their being heretics or infidels, and also that unchristian and impious principle, that faith is not to be kept with heretics or infidels: and I further declare, that it is not an article of my faith, and that I do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that princes excommunicated by the Pope and council, or by any authority of the See of Rome, or by any authority whatsoever, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any person whatsoever; and I do promise that I will not hold, maintain, or abet any such opinion, or any other opinions contrary to what is expressed in this declaration: and I do declare that I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or preeminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm: and I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatever, and without any dispensation already granted by the Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, or any person whatever, and without thinking that I am, or can be, acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration, or any part thereof, although the Pope, or any other person or authority whatsoever, shall dispense with, or annul the same, or declare that it was null or void. So help me God”.

The

Now, I ask, what further answer do you require to the charges urged against the Catholics? There is a further—an indictment or information; a criminal proceeding is the only answer. petitioners against the Roman Catholics may say what they choose as to their good intentions; but with respect to the pamphlets which charge them with murder and treason as their creed, they must charge them with perjury also. If such a pamphlet was written against my Lord Fingall or Sir Edward Bellew, the printer would say in vain that he did not mean such an imputation. Suppose Lord Fingall should indict the author, would he be suffered to produce the canons in his defence? Would my Lord Ellenborough, or my Lord Kenyon, suffer him to extenuate the offence by citing the decrees of the council of Constance or of the council of Trent? No. But the author might urge in his defence, that he had no particular meaning injurious to Lord Fingall or Sir Edward Bellew, but to only four millions of His Majesty's Catholic subjects. But there is another refutation of such a charge against the Catholics -the impossibility of its truth. It amounts to such a pitch of moral turpitude as would burst asunder the bonds of civil and

social intercourse, it would be a dissolution of the elements of society, and of the elastic principle which binds man to man. It is not merely unfounded, but monstrous; it is not in the nature of man, but in the nature of sects, which, when they contend for power, charge each other with what they know to be false.

But there is another argument which I hope the learned divines will excuse me for adverting to. It is, that the Christian religion, or its clergy, are such as to be so described.

I will see the tenets

of the petitioners against the Catholics; I will first examine them when they pray, and then when they petition. When they pray, they address the Deity as a God of mercy and beneficence, who sent His Son on Earth to spread religion, and peace, and love, amongst mankind. When they petition, they suppose that the Deity has abandoned His own revelations; that the human species are sunk in barbarism; that Christians are become monsters; and that the Deity, driven from other nations in Europe, is only preserved by the English divines, the colleges, and corporations. This doctrine goes to establish an excusive right to power and profit, and, when eviscerated, is nothing more than a contest for those objects. I beg to be understood as speaking with the utmost respect for those divines who have petitioned against the Catholics, but I must take some liberty with their arguments. I do not dispute the purity of their motives, I only quarrel with the nature of their opinions; and I hone that the time is not far distant when I shall see the division of sects lost in the union of principles, and behold every denomination acting as one people in one common cause. For what is it, that you would exclude a great portion of your fellow-subjects from the participation of civil rights? They are traitors and murderers according to the tenets which they profess! Here then is a proposition by which you would exclude one-fifth of your population from the benefits of the constitution, in order to drive them into those crimes with which you charge them. If you go on, you will scold yourselves out of your connexion. I hope, however, that parliament will consider, whether the elements of concord may not be found amidst this apparent discord. You say, on the one part, that there are legitimate objections, and you enumerate the evils that may arise from the removal of the disqualification of the Catholics. But a great portion of the Protestants of Ireland have not seen those evils. They have petitioned in favour of the Catholics. I have a book filled with their names in my pocket. I know that it will be said again, that the Catholic insist on conditions. I will not take this argument. You, the parliament, are to frame your bill, and to propose your conditions

The Catholics do not see what security they ought to give. They say, that they have already given every security, though a synod of their bishops has declared that they have no indisposition to every mode of conciliation. "We seek for nothing", say they, "but the integrity of the Roman Catholic church"; but everything which does not trench on the security of their church, or which is necessary for you, they are ready to grant you. They are against making their liberty a conditional boon; they do not see the necessity of what you demand, but they will give you every security you think necessary, provided it does not derogate from the rights of their church. Then, I say, the privileges of the Catholics and the rights of the Protestant church are perfectly consistent, and parliament should find the means of reconciling them.

