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resorts from intolerable heats, and from perpetual danger of convulsion.

Our lot is happily cast in the temperate zone of freedom: the clime best suited to the development of the moral qualities of the human race; to the cultivation of their faculties, and to the security as well as the improvement of their virtues :-a clime not exempt indeed from variations of the elements, but variations which purify while they agitate the atmosphere that we breathe. Let us be sensible of the advantages which it is our happiness to enjoy. Let us guard with pious gratitude the flame of genuine liberty, that fire from heaven, of which our Constitution is the holy depository; and let us not, for the chance of rendering it more intense and more radiant, impair its purity or hazard its extinction!

The noble lord is entitled to the acknowledgments of the House, for the candid, able, and ingenuous manner in which he has brought forward his motion. If in the remarks which I have made upon it, there has been any thing which has borne the appearance of disrespect to him, I hope he will acquit me of having so intended it. That the noble lord will carry his motion this evening, I have no fear; but with the talents which he has shown himself to possess, and with (I sincerely hope) a long and brilliant career of parliamentary distinction before him, he will, no doubt, renew his efforts hereafter. Although I presume not to

expect that he will give any weight to observations or warnings of mine, yet on this, probably the last, opportunity which I shall have, of raising my voice on the question of Parliamentary Reform, while I conjure the House to pause before it consents to adopt the proposition of the noble lord, I cannot help conjuring the noble lord himself, to pause before he again presses it upon the country. If, however, he shall persevere, and if his perseverance shall be successful-and if the results of that success shall be such as I cannot help apprehending-his be the triumph to have precipitated those results-be mine the consolation that to the ut most, and the latest of my power, I have opposed them.

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ROMAN CATHOLIC PEERS' BILL.

APRIL 30th, 1822.

MR. CANNING.-If I could flatter myself with the expectation of conveying to the minds of those who hearme, the same conscientious conviction that is impressed upon my own, of the justice and expediency of the measure which I am about to recommend to the consideration of the House, I should approach this question with a feeling of confidence, such as I have never before experienced. If I now approach it with feelings of a mixed nature; with much of hope, indeed, but with much of trepidation and anxiety, it is because, if my motion should unhappily fail of success (I trust it will not fail), I have no refuge in the doubtfulness of my case, none in the paucity of arguments to be adduced in support it, from the painful but unavoidable conclusion, that a cause unquestionably just, will have been lost by the inability of its advocate.

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Before I proceed to state the grounds on which I shall call on the House for the removal of the disabilities under which Roman Catholic Peers labour with respect to their undoubted

right of sitting and voting in Parliament, it may be expedient to get rid of some particular and preliminary objections, which have been made, rather to the manner and form than to the principle of the proposition which I am bringing forward; some within the walls of this House, others in conversation out of doors.

The first objection which I shall notice, is one which was originally started by the honourable member for Bristol (Mr. Bright), and has been just now repeated by the honourable member for Somersetshire (Sir T. Lethbridge), that this motion for the admission, or rather the restoration, of Roman Catholic Peers to Parliament, is an insidious attempt to obtain a partial decision on the whole of what is called the Catholic Question. In contradiction to this objection comes another, which asserts, that the separation of one class of the Catholic community from the rest, must necessarily prejudice the whole. I might in fairness set these contradictory objections face to face, and leave the one to balance the other; but I will offer a word or two on each. If my measure be a step to advance the general question, it cannot prejudice that question; if it be, on the other hand, an obstacle to the success of the general question, then surely it must be hailed with delight by those who wish that question to be lost.

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In one sense, I admit, the proposed measure

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would be of advantage to the general question; in as much as the gain of any one of the several parts of which that question consists, would be a deduction from the amount of the difficulties to be overcome in carrying the whole.

There is another and a more general sense, in which the mere introduction of the present mea sure may be an advantage to the general question; I mean from the discussion which it will occasion. In all cases, founded in truth and in justice, frequent discussion is of itself an advancement; and those who would find fault with me on that principle, tacitly admit that their view of the subject will not bear the test of discussion. But it would not be enough for their purpose to suppress discussion alone. Unless they can check the course of thought and arrest the flight of time, every hour must bring us nearer and nearer to that establishment of truth upon which ultimate success depends.

In any other sense, I deny that the present question can be considered objectionable, on the plea of taking an unfair advantage and it has one great recommendation, peculiar to itself, that it places the matter of dispute on a basis accurately circumscribed, relieving it from many complicated considerations, in which the more general question is necessarily involved. Hitherto it has been objected to the advocates of the Catholic Question, that they did not confine themselves to law

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