenny. He would mention a fact, which would at once show the House the impropriety of considering it as such. At the place where the meeting was first convened, so adverse a disposition was inced by the freeholders to the object of it, that the noble lord and his associates were obliged to remove to a private house, and pass their resolutions. At the first meeting, that at which this disapprobation had been evinced, there were several noblemen present, and it was the brother of lord Ormond who moved that the meeting should be dissolved; on which the utmost confusion ensued, those Petitions respecting the Catholics. [732 proceed with a statement of what occurred at the meeting, a cry for adjournproceedings, immediately set up, in which ment was, at the commencement of the a number of Catholics who had obtained join; and, in consequence, though the admission were, of course, not slow to persons who had met for the purpose of who were favourable to the object for which it had been convened, and were dissatisfied at their not being able to smuggle a petition, contending that the chairman should not put the question. The high sheriff of the county had refused to call a meeting at the instance of the noble lord and his associates, and had moreover refused to let them use the court-petitioning, only desired leave to express house for the purpose. Under these circumstances he thought he was fully justified in asserting that the Petition was not from the Protestants of Kilkenny, but was that of certain individuals. He was confident that it was disapproved by seveneights of the inhabitants of that county, and even the Protestants who disapproved of it possessed much more property than the noble lord and his associates. their sentiments, no such leave would be granted. The majority of the Protestants then left the room, and the persons who remained voted a person into the chair, which, he believed, they were afterwards and proceeded to pass resolutions, of very much ashamed. Of the persons who had subscribed, many did so under the influence of menaces used by their landto do so, and many of these had afterlords for the purpose of compelling them wards come to him, expressing their sorrow for having yielded a reluctant conto the duty they owed to their king and sent which they conceived to be contrary permitted to sign the Petition he had now country, and desiring that they might be the honour to present. He, conceiving that any injury which might result to them from doing so, would reflect more their signatures, had dissuaded them from discredit on the country than the want of duct they had witnessed at the meeting, doing so; but many, incensed by the conpersisted in their resolution, and actually had affixed their signatures, conceiving that there was no law to exclude the patrician order of Protestants from making known their sentiments to the legislature. held in his hand was as well entitled as He would maintain, that the Petition he any other to lie on the table of the House. Lord Desart was glad that the right hon. baronet did not happen to be present at the meeting, the proceedings of which he had described to the House; because, that being the case, he could without any breach of politeness assure him, that nothing of what he had stated to have happened there, had happened. Most of the persons at that meeting had signed the Petition before they left the room. [Here sir J. Newport exclaimed, "No!" and his lordship insisted such was the fact; they had signed it in his presence.] right hon. baronet had imposed on him a The very disagreeable task, that of revealing what had passed at the meeting, for many of those who concurred in a part of the proceedings, had expressed their sorrow for the part they had taker, and wished much that nothing should transpire upon the subject. First then, he had to state, that the high sheriff of the county had signed the Petition before he left the room, though he had refused in his official Sir J. Newport said, he had no objection capacity to summon a county meeting, fessed to be what it was not a Petition to the Petition being received, but it proand had, moreover, assured him that he from the Protestants of the county of Kilentirely approved the sentiments which kenny. He wished to know, if the people had dictated it, though prevented by his who thought in the same manner with the official duties from concurring in his pub-noble lord, at the meeting in question, lic capacity to promote the object of the meeting. And here, perhaps, it would not be irrelevant to animadvert on the exultation with which the right hon. baronet, surrounded as he was by the friends of liberty and toleration and emancipation, had stated the refusal of that place to the Protestants, to assemble in and embody their opinions in a Petition to the legislature, from which the Catholics had been frequently permitted to issue their resolutions and menaces. But to formed the majority of that meeting, why to lie upon the table. On presenting the Petition' from Chi chester, tion would have been signed by a greater from an abominable publication, purport-speak unfavourably of that which they ing to be the third part of "A Statement were desirous of supporting, when they of the Penal Laws affecting the Roman heard such language as was made use of Catholics," were industriously circulated by some of the advocates of the Catholic from door to door, and occasioned many claims. Had the right hon. baronet been individuals to withhold their signatures. present on a former day, he would have He understood the same base act, for he heard his hon. friend (Mr. Peel) manfully could call it nothing else, was resorted to and candidly disclaim, on the part of the elsewhere. Now, he had always heard it Irish government, any knowledge of the stated, that any publication, the motive of publication which had been so often rewhich was to disturb the public peace, was ferred to; he would have heard him say; a libel. The publication to which he al- that a printer was prosecuted, not for publuded, could have no other object but to lishing the two first parts of The State- create dissention between the Roman Ca- ment, but because he had promulgated tholics and the Protestants; to excite that which accused the lord lieutenant of those