Mr. Brougham, on his rising, was unable to proceed for a few moments, owing to the passage of several members through the crowded House after the speech of Mr. Peel. The hon. and learned gentleman observed, as the Speaker called to order, that the time of the night, and the state of the atmosphere, were certainly unfavourable for a speech. There were cooler spots in the neighbourhood, and without going far, to which gentlemen might retire. He could assure hon. members that he was only giving that advice which he should be glad to follow himself, under similar circumstances. The hon. and learned member then proceeded :-At so late an hour of the night, and after the able arguments which had been used, both on that and on the preceding evening, by so many noble and hon. gentlemen about him, he could expect only to weaken, rather than strengthen, the impression which those arguments had made, if he were to go deeply, or at any length, into the question; and more especially, after the address which had just been heard from his right hon. and learned friend, the Attorney-general for Ireland; and in which that right hon. and learned gentleman had appeared almost to exceed himself-an address in which wit and eloquence had seemed for a while to strive for the mastery, until conciliatory wisdom stepped in to bear the palm away from both ;--after such an address as this, and rising, as he did, at the latter end of a long and anxious controversy, he felt that he could add little, very little, to that which had already been stated; and that he should best discharge his duty to the House, and to the cause which he desired to serve, by confining that which he had to offer within the narrowest possible limits.

Without adding, by further preface, then, to that which he had to impose upon the House, he should begin by throwing himself loose, with a very few observations indeed, from that discussion, which he could not help regarding as rather a bydiscussion; notwithstanding the stress which had been laid upon it by the right hon. Secretary opposite-he meant the discussion as to the interpretation of the Treaty of Limerick. He had tried the construction given by the right hon. Secretary to that Treaty; but he could not at all enter into it. In the first place, so far from perceiving that the Treaty was confined to a covenant between the general

besieging, and the people of the town which was besieged, he found that there were circumstances mentioned in the instrument, which made it impossible that such should be the case. The governor of the country, for instance, for one party, was named in the Treaty; and, moreover, it was not described as made on the part of the city of Limerick only, but five other counties of Ireland were mentioned as contracting parties to it. And then came the words of the document; which words were perfectly general in their meaning, and certainly referred, not to the persons shut up in the town besieged merely, but to the whole inhabitants of the kingdom. The right hon. Secretary for the Home Department insisted, that these words applied peculiarly to the religious privileges of the Catholics of Ireland-that they said merely, that they, the Catholics, should be free from disturbance in the exercise of the ceremonies of their faith; but the words were plain and distinct, and such as admitted but of one explanation: they were "That the Catholics should enjoy all such privileges as they had enjoyed in the time of king Charles 2nd, and that moreover, their majesties, as soon as they should be able to summon a parliament, would try to procure for them such further securities in those particulars, as would effectually preserve them from any molestation or disturbance on account of their religion;" and he contended that such words could not be taken to mean any thing short of the most unrestrained exercise of their religion, and consequent freedom from all civil disabilities on the account of it. Then, in the next section, came the words "That they (the Catholics) should have all their rights, titles, privileges, and immunities." These expressions were sufficiently large. Then came the description of the oath which was to be administered to each Catholic on his submitting to the new government: and certainly that provision was not meant to apply to the people of Limerick only, but to the inhabitants of the country at large. And then came the declaration, that the oath so to be administered should be the above-mentioned oath, and no otherwhich oath turned out, upon examination, to be merely the oath of allegiance. Now, upon this the right hon. Secretary had brought the interpretation of king William

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sovereign, whose services to this country, as well as to the cause of liberty

throughout the world, he would be the last man to deny; but whose interpretation of that Treaty certainly the House might fairly object to be bound by; especially delivered, as it had been, at the very time when he was violating the Treaty entirely.

But he would put aside this consideration of the effect of the Treaty of Limerick, which he held to be entirely beside the present question, and to which he merely adverted in order to characterize king William's treatment of it as a departure from the general fair and open policy of that monarch; because he had no occasion to go back to the seventeenth century for a treaty of king William to serve his purpose, when he had a better authority so much nearer at hand, in a treaty made in the nineteenth century, and no further back than in the reign of George 3rd. He went not to the authority of lord Somers, but to that of Mr. Pitt; not to the records preserved by bishop Burnet, but to that which appeared upon the Journals of the House of Commons. The right hon. gentleman opposite had ventured to impute indiscretion to Mr. Pitt in that arrangement to suggest, that he had committed himself to terms with the Catholics without sufficient consideration. Why did the right hon. gentleman really believe he would put the point personally to him that Mr. Pitt himself, or the eminent men with whom at that time he acted, or the eminent persons who were at that time connected with the Irish government, among whom, and at the head, was the marquis Cornwallis-did he believe it possible that, upon an occasion of such vital importance, with so many hopes and so many interests at stake, those eminent persons, or any of them, could have ventured to throw out any promise which it was not fully and amply intended to perform? Was it to be credited, that the very inducement, perhaps, which led Ireland to agree to the measure of the Union, had been rashly and lightly thrown out, and almost as lightly listened to, as a promise half given in a hasty moment, and which might be retracted without dishonour, in case it should be found politic or convenient to back out of the fulfilling of it? That promise, in reality, had been of a very different character indeed; it had been deliberately weighed and poised before vtterance was given to it. It had been

