people's vices is the vice of its government; and that, in every instance since the creation of the world, the people have been what their rulers made them. A good government makes a good people. Moralize your laws, and you cannot fail to moralize your subjects.

Now, in order to disprove the justice of the charges brought against the general character of the Irish Catholics, I will first refer the House to the preamble of the statute of 1782. I will next beg their attention to the facts recorded in its late votes of thanks; and, lastly, to the circumstances and history of the connection between both countries. If the allegation, that the religion of the Catholics is essentially adverse to the British government be true, let us remember that the necessary inference is, that the British government must be a public calamity, and no longer deserving of support. But give me leave, in contradiction to that allegation, to advert to the facts on which it is founded, in order that I may the more clearly show, in the first place, that the existing penal laws are wrong, unjust, and indefensible; secondly, that their repeal is the only means of establishing the tranquillity and the security of Ireland. In the year 1792, about a hundred dissenters in the north of Ireland rebelled; this was immediately. designated a Catholic revolt. These men, unprotected by your government, and denounced by your laws; were then declared to be in a state of general insurrection. This was your candour, this was your truth. But let me remind you, that tyranny is its own reward, and that imperfect privilege is the cause and measure of imperfect allegiance. In order to put down the insurgent, put down that penal code by which he is harassed and inflamed.

Another case to which I beg to refer, is that of the civil war, or rebellion, or whatever other name you please to give it, in the time of William III. On that occasion, the Catholics opposed William in defence of their liberties, civil and religious. Liberties, for violating which, the English people had most properly expelled James II. from the throne. But if James had offered to the English what he offered to the Irish people, would you have called in William, and expelled him? If he had proved the conqueror, and proposed to you the same conditions which William imposed upon the Irish nation, would you have accepted them at his hands, and persevered in your submission, without any effort to procure a relaxation of them? If they submitted with reluctance, would you, in a similar situation, have submitted with any other feeling? Whenever sects wage their war of persecution against each other, they will proceed to the last extremes

of hostility; this is no ordinary or generous warfare, and confiscation is not omitted among their weapons of annoyance. An act of attainder was passed against three thousand persons on account of their religion, and it was remarkable that those individuals were all men of property. This was forfeited accordingly to the Crown, and parcelled out to its favourites. In the reign of Charles I. forfeiture was a standing branch of the revenue; the claims of the Crown respected no charters; it held sacred no private rights; it was not restrained by common shame from despoiling the people of Ireland of their property and estates. On that occasion, the government wished the people to embark their properties on the same security with the establishments; the people gave in their title deeds, but the Master of the Rolls, an officer of the government, omitted to register them; and the government was flagrant and wicked enough to take advantage of the omission, and seize upon the property. Even an impudent subject had the audacity to take upon himself the perfidy of the Crown, and to declare to the people, that the charters of Ireland were not valid, and that the King of England was not bound by any law. It was this perfidious act that laid the foundation for the blood and massacre which ensued, and which were only the legitimate offspring of the unprincipled baseness and perfidy of a tyrannical, wicked, and illegal government. It would be easy, I think, to show, that these atrocious proceedings were the natural result of an atrocious system of misgovernment. Let me caution you not to embrace such a system, if you desire that common security should be the common object of society. If you do, depend on it, not Catholics alone, nor Irishmen, but Protestants, and all persuasions, will revolt against laws by which they are painfully distinguished from their fellow-men. Be assured, that no dependence is to be placed upon any man, either Catholic or Protestant, unless governed upon the same principles as the people of this country.

From this, I infer the necessity of repealing the laws for disqualifying the greatest portion of the people in Ireland, and for keeping alive such odious and painful distinctions in that country.

Suffer me now, Sir, to enter into a consideration of