The hon. member then proceeded to de- | half a century. Those opinions, far from scribe the circumstances connected with being shaken, had been strengthened and his own election, and in the course of his confirmed by daily experience; and he observations he accused his late opponent, was at that moment more than ever conof compromising the Catholic interest, for vinced, that no measure could restore the purpose of securing his return in oppo- peace and tranquillity to Ireland, or prosition to him. He recommended to the vide for the security of the country, which consideration of the House a bill which was founded upon any other basis than he introduced into parliament at the close Catholic emancipation. He certainly was of the last session, to make every voter not prepared to admit the justice of the at Irish elections produce a certificate remark of the hon. member for Clitheroe that he paid his rent, before his vote (Mr. P. Cust), who appeared to think the should be registered. If this plan were union of the two countries nothing, if it pursued, he was of opinion, that the great was only to be preserved by granting Cameasure of Catholic emancipation would tholic emancipation; nor was he prepared be fully answered, and that the cause of to plunge into the other extreme, and excitation and alarm in Ireland would be insist upon the converse of that proposithereby allayed. He contended that Ca- tion; but he was perfectly convinced, that tholic emancipation was a debt due from that union would be more firmly cementthe government to the people of Ireland. ed, and the benefits resulting from it renLord Cornwallis, when lord lieutenant of dered doubly valuable to both countries, Ireland, had assured him, that emanci- by emancipating the Catholics. Another pation should immediately follow the union hon. member, the member for Dublin of the two countries. Without that assur- (Mr. G. Moore), had endeavoured to conance to the Catholics, they would not vince the House, that Ireland was not in have supported government in the passing that deplorable state in which it was reof that measure. presented to be by gentlemen on his side of the House; but, if hon. members who had not an opportunity of judging for themselves on this matter, entertained any doubt upon the subject, he would refer them to the speech of the hon. member for the county of Derry (Mr. G. Dawson), and beg them to recollect the view which he had taken of the state of Ireland. That hon. member, admitting that the present state of things in Ireland could not and ought not to remain, had proposROMAN CATHOLIC CLAIMS AD- ed no remedy for the evil, unless, indeed, JOURNED DEBATE.] On the order of his proposition of having recourse to the day being read for resuming the Ad-"force and violence" could be viewed as journed Debate on the motion made yesterday, by Sir Francis Burdett, Sir J. Newport moved the adjournment of the debate owing to the lateness of the hour, and the improbability of the question being decided without, at least, another night's discussion. The debate was thereupon adjourned till to morrow. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Tuesday, March 6. "That this House is deeply impressed with the necessity of taking into immediate consideration the Laws imposing Civil Disabilities on His Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects, with a view to their relief," Sir John Newport said, that after he had so frequently received that indulgence of the House which was now extended to him, he was quite sensible that he should not be justified in abusing that indulgence, for too long a period. He now rose for the purpose of expressing those opinions which he had entertained for years before he had entered parliament, and during the whole time that he had been a member of that House, now nearly one. For his own part, he was quite sure, that a recurrence to that system, which had reflected so much disgrace on England, and which had entailed so much misery on Ireland--to a system, the effect of which was the setting up one faction to fight with another--which was, in point of fact, nothing more nor less than putting a garrison into a conquered country, would be found to be any thing but a remedy for the distresses of Ireland; and he would ask, if there was any impartial man in that House, who, knowing what the consequences of that system had been, could lay his hand upon his breast and say, that he thought the recurrence to such a system would be either wise in the one party, or salutary to the other? He would con 901 Adjourned Debate. tend, that the gentlemen who were opposed to him on this question, came forward with no scheme of government at all-not to say with no scheme of government which would relieve Ireland from the evils under which she now laboured. The scheme which had been proposed from his side of the House was peace and conciliation; by which England would be relieved from considerable and unnecessary expense, while the condition of Ireland would be, at the same time, materially bettered; and he did conceive, that all those who had the welfare of either or of both countries at heart, had a right to ask gentlemen who repudiated this system, what system they had to put in competition with it? The hon. member for Clitheroe had said, that those who rested the expediency of conceding emancipation on the numbers who claimed it, reminded him of the man who collected a quantity of combustibles around him, and threatened, if hard pressed, to fire the train, and "blow himself and his opponents to the devil together." He was at a loss to understand the application of this, or what the hon. member intended by the expression; but he would remind the House of what lord Bacon had long since said, with that judgment and accuracy of discernment, which always characterized him. In one of his works he spoke thus:-"Concerning the materials of seditions, it is a thing well to be considered for the surest way to prevent seditions (if the times do bear it), is to take away the matter of them for, if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire." The manner in which the hostile feelings of the people of Ireland on this question had been prolonged and inflamed, were the materials of seditions. It would be well to consider them. They were the fuel which had been prepared, and the wisest and the surest way to prevent the fatal consequences which might result was, to remove the cause. As things now were, it was wholly impossible that they should remain. Let not gentlemen lay the flattering unction to their souls, that in another year they might consider the question as well as they could now. Every successive year augmented the evil, and the task that remained