support her government, or feed her people. The repeal began in 1778; the system had been attacked before. My old and inestimable friend, Sir Hercules Langrishe, (with whose name I wish to record my own,) had (Mr. Burke, with truth, observes) thrown his youthful spear at the horrid fabric he had refused to pay adoration to the demon that resided therein, and had unsainted the diabolical spirit in his own pandemonium; but the great assault, in which he took a leading part, was in 1778 and 1782: the rights of property and the rights of religion were then in a great measure restored. The grant fell short; but the gratitude of the Catholics at that time outran the provisions of the statutes, gave the Parliament a credit for a future complete emancipation, and the country the strength of complete unanimity.

That was the age of the repeal of the penal code, and in that age the personal liberty of the subject was secured by an habeas corpus act; the justice of the country was secured by a judges' bill (they held their offices before during pleasure); the army of the country was made parliamentary by an Irish mutiny bill; it had been before imposed on the country without law, and against it: the revenues of the country were made annual; they had been, in a great proportion, the perpetual inheritance of the crown: the trade of the country became free; it had been before, by English acts, restrained and annihilated: the trade of the country with the British colonies became open and direct; it had been, in the essential articles, interdicted: the power of the English privy council, to originate and alter Irish bills, was annihilated; the power of the Irish privy council, to alter, originate, and suppress Irish bills, was annihilated; the power of the courts of England, to try Irish appeals, was annihilated; the power of the British Parliament, to make law for Ireland, was relinquished; the power of the Irish Parliament, who before could only originate petitions, not bills, was restored in full, complete, and exclusive authority.

Nor were these acquisitions a barren liberty. The exports of Ireland increased above one half; her population near a third; and her agriculture, that was not before able to feed a smaller number of inhabitants (for we were fed by corn from England), supplied an increased population of one million, and sent a redundancy to Great Britain. The courtier was astonished; he had contemplated such prospects as the frenzy of the enthusiast; he read that frenzy registered in the public

accounts.

Nor was all this wealth slow in coming. The nation started into manhood at once; young Ireland came forth like a giant,

rejoicing in her strength. In less than ten years was this increase accomplished: in 1782 we exported 3,300,000; in 1792, what would now be valued at near 11,000,000l.; in 1784, 24,000,000 of yards of linen; and in 1792, 45,000,000 of yards of linen. Public prosperity so crowded on the heel of the statute, that the powers of nature seemed to stand at the right hand of Parliament.

The leading causes of this were as evident as the fact: the country became cultivated, because the laws that deprived the Catholic of an interest in the soil were repealed, and an opportunity was given to the operation of her corn laws; her trade increased, because the prohibitions on her trade were removed; and the prohibitions were removed, because she asserted her liberty; and she asserted her liberty, because she suspended her religious animosity. Unanimity shut the gates of strife, and Providence opened the gates of commerce. Providence had whipped the country, through a century, with her own acts of parliament, and blessed her on the repeal of them; and so connected were the penal laws and the poverty, the crime and the punishment, that it did not seem to be a series of cause and effect; but a superior Power standing in the island, visible, inflicting with its lash and exhorting with its bounty, and suggesting, by the indelible lessons of woe and weal, to my country how to get her liberty, and yours how to secure her empire.

I have drawn example from my own country; I pass over others. I might I do not detail the gloomy catalogue of despotic governments, whose yoke has been established by religious discord; or of empires, like that of the Greeks, erased; or of nations, like your own at certain periods, stung to madmess by that inexorable fury. I avoid the dungeon of theology, the madhouse of casuistry, and the noisy tribe of the sectarians; nor do I dwell on their bookish ignorance, and their vulgar turbulence, nor tell with what fury they fought, with what feebleness they reasoned; and how they ever abused their victories over each other; trampled on one another's liberty, abandoned their own; forgot their God, and stated the wildest revenge with all the spiteful cant of hypocritical devotion. They did not want their king-cry, and their church-cry, nor any of that public rant, with which, for political purpose, the public cheat panders the name of his Maker. I pass over the contentious part of the history of my own country; the ashes are yet warm, and I fear to tread on those perilous materials, or to re-kindle a flame in a country where oblivion is patriotism, and concord is salvation; doubting whether I possess the good qualities, certain that I share

all the infirmities, of my nation, I have no right, in another country, to criticise my own, but am obliged by duty, and led by inclination, to defend her, Protestant and Catholic, without distinction, and with unabated fidelity. Sufficient to say,. that in her religious contests the different partizans did what all religious partizans ever do, they abused their victory, and they paid the penalty. The Catholics lost their land, the Protestants lost their liberty, and both a free constitution. The times I allude to are past; the religious spirit that inflamed them is past; Bellona has recalled her learned gentlemen of much theology, and much metaphysics; Bedlam has shut her gates upon them; bigotry is now no more than a spent fury. Three hundred years have been sufficient to subdue one miserable madness. The great bodies and establishments that formerly petitioned against the Catholics, have either recalled their thunder, or expressed their approbation. There is not, on your table, a single petition against the Catholics; the city of London has not stirred; the city of Dublin has rejected an anti-catholic address; the university of Dublin has done the same; a great northern Protestant county in Ireland has passed resolutions in their favour. The university of Oxford, in her late distinguished appointment, has marked her approbation of the principles of civil and religious liberty; your pulpit resounds with strains the most liberal, in lessons equally brilliant and profound; the mitre is placable — we recognize, with gratitude, the genuine majesty of the Christian religion. You yourselves, your government and Parliament, have led the way. In 1790 you set up the Popedom; 1791 you established Popery in North America; in 1808 you conveyed the Catholic religion, with all its rites and ceremonies, to South America. In 1809 you sent to Spain and Portugal two armies, to support in both, and in full power, the splendour and the rights of the Romish church. You employed Irishmen and Irish money in these expeditions, and will you now disqualify the Irish for Popery. France out of the question, there is not a Catholic on the globe whom you have not embraced, except your fellow-subjects. To that embrace I now recommend you.