two classes of his Majesty's subjects Ireland of the foul crime of murder. The against each other; and to place a bar be- publication itself appeared to him to be so tween the respectful representations of the clumsy a production, that it could impose Roman Catholics, and the deliberative upon no person; even as an ironical atwisdom of parliament; he was sorry tempt, it was ridiculous. He was contherefore that government had not pro vinced that those who were accused of ceeded against its author. being privy to it, were innocent of any such knowledge; and he declared, that he would not belong to a government that could be guilty of such a practice. Sir J. Newport said, that the libellous and malicious publication alluded to was not confined to Chichester, but had been spread throughout Yorkshire and Lancashire; when such shameful artifices were resorted to, it sufficiently marked the character of the cause which demanded such support. He complained, that such a gross and villainous libel on a whole people, was not taken notice of by the go. vernment of that country whence it proceeded. It notoriously issued from a press favoured by that government, It proceeded from the office of The Dublin Journal, which, with its worthy compeer, The Patriot, was supported by the public money. Why, he asked, had not the government exerted those powers, which, on other occasions, they were ready enough to make use of, in punishing the author of this atrocious work? Why had not they directed the Attorney General to file an information on the subject? But their thunders were reserved for other objects. They could prosecute the printer of the two first parts of The Statement, but they overlooked the false and malicious publication, purporting to be The Third Part, although it tended to fill the country with dissention and bloodshed. Mr. W. Fitzgerald lamented to think that they were coming to the momentous discussion on the claims of the Roman Catholics, with so much heat and violence of temper. As a friend to the Catholics, he must say, that those persons connected with the government, who wished well to their cause, were almost compelled to Sir H. Parnell repeated the observations he had made on a former evening, as to the correctness of the statements contained in the two first parts of The Statement. He believed the secretary for Ireland was ignorant of the publication of the Third Part; but when it appeared in a paper, under the protection of the Irish government, he did not think it could have passed unnoticed by them. Mr. Peel defended the Irish government from any knowledge of the publication. He then adverted shortly to the libel for which Mr. Fitzpatrick was recently found guilty, and observed, that while he wished to avoid exciting any of those feelings of irritation which the language they had just heard was evidently calculated to produce, he could not help thinking it singular, that the government of Ireland should be expected as soon to file an information against the publisher of a work, which was described as being too clumsy to impose upon any person, as against the printer of a direct and virulent libel against the lord lieutenant of Ireland. The Petition was then ordered to lie on the table. PETITIONS FOR THE REPEAL OF THE TEST Acr.] Mr. W. Smith presented a Petition from the there undersigned Protestant dissenting ministers of the three denominations residing in and about the cities of London and Westminster ; setting forth, matters thereto belonging as a right invaluable and unalienable, and which cannot be innocently surrendered to the pretensions of any human authority; and that, under these impressions, the petitioners are sincerely grateful for the im portant and progressive improvement of their condition in these points during the course of the present reign, and especially for the large concessions so graciously made in the last parliament; but there are some laws yet remaining upon our statute book, which they cannot but con "That the petitioners esteem the capacity for religious worship as the highest "That the petitioners conceiving the distinction of their nature, and regard the right of worshipping God according to practice of it as a sacred duty enjoined by the dictates of their own consciences to Divine authority, but which can be acbe derived from the Author of their being, ceptable in the individual only when perand confirmed by the Founder of their formed with sincerity, and agreeably to Christian faith, and therefore not to be the dictates of conscience; that they are subject to the controul of human autho- hereby inevitably led to deprecate the inrity, cannot but regard with deep con- terference of the civil magistrate in relicern those statutes which restrain andgious concerns, and to consider the unfetlimit the exercise of this right, and im-tered exercise of private judgment in all pose conditions and penalties that seem to them as unjust in their principle as they are injurious to the vital interests of true religion; and that the petitioners consider those statutes as originally designed to guard against evils which no longer exist, and as expressive of sentiments with regard to the nature and extent of religious liberty, which no longer prevail, at a period when the subjects of the British empire, however they may differ with regard to the principles of their religion and their mode of professing it, concur in a cordial attachment to the fa-template as inconsistent with the free mily on the throne; and when enlightened views of religious liberty, and a corresponding liberality of spirit, have been diffused among religious professors of all denominations; and that the petitioners, expressing their lively gratitude for the concessions, made to their religious rights, in the course of the present reign, earnestly but respectfully pray, that every remaining penal statute, which extends its operation to the province of religion, may be repealed; and that whilst they conduct themselves as loyal, obedient, and peaceable subjects, to the state, they, in common with all their fellow citizens, may be put in possession of complete religious freedom, and allowed to worship their Maker, and maintain their Christian profession according to their own views, and their incumbent duty, without