for the House to perform, grew in He proportion to the growth of that evil. had heard numerous complaints of the proceedings of the Catholic Association; of the violence of its leaders, and of the He asked pardon of the Mr. Hart Davis said, he thought that the Roman Catholics of Great Britain enjoyed at that moment as much toleration as was consistent with the civil liberties of the country. He felt that, representing a large population, he should not do his duty to his constituents, if he did not express his own opinion and theirs on this important subject. It appeared that the House had now been for more than twenty years discussing, in various shapes, the proposition before them. It had formerly been introduced as a bill; and now it was placed in the form of a proposition, that the House should go into a committee, or something like a committee, for the purpose of inquiring what could be done for the Roman Catholics. This might be a mode well enough calculated to catch a stray vote, but he thought it was not the proper one in which to discuss this ques2 G2 tion. He felt it was arguing in the dark, be incompatible with the law as it now when they were told that they must grant stood, and opposed to the principles of the the Catholic claims, but it was not dis- constitution. Since that period, he had tinctly explained what those claims were. given the subject the fullest consideration He apprehended it would not be denied he was capable of bestowing, and the rethat the king of this country ought always sult of that consideration was, that he had to be a Protestant; that the ministers changed the opinion he formerly held should be Protestants; that the com- [cheers]. In the course of the mature mander-in-chief should be Protestant; and deliberation which he had given to the that the Judges of the land should be question, he had found it necessary to Protestants. He believed that, so far combat his own pre-conceived notions; |. from any concessions having the effect of and he now felt convinced, that the tranrestoring peace to Ireland, they would quillity of Ireland depended on the passbe, as they had hitherto been, only the ing the measure submitted to the House, cause of producing new claims. If that and that the sooner it was done the more which was now asked for should be grant- beneficial would its results prove. Whated, the next thing they would want would ever the danger might be-if danger there be equality of power. And, if they ob- was-in granting the concessions claimed tained that, they would next ask for an by the Catholics, he was satisfied that a equal share in the temporalities of the much greater and more momentous danger church. Of this he had no doubt; for would result from their being withheld. the experience of the past convinced him, He was not sanguine enough to imagine that this had been the certain consequence that granting those concessions would of all concessions to the Catholics. He restore immediate tranquillity. There recollected it had in that House formerly were other causes which had grown out been said, "Grant them the army and of the state of this subject; and time navy, which are points that touch their would be required before those causes feelings, and you will hear nothing of could be altogether extinguished; but he them hereafter." So far, however, was was satisfied, that, when that which the this from being the case, that their claims great mass of the people of Ireland conseemed, in consequence, to have become sidered the most oppressive grievance with stronger than they were before. There which they were burthened, should be were boundaries which, with a proper re- removed, the House would have gone a gard to the preservation of the constitu- great way in appeasing the animosity and tion, the House could not transgress. If rancour which almost desolated the counit should be stated distinctly what it was try, and would have obtained an infallible the Catholics wanted, the proposition test for distinguishing the factious demamight, perhaps, be acceded to; but he gogue from the man who sincerely and would never agree to a motion like that earnestly sought for that ease to his conbefore the House, which pledged them to science, and that civil freedom, which was inquire and find out what it was the Ca- the birthright of every man in a free tholics wanted. He had read lately a country. Great stress had been laid upon production of one of the titular bishops of the conduct of the Roman Catholics at the Catholic Church (Dr. Doyle), in some recent elections in Ireland. That which he told the people, that if the Ca- they had exercised an undue influence tholic claims should be granted, that would over the minds of the people, and manihasten the downfall of the English hie- fested an open hostility to the government, rarchy; and, in the same letter, this right he was disposed to believe; but he doubted rev. prelate had the audacity and folly to much whether that hostility could be discompare the Protestant religion to the armed, or that influence diminished, by idolatrous worship of Juggernaut. He continuing the present restrictions upon would not at that moment go at any length the liberty of the people. It was by reinto the details of the subject, but should moving the cause of that excitement which content himself with giving a decided ne- broke out in a form so fatal to the peace gative to the proposition. and welfare of the country, that these disorders could alone be extinguished. It had been said, that projects of spoliation were meditated by the Catholic priesthood. If that accusation were founded in Lord Eliot said, that when this question had been last before the House, his opinion ad been, that to make any further conessions to the Roman Catholics would 905 Adjourned Debate. truth, and if the day should ever come in which we should have that battle to fight, it was by passing the present measure now that we should be able, in time of need, to fight it upon good grounds, and for the protection of just and lawful rights, without the imputation of having oppressed and tyrannized over the people against whom we should be opposed. He ought to apologize to the House for having trespassed so long upon their attention; but, as he had felt great difficulty on the former debate in this House on the exclusion of Catholic peers from a seat in the other House of parliament, he was glad to have an opportunity of stating his intention to vote, whenever an opportunity should offer, for the restoration of that respectable body to those places which their rank and station, not less than their ancient honour, and their acknowledged merit, entitled them. He was sensible that the change which he now avowed