help being a tithe-proctor. He only follows his nature when he grinds. But the clergy should be removed to a jealous distance from the contagion of such a connection. I am for going into a committee, if it was only to show the Irish public that their interests are not wholly indifferent to the House.

The House divided for the Committee 48; against it 69: Majority 21.

Tellers for the Ayes, Mr. Parnell and the knight of Kerry (Mr. M. Fitzgerald).

Noes, Sir George Hill and Mr. Leslie Foster.

ROMAN CATHOLICS.

MR. GRATTAN MOVES FOR A COMMITTEE ON THE ROMAN CATHO LIC PETITION.

May 18. 1810.

On this day Mr. Grattan brought forward the Catholic question, and desired, That several petitions from the Roman Catholics of Ireland should be read; which being done by the clerk, he spoke as follows:

He said, that he was always happy to keep open a communication between the Parliament and the people, and particularly anxious that an arrangement with the Catholics should be contemplated as practicable; that he stated his intention to rest his motion on two grounds, domestic nomination and civil capacities. With regard to the former, he considered the proposition as perfectly compatible with the rights of the Catholic church. Domestic nomination, obtained with the consent of the Pope, whether placed in the chapter or the Catholic bishops, did not affect the Pope's authority of investiture of institution, or any of his spiritual functions: it is what has taken place in most Catholic countries; it has taken place in Protestant ones; it was part of a proposition of the Irish Catholic bishops, in 1799; and it is at present the practical constitution of the Irish Catholic church, for in general the Irish Catholic church nominates. This proposition will be rendered the more necessary if the veto be withheld, otherwise there would be no domestic check on a foreign, and perhaps a French, appointment of Irish bishops. Let me suppose the Pope to be made by Buonaparte, to be a French subject, and to nominate by his direc

tion Catholic bishops for Ireland. If under that circumstance an invasion should happen, I wish to know what would be our situation with French troops and French bishops in our country. The people of England may say to the Irish, follow your faith, we do not understand your religion; but there is one religion which we do understand, and which should be common to both of us, a perpetual separation from the politics of France; this should be our common faith; without it, no Protestant is safe, and with it no Catholic is dangerous. The Catholics of Tipperary have answered that call, and agree; the Catholics of Kildare have done the same; the Catholic clergy, on consideration, cannot hesitate, because it is doing no more than has been done, and is now done in Catholic countries, and was proposed in 1799 by themselves.

With regard to the second part of the subject, I beg to premise some general rules. And first, the legislature has no right (I speak of justice, not power) to make partial laws, or a different code for different parts of the same community. Again, the legislature cannot, in justice, make arbitrary laws, or disabling statutes on account of accidental differences. Again, the legislature has no right to punish the operations of the mind, for she has no right to know them. Again, the legislature has no right to punish religion, or that relationship which man holds to his God independent of society. In answer to this, it its said, that the Catholic code does not come within these descriptions, because the Catholic religion is connected with disaffection. Let us bring the objection to the test, and suppose a Catholic indicted for treason, and that the counsel for the prosecution tendered in proof that he had committed the offences which the disqualifying oath abjures; namely, that he paid adoration to the Virgin Mary, received the wafer as the real presence, and considered the Pope as the best interpreter of the Scriptures. Let me suppose the counsel, derided for such an attempt, should make another essay, and tender, as evidence of treason, the canons of the council of Lateran. Such an advocate would be laughed out of Westminster Hall; or the judge, who suffered such evidence to go to a jury, would be removed and punished: and yet this very evidence, for the tender of which, against a single man a lawyer would be scorned, and for the admission of which a judge would be punished, is the ground on which we impose a code of disabilities, not on an individual, but on the fourth part of the community and their generation.

I will abridge the charge against the Catholics: it is nearly as follows; namely, that they believe that the Pope has a deposing power, and, in this country, a temporal power; that

they hold the doctrine of, no faith with heretics; that they believe that the Pope is infallible; that they hold that he has a power to absolve from moral obligation; and that they are hostile to the establishments in church, state, and property.

To establish this monstrous libel, the framers have brought no proof whatever; and to disestablish these charges, are given three answers: 1st, The reply of the six universities; 2dly, The oath of the Catholics; and 3dly, The impossibility of the truth of the charges. With regard to the universities, three questions were proposed; namely, whether the Pope or cardinals had, in these countries, any temporal power? whether they had a deposing power? and, whether the Catholic church maintained, that with relation to heretics no faith was to be regarded? The six universities (those of Salamanca, Louvain, Paris, Valadolid, Douay, and Alcala) distinctly and indignantly answer, that the Pope and cardinals have, in these countries, no temporal power-have no deposing power; and that the supposition of the doctrine of no faith with heretics, is equally false, injurious, and abominable.

The second answer to the charges is the oath of 1793, proposed and enacted by the Irish Parliament, which abjures the temporal power of the Pope, his dispensing power, the doctrine of no faith with heretics; abjures the Pope's infallibility, as an article of the Catholic faith: and swears the Catholic to the support of the Protestant state, church, and property. This oath has been taken by the Catholics generally, and is conclusive on the Protestant who made it a test of his affection, and on the Catholic, by whom that test has been taken.