Give me leave to say, as to the anti-Catholic petitioners, that many of them do not profess themselves hostile to the principle, but anxious about the mode of extending those rights claimed by the Catholics. They do not say: "Exclude the Catholics", but "do not admit the Catholics, unless you take care of our religion". I do not say, that I am obliged to agree that the church of England is an enemy to the liberty of the Catholics, still less that the people of England are enemies to their liberty; so far from it, that I would little fear to repose the question on their good sense and sober integrity I do believe, that if they believed their religion was safe, they would be among the warmest friends of the Catholics. The only point, then, is the security of the Protestant church, and for that they have pointed out the means. They have no right to say, that they are the only judges of the conditions to be imposed, or to tell you that you can only save the church of England by denying their prayers to the Catholics of Ireland. You shall have declared, in the strongest manner, all the securities you can ask; you shall have the crown and its succession confirmed, as fundamental, unalienable, and sacred; you shall have the episcopal church of England, Ireland, and Scotland, as established by law. Some of the petitioners against the Catholics desire the separation to be eternal-I would secure the church and state by identification; they would do it by patronage -I by union. I would effect every object by bringing in a bill, which should contain such provisions as would guard the rights of the church and the colleges and the corporations, and I would leave other provisions to be filled up by others in the committee, provided they were not filled up in such a manner as to qualify, or rather to neutralise, the liberty you were conceding, or to displace the gift you were bestowing. Such a measure I think practicable, and I know

it to be desirable. The preamble I would make a covenant of concord, in which I would urge the necessity of putting an end to all animosities, national and religious. The two islands have been for two centuries in a state of political contest. I would put an end to it. I would have the liberty of the press unrestained in everything but one— the people should not abuse one another out of their allegiance. They have the French and the Dutch to quarrel with abroad, and they may quarrel with ministers at home, or if they do not like that, they may attack the opposition; but they should never wage war against each other. It is a system that you cannot put an end to too soon. You are one people. You have but one interest. The outery which is raised among you, is neither the voice of religion nor the voice of nature, and it cannot be appeased too soon. I would therefore propose as a first step, that the House should go into a committee on the Catholic claims, agreeably to the resolution of the last parliament; and I will now read the resolution which I shall bring forward in the committee as the foundation of a bill: "That, with a view to such an adjustment as may be conducive to the peace, strength, and security of the English constitution, and the ultimate concord of the British empire, it is highly advisable to provide for the removal of the civil and military disqualifications under which His Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects at present labour; making full provision, at the same time, for the maintenance and security of the Protestant succession to the crown, according to the act of limitations, and for preserving inviolable the Protestant episcopal church of Great Britain and Ireland, and the church of Scotland, their doctrines, discipline, and government, as by law established”.

Mr. Grattan then moved, "That this House will resolve itself into a committee of the whole House, to take into its most serious consideration the state of the laws affecting His Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects in Great Britain and Ireland, with a view to such a final and conciliatory adjustment as may be conducive to the peace and strength of the United Kingdom, to the stability of the Protestau establishment, and to the general satisfaction and concord of all classes of His Majesty's subjects".

March 2, 1813.

The debate which ensued on the motion was resumed on the 27th February, 1st and 2nd March, when

MR. GRATTAN rose in reply: He would not, he said, at that very late hour, and in the exhausted state in which the House was, enter into anything but a brief comment upon some observations which he had just heard. I am asked, Sir, why I did not come forward with a specific detail on the part of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, of those grievances, the redress of which they now seek from the legislature, and the securities which they mean to concede. Had I so proceeded, Sir, in what manner would I have been met? I should have been answered: "You, Sir, do not speak the sentiments of the Catholic body of Ireland. You do not speak the opinions of the great population of the land; you merely pronounce the decision of a body calling itself the Catholic Board; you bring before the House the proceedings of a set of men unconstitutionally legislating out of the kingdom-a party now coming forward, not with the view to consult, but to command, the legislature of the empire". Such, Sir, ` would have been the argument by which I should have been received. But the right honourable gentleman opposite (Mr. Bathurst) called upon me to institute an inquiry into the principles of my bill before the proper stage of its discussion, before it should meet with the investigation of a committee. I will do this right honourable gentleman the justice to believe, that his argument in favour of a point so erroneous in principle, so utterly untenable, arises not from his conviction of the correctness of his logic, but is the result of the ministerial situation in which he is placed. He naturally writhes at the idea of this discussion, and easily finds objections to articles not founded in fact. You, Sir, in a committee will have opportunities of considering in the most minute manner the nature of that important subject "Catholic Emancipation".

It is true, Sir, that from various parts of England and Ireland, a variety of petitions have been presented, which now lie on your table. These petitions are of three different kinds. One class from Roman Catholics praying the removal of disabilities under which the penal statutes had placed them. A second class from Protestant communities, in support of the claims of their Roman Catholic fellowsubjects; and a third class, Sir, praying the legislature to guard against the danger arising from granting the prayer of the aforesaid petitions, and imploring parliament to guard the supremacy of the