might, if it remained unexplained, have exposed him to the imputation of fickleness of mind. He had, therefore, thought it more manly to state it thus openly, than either to incur that imputation, or to adopt the only alternative which would have been left to him, of persevering in a course which his judgment condemned. The Master of the Rolls then rose. He said, that he gave the noble lord, who had just sat down, the fullest credit for the manliness of conduct which he had displayed on this occasion. Connected as this question was with the vital interests of the empire, it was worthy of the most serious and mature consideration. If, after having given it that consideration, any gentleman felt that he ought to change the opinions he had previously held, nothing could be more manly or more honourable, than to make an avowal of that change fairly and openly in the face of the country. In the present instance, be thought the manner in which it had been made was as creditable to the noble lord, as the avowal itself. For himself, as the representative of a highly distinguished and numerous body of constituents, who had considered maturely and felt deeply, even intensely, on this subject, he trusted that he might be permitted to state to the House his opinions respecting the proposition now before it. The question of Catholic emancipation had been so often and so eloquently canvassed and discussed, that he could not hope to add much that was new on the With respect to the shape in which the hon. baronet had brought forward his proposition, he would not trouble the House with any observations. It was unquestionably his intention that the whole of the subject should be fully discussed, and that the question which agitated the empire should be regarded in all its bearings. The House knew well what it was that the Roman Catholics demanded on the one side, and what they proposed to concede on the other. They asked to participate in the legislature of the nation, and to be admissible to all the offices of the state, with a In reflection on the Catholics of the present day-were endeavouring, day by day, to undermine and overturn the constitution of the country and, in concert with the most bigotted and tyrannical government that ever existed-he meant that of Spain -to introduce again a system which, happily for the liberties of this country, our ancestors had been able to resist and to overthrow. He passed from that period to the reign of James, in which other laws of a similar tendency had passed, and among them that of the oath of allegiance. That oath was imposed, not from a wish to insult the Catholics, but in consequence of an attempt, which it was not necessary for him to describe, but which was in its character so atrocious, that but for the clear and distinct evidence of history, it would be altogether incredible. Again, when the Protestant legislators of former times were charged with bigotry and intolerance, he would pass to the reign of Charles 1st., and request any man who was conversant with the history of his country, to recollect the circumstances which occurred in Ireland, in 1641; when the country was plunged in bloodshed by that insurrection and massacre, which for savage cruelty remained without a parallel. Was it wonderful, then, he asked, that persons seeing these atrocities perpetrated before them very few exceptions. That was the basis They were spectators, too, of what was on which the whole matter rested: that then passing in France-of the sanguinary was the question, the propriety of which persecutions in the Netherlands-and they they were now assembled to discuss. felt that the Roman Catholics of that one respect, our position was a little extra-period-and he meant by this to cast no ordinary. It was one more evidence, that not on this debate alone the House was to limit its view of the matter. The Protestants of England were, in fact, put upon their defence. They were the parties accused. They were charged with intolerance, with religious bigotry, with oppression; and those charges were preferred by the Roman Catholic portion of the community, and by those who advocated their cause. When their accusers told of laws passed to oppress, as they said, the persons professing the Roman Catholic religion; and while they inveighed against the severity of those laws, they carefully kept out of sight the causes by which they had been produced; or if any of their opponents, touched upon those points, they touched upon them lightly. The advocates of the Catholics talked of deceptions which had been practised on their forefathers, of mistakes which had been made, and supposed that those laws which had for many ages formed the bulwark of the liberties of the country, were passed without any adequate cause, and upon mistakes and misconceptions. Until within the last twenty years, the men by whom those laws had been passed, had been considered as the enlightened and sincere defenders of their country, and as zealous advocates for freedom; now, they were talked of as persecutors, and intolerant and bigotted oppressors. Let the House consider, when those laws were adverted to-and he suggested this without wishing to excite any bad or angry feelings on the subject-what were the circumstances of the country under which they were enacted? They commenced with the reign of Elizabeth. Was it upon mere speculation-upon conjectural fears or upon remote apprehensions of danger, that the laws of that day for keeping in subjection the Roman Catholics were enacted? The men by whom they were proposed and passed, had been observers of all that had taken place in the short but eventful reign of Mary, which had just preceded. Most of them had been actors, and some of them sufferers, under the persecutions of those times; and it was to guard against the greatest evils by which society could be afflicted, that those laws had been enacted. feeling a proper attachment to the laws and liberties of their country-and being imbued with the principles of statesmenshould feel themselves called upon to enact such laws as, in those times, and for ever after, should guard against a repetition of similar outrages? He passed on now to the Revolution, when, in consequence of the intrigues which were begun in the latter part of the reign of Charles 2nd, for the purpose of introducing the Roman Catholic religion again into this country, and when the scheme had become more ripe in the reign of his successor, it was vigorously and successfully opposed, and the British constitution was established upon principles of liberty as large, as beneficial, and as noble, as ever characterized any human institution. Why had he adverted to these facts? God forbid that he should be sup |