being subjected, under the sanction of law, to any penalties or disabilities, in consequence of their dissent from the Established Church; and that the petitioners, confiding in the wisdom and justice of the House, pray that their cause may be taken into consideration, and the relief granted to them for which they supplicate." Mr. W. Smith also presented a Petition from the there undersigned Protestant Dissenters, of the three denominations residing in and near the cities of London and Westminster; setting forth, exercise of religious worship, and which, if ever they deserved to be considered as proper guards against the dangers of any former periods, may now, even on their own principle, be safely abrogated, when those dangers have so long ceased to exist; and that the petitioners therefore cannot but indulge the hope, that the same wise and liberal spirit, the prevalence of which has already effected so much in their fa-. vour, will break every remaining bond, and abolish every shackle on the entire freedom of religious profession, and that they, in common with all their fellow subjects of every persuasion, may, while they conduct themselves as peaceable and obedient subjects, be permitted to reap the legitimate fruits of upright and loyal conduct in the allowance to maintain their Christian profession according to their own views of faith and duty, without being made liable to any legal pains, penalties, or disabilities, in consequence of their dissent from the Established Church." On presenting the Petition from the Dissenting Ministers, Mr. Smith said he understood it was agreed to without opposition. Mr. Butterworth would not have made any observation on the present occasion, had not the hon. gentleman stated, that the unanimous opinion of the Dissenting Ministers was in favour of presenting this Petition. During the last session of par liament, a proposition was made for pre- | THE ROMAN CATHOLICS.] The earl of senting a petition, word for word with that which the hon. gentleman had now brought up. In favour of the proposition there were 31 ministers, against it 25, and 12 were neuter; so that, in fact, a majority of the body did not coincide in its propriety. It was not, however, deemed expedient for those who were opposed to the Petition, and who were a minority, to take any steps on the occasion. Mr. W. Smith said, that of the private transactions of the body, he did not profess to know much; but he would again aver, that the Petition was brought to him yesterday, by a deputation from the body of whom he spoke; that the meeting was called with all due, sufficient and formal notice; and that all who attended it signed the Petition. Even the names of some of those who disagreed (not from any dislike to the sentiments of the Petition, but from other circumstances) last year, were to be found amongst the signatures to the Petition which he now presented, and to which not the slightest opposition was manifested. Mr. Butterworth observed, that some of the persons who were present at the meeting did oppose the Petition; but they did not wish to come to a vote on it. The Petitions were ordered to lie on the table. THE PRINCESS OF WALES.] The Hon. Cochrane Johnstone rose and said, that he intended to submit a motion to the House on Monday next, relative to the proceedings ordered by his Majesty to be instituted on the subject of her royal highness the Princess of Wales. The hon. member was about to offer some remarks upon the importance of this matter, which, he said, affected even the succession to the throne itself, when the Speaker interrupted him by stating, that in giving a notice, it was not usual to enter into any discussion which could possibly create a debate. The hon. member then concluded by observing, that he had thought it his duty, and had accordingly done so, to transmit a copy of the proposition he intended to move, to ministers, that they might be fully possessed of the line he meant to pursue. HOUSE OF LORDS. Thursday, February 25. PETITIONS RESPECTING THE CLAIMS OF (VOL. XXIV.) Harewood presented a Petition from the inhabitants of Halifax, against the Roman Catholic Claims. The earl of Egremont presented a similar Petition from the borough of Lestwithiel. The earl of Shannon presented a Petition against the Roman Catholic Claims, from the county of Cork. The earl of Charleville presented a similar Petition from the Protestant inhabitants of the Queen's county. All these Petitions were read, and ordered to lie on the table. Marquis Camdén presented a Petition from the freeholders and inhabitants of the county of Kent, against the Roman Catholic Claims. The Earl of Darnley observed, that although at the meeting where this Petition had been signed, a majority might entertain the sentiments of the petitioners, yet he knew it was far from being the unanimous feeling of the county of Kent on this subject. He referred to the opinion of the noble marquis himself, who was formerly so closely united with a celebrated personage of different sentiments to those of the Petition. Marquis Camden admitted, that the Petition was not the unanimous sentiment of the people of Kent, and that his own opinions were somewhat different from those of the petitioners. The Petition being read, was ordered to lie on the table. The Earl of Radnor presented a Petition from the inhabitants of the county of Wilts, against the claims of the Roman Catholics. The Marquis of Lansdowne thought it his duty to inform the House in respect to this Petition, which purported to speak the sense of the people of Wiltshire, that there had been a general meeting called in that county for the purpose of taking the claims, of the Roman Catholics into consideration. A Petition was then agreed to, and signed by a great number of most respectable individuals, which was of a contrary tendency to this Petition, and was directed to be presented to the other House of Parliament. With respect to the Petition presented by the noble earl, it was subscribed not at any general meeting held for that purpose, but by signatures obtained at a number of places; and though he was ready to admit it contained the signatures of a few individuals as highly respectable as any in the county, yet there were others of a different description., (3 B) |