The third answer regards the impossibility of the truth of the charges; for they amount to a criminality, which would have rendered the Catholic incapable of civil government or foreign relationship; it amounts to a transfer of allegiance, and a dissolution of the elements of human society. The existence of society, and of government, in Catholic nations, is the practical answer. But there is another answer, more conclusive and authoritative; that is to say, that the charge is irreconcilable to the truth of the Christian religion: it supposes the Catholic to be more depraved than either pagan or idolater. But the Catholics are by far the majority of the Christians; it would follow, that the majority of the worshippers of Christ are worse than the worshippers of Jove, or of Mahomet. But that is not all; they are, according to this charge, rendered thus execrable by their religion: it would follow, that the design of Christianity had been defeated; that omniscience had been blind; omnipotence baffled; and that what we call redemption, was the increase of sin and decrease

of salvation that is to say, that the Christian religion is not divine. They who make the charge, must therefore abandon their argument or their religion. No, it is replied, it is not the Catholic religion, but the Irish Catholic, we object to. What will an Irishman say to this? Will he become a false witness against his country? Well, according to this, the religion is acquitted, and we must search for the source of censure in physical or moral causes. But there is no physical cause producing moral depravity: God punishes, but he does not corrupt. We have no idea of a moral pestilence, least of all of a party plague, which should visit the house of the Catholic, and obediently retire from that of the Protestant, living in the same vicinity: such a supposition is nonsense. The cause cannot be physical, it must be moral, therefore; that is to say, it must be the laws: it cannot be wealth that has caused this perversity in Ireland; it must be the penal laws and penal government.

It seems, then, the charge goes not against the Catholics, but against your system of governing them; and pronounces, that you have been in possession of Ireland for 500 years, and that the result of your connection has been, the unparalleled depravity of the inhabitants. However untrue the charge may be, the general system is the ground of it; it is the ground of whatever alienation towards this country may be supposed to harbour in the minds of the Irish Catholics: or do you suppose it is the soil of Ireland, or the air, or the eucharist, that produce that conclusion; and not the laws, that took from the Catholics their land, their arms, and their civil liberty. The laws, or the penal system, are a partial attainder of the people in mass, not on account of acts, but on an allegation of character; which character is not proved, is not true, and has no possibility of truth, except such as may arise from oppression.

I conclude this part of the subject by observing, that there is nothing either in the Catholic religion, or in the composition of the Irish Catholics, that warrants the objection. We are told we are to look for that objection in the fundamental laws of England, and in the oath of the King. It is late, very late, to tell us this; before the union we should have known it. What, have you taken away the Irish Parliament, and then do you tell the Irish Catholics that by the fundamental laws of the land, they must be excluded from yours. Did Mr. Pitt think thus when he held out that expectation? did his cabinet? Come, let us examine the laws alluded to; namely, the declaration of right, and the limitation of the descent of the crown. I bow to these sacred instruments. The

declaration of right, (it is a modest document of intelligible liberty,) is founded on two great propositions, that civil and religious liberty is the inheritance of the people. Second, that the violation of this inheritance is a forfeiture of the crown. I see here no Catholic disability. We will send for the other great instrument, the limitation of the crown; it is a limitation of the crown to certain descriptions of persons being Protestants, in consequence of a forfeiture by the preceding family, incurred for the attempt to take from the subject his civil and religious liberty. The objection suggests, that the words being Protestant, import not merely that no Catholic should be a king, but that no Catholic should be a free subject; and that being rendered incapable of the crown, the Catholics were ex vi termini, rendered incapable of enjoying civil capacities. This interpretation I submit to be inadmissible; it raises a code of disability by implication; it confounds two powers which are essentially distinct; the power of limiting the descent of the crown, and a power of destroying the inheritance of the people. It makes the act of settlement, with regard to the Catholic and his posterity, commit the very violation for which it deprives the house of Stuart of the throne, and at once transfers his allegiance and takes away his birthright.

I do acknowledge that the oath taken by members serving in Parliament, is a part of the act, but I deny it to be a fundamental part thereof. First, because the fundamental parts of that act are the rights of the subjects, but the clauses setting forth their rights, are only declaratory of the subjects' rights, obtained by your Catholic ancestors, and therefore cannot contain any thing against the civil rights of their posterity. Again I beg to observe that the oath in question has no connection with any of those rights, either in time or principle, but was introduced in the 30th of Charles II, at the time of the invention of the Catholic plot, and founded on the temper and fury of that time. The Catholic plot was a fabrication; the executions under the pretence of that plot were murders, the disqualifying oath was the companion of that fabrication, and those murders dictated by the same spirit and in the same fury. I therefore submit, that the disqualifying oath is no part of the fundamental laws of England.

The next objection is to be found in the oath of the King. The words on which the objection is raised, are, "I will preserve the Protestant reformed religion, as by law established." The comment is, that by law established is meant law not to be altered; and that any alteration of that law, to favour the Catholic, would endanger the Protestant church. This inter