He then moved "That the several petitions of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, which have been presented in this session of Parliament, be referred to a committee."

The motion was seconded by Sir John Cox Hippesley; and after a very long speech, the House adjourned the consideration of the question to the 25th. On that day it was resumed: when it was opposed by Sir William Scott, Lord Castlereagh, Lord Jocelyn, Mr. Robert Shaw, Mr. Ryder (Secretary), Mr. Canning,

and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Percival). It was supported by Mr. Lamb, Sir John Newport, Lord Dursley, Mr. H. À. Herbert, General Mathew, Mr. Whitbread, and Mr. Ponsonby. On the motion of Mr. Hutchinson, the debate was adjourned to the 1st of June; on which day it was resumed; and the motion in favour of the Catholics was supported by Mr. Hutchinson, the Marquis of Tavistock, Colonel Talbot, Mr. Parnell, Sir Ralph Millbank, Mr. Barham, Mr. W. Wynne, Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald (knight of Kerry), Mr. C. Smith, Lord George Grenville, and Mr. Peter Moore. The motion was opposed by Mr. O'Hara, Sir Thomas Turton, Mr. Barnard, Mr. Macnaghten, Captain Parker, Mr. R. S. Dundas, and the Solicitor-general (Mr. Plomer).

Mr. Grattan observed, in reply, that the honourable member, (the Solicitor-general, Mr. Plomer), who had just sat down, had furnished, in favour of appointing a committee, an argument the most decisive. He had totally and entirely misapprehended the resolutions of the Catholics, and, in consequence of that misapprehension, had declared that no arrangement could take place; so, that the two parties, the Protestants and Catholics, were to remain in a state of eternal separation. The mischief of such a supposition is too evident to require explanation, and the grounds for it too futile to require long discussion, but are a very strong and very powerful argument for a Committee to consider these documents, on which a mistake so pernicious has been founded.

I have in my hand the resolution of the Catholic bishops, in which they declare they are ready to yield, for the security of the state, every thing which does not affect the rights or integrity of their church. Here is a ground for arrangement, and an argument for a Committee; but one of the honourable member's ideas, if generally adopted, would indeed render it vain and uscless to proceed to a Committee, because he says that there cannot be, and that there is not an instance of a full communication of privilege, where there is not in the body so possessed, an acknowledgment of the plenum dominum of the Crown. No Catholic country does make such acknowledgment. Your Catholic ancestors, who obtained the great charter; they who so many times confirmed that charter, made no such acknowledgment. They all acknowledged the spiritual power of the Pope.

The honourable member who preceded him, denies that the frequent disturbances that have taken place in Ireland, have arisen from the penal laws. Certainly tithe, as he himself acknowledges, has been a more operative cause. But I beg to observe, that whatever outrages the Irish have committed, are greatly exaggerated, and that one reason why some of the Irish have not always been so attached to the law is, that the law has

not been attached to the Irish. The laws have been enemies to their religion and their rights, and therefore they have not been friends to the laws.

The honourable gentleman thinks, that the rights in question are no great object to the Catholic body; I differ from him. The withholding those rights degrades the whole Catholic community, and subjects the peasantry to insult and oppression. The right honourable gentleman asks me whether I agree, on this subject, with Lord Grenville and Lord Lansdowne? In return, I ask him, whether he agrees with them, or whether he agrees with his friend on his right side, and his friend on his left; and whether, agreeing with Lord Grenville, he means to vote against him; and dissenting from his friends, he means to vote with them.

With regard to a former administration to which he has alluded, I can only say, that I do not subscribe to his charge. That administration gave up the military Catholic bill, because they could not carry it; and they resigned their offices, because they would not resign their principles; a crime in which they will not have many imitators. The viceroy of Ireland, at that time, seemed to me to have acted an honourable and an honest part. I am glad his qualities are not to die with him, but promise to survive in the instance we have just heard of the noble marquis *, who, good by inheritance, asserts the noble nature of his race, and promises to his country a succession of virtue.

I shall divide the opponents to the motion into two classes, those against the time, and those against the principle; but of the latter class there are scarcely any, so that the principle is generally acceded to. The Roman Catholic religion is then acquitted; it is then allowed there is nothing either in the composition of the Irish, or of their religion, that bar their capacitation; the only thing desired is, security against dangerous influence in the nomination of their clergy, and the security so required, gentlemen have declared, should not go to an influence to be possessed by our government in that nomination, but to a precaution against the nomination by a foreign power. But this precaution the resolution of the Catholic bishops bespeaks; they declare they are ready to give you every security which is consistent with the integrity of their church and their religion. What becomes now of the argument which says, the parties cannot agree; or the abuse heaped on the Catholic body, more especially on the Catholics of Ireland?

An honourable gentleman has asked, whether in the committee I meant to propose the veto? I would, in the Marquis of Tavistock.

*