deeply considered in this country before it was even transmitted to Ireland. After due consideration there, according to his instructions, by the lord lieutenant, it had been privately communicated to a select circle of individuals, whose name and character was supposed to be likely to influence the country at large in its general decision. The more privately, the less ostentatiously, all this arrangement was managed, the more certainty would be entertained that weight and confidence were attached to it; and, therefore, he dissented from the gloss which the right hon. Secretary attempted to put upon this promise of Mr. Pitt, as much as he did to that which he had attempted to put upon the Treaty of Limerick. He considered this promise of Mr. Pitt as a solemn and sacred pledge given to the people of Ireland; and that view of the subject was confirmed by the notice which was taken of it at the prorogation of the first session of parliament, after the passing of the Union. He believed that, at the time Mr. Pitt made that promise, he meant to keep it; and he believed that he must still have retained that intention, when he advised the king his master to use the words which would be found in the royal Speech on the prorogation of the House of Commons, at the end of the first session of the united parliament :"This great measure, on which my wishes have been long earnestly bent, I shall ever consider as the happiest event of my reign, being persuaded, that nothing could so effectually contribute to extend to my Irish subjects the full participation of the blessings derived from the British Constitution, and to establish, on the most solid foundation, the strength, prosperity, and power of the whole empire." If any man could read these words without perceiving that a recognition of Mr. Pitt's promise was intended by them, he must have a mode of construing the vulgar tongue with which he (Mr. Brougham) was entirely unacquainted. To what did Mr. Pitt allude in that speech? Let those who said that he did not allude to Catholic emancipation say what it was that he did allude to. The words spoke of the full blessing of the British constitution being given to Ireland--what blessing but Catholic emancipation was there to give to Ireland? It was not the gagging bills he presumed; it was not a communion of trades in hardware, or silks, or cottons, or

satins. What participation, he asked again, could Mr. Pitt refer to in that address, but his promise of including all the subjects of Ireland within that civil and religious pale, and giving to them all those civil and religious privileges which already belonged to the other subjects of the empire?

The right hon. Secretary had gone largely into the question, tempted by the nature of the arguments which had been used on the present occasion, and which derived additional weight from the authority of his right hon. and learned friend, the Master of the Rolls. The right hon. gentleman said, that if Catholics were admitted into that House, there would be at least seventy or eighty members who would not take part with the Opposition or with the Ministry, but would vote,_ as Catholics, against the Protestants. But how was it now? They had the same power at present. They elected whomsoever they pleased; and those whom they elected showed their thankfulness, as in other cases, towards those who sent them. The House had been favoured with the secret history of the county of Galway [a laugh]. He referred to the hon. member who represented this matter, he would not say with a want of his usual discretion. That hon. member had avowed, that he owed his seat to Catholic electors; that he derived all his support, and was indebted for all his influence, to the Catholics [hear, hear, from the hon. member for Galway]; and the hon. member was proud to acknowledge the obligation [a laugh]. There was very little doubt there were other members who owed their seats to Catholic voters, and who followed the same line of conduct. There being, then, no question that the Catholics sent members to the House, and possessed influence in it, ought they not to be permitted to choose the man they were most desirous should represent them? They were told that they might choose whom they pleased, provided he was not a member of their own religion: they might pick out a man most likely to be a tool in their hands a restless clamourer against bigotry, actuated by a madness for change, and deranged in his hostility to church and state. They might choose a man, whom he might describe in the words of the right hon. gentleman-a man who should be "not the depository of their judgment, but the organ of their volition."

As Protestants, these men would be more dangerous than as Catholics; and, by Catholic emancipation, a stop would be given to their power of doing mischief.

He would now pass to the long historical disquisition of his hon. and learned friend, the Master of the Rolls, and to the only passage in his speech which really touched upon the subject. The House had been favoured with the Gunpowderplot and Bloody Queen Mary: the only thing of this kind omitted (he presumed his right hon. and learned friend had an imperfect copy of Hume), was the Popishplot. Yet, this might be a true story "dashed with lies;" it might contain just as much truth as other tales of conspiracies. But the story of Bloody Mary was stale, tiresome, inapplicable, and, if he might use the term, puerile; and he little expected to hear a repetition of it from so grave an authority. There was an anecdote of Mr. Fox, who is said to have answered, when somebody complained of his not having visited a friend of his, "That really he could not go, for he was always talking of Bloody Mary'" [A laugh]. In like manner, he should be ready to hear his right hon. and learned friend, whenever he was prepared to discuss the subject again, if he would only abstain from referring to "Bloody Mary," merely to excite a languid cheer, which was always ready when the terms "blood" and "Papist" were attached to each other. His right hon. and learned friend had been compelled himself to admit, after he had luxuriated in the relation, that these horrible subjects did not apply to the Catholics of the present day. Then why were they introduced at all? The House was not now legislating for the Catholics of "Bloody Mary," but for those of George 4th. The history of "Bloody Mary" had no more to do with the case before the House, than Timbuctoo, or the South Sea Islands. This was his excuse for not following his right hon. and learned friend. The objection he had already made applied equally to the Irish massacre.

With respect to the speech of the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department, it was surely little worth his while, for the sake of exciting a few cheers in the House, to bring forward the allusions he had made to the Papal Bull, and the subject of indulgences. Did any one doubt that a Catholic believed in many matters which Protestants held to be absurd? Else why

were we Protestants? It did so happen | (without meaning to refer to the historic lore of his right hon. friend, the Master of the Rolls), that it was just about this chapter of indulgences, that the dispute arose whereby we became Protestants. But, because there might be something ridiculous, something revolting to sound judgment, in the Catholic religion, did it follow, therefore, that those who professed it should be stigmatized? Respecting, as he did, as a member of the Church of England, its ordinances and observances, and believing it to be of all church establishments, the nearest advanced to perfection; still, with all his unwillingness to venture a word of disrespect towards that establishment, as to its doctrines and discipline, he, as a Protestant, confessed, that if he had had an angry dispute with a Catholic on the subject of his religion, and had been rating, as the right hon. gentleman had done, amidst the cheers of the House, the Bull of Pope Pius the Seventh, he should have expected that the Catholic would pluck out of the Athanasian creed some few passages in which he (Mr. Brougham) would be sorely gravelled; some few doctrines, not quite in the spirit of common sense, or of a Christian church. These, however, were subjects which should be suppressed in this place. To them it belonged to respect all men, of whatever religion, which they conscientiously believed, and conscientiously acted up to. Be their tenets revolting to us or not, they were their opinions. They were conscientiously entertained. Give them up they could not, with honour; and would not, if they were laughed at, and insulted. If we were in the peculiar situation, that, in the nineteenth century, there were some of our fellow-subjects upon whom we "looked down upon as they wandered to find the way of eternal life;" did not this afford the most cogent argument, the most irrefragable reason, for regarding their errors, deplorable though innocent, with compassion? The more right we were, the more ridiculous their notions, the safer was our church.

He now came to the bearing of the subject on the state of Ireland. The interference of the priests at elections had been touched upon. Now, he maintained the right of the priests to interfere. He might regret that they did so; but if he denied the right of interference to the Catholic priests of Ireland, he must apply the same

rule to the Protestants. If one had no right to interfere at elections, he must say that the Protestant either had no right, or having it, ought not to exercise it. Was there any place in England in which there was not a Protestant clergyman who made himself a political partisan, or busybody, on one side or the other? On one side or the other it was, perhaps, wrong to say; they were generally on one side. Did these clergymen confine themselves to the hustings or the canvass? No; the dirty work (to use a term for brevity's sake) at elections was, perhaps, more frequently performed by churchmen than laymen. It was full as often, if not oftener, in the hands of the clergy than in those of the laity. It was alleged, that they did it in a secular capacity, not as priests. But, was it a secular function for a clergyman (as he had known it to be the case) to visit a man who was sick, and either tender him a bribe (which was the most honest course) or threaten him with his personal resentment, if he did not vote for a certain individual? He believed this was the case in Ireland, and he believed it was equally the case in England. The hon. member for Derry had produced last night a string of affidavits to the House; but not one of the persons who made those affidavits had been examined. It would have been desirable to examine all the makers of these affidavits, when they might have stated the whole truth, upon being cross-examined. The conduct alleged in those affidavits was not peculiar to the Catholic clergy. He had been told that an hon. member's personal safety had been put into jeopardy from the pul pit. Another hon. member had been preached at, not by the name of Beelzebub, but by that of Judas; which he took to be not much more agreeable than the other [a laugh]. The hon. member referred to succeeded in getting away, but the allusion to him was so obvious, that there was scarcely any need to specify his name. Now, he called this direct interference; and it was not by Catholic priests, but by Protestant clergymen. Two other persons had been preached at, out of a text from the Revelations, and the people were told to avoid them, as they had been forewarned.

It was remarkable that his right hon. and learned friend, the Master of the Rolls, had abstained from answering the question, as he ought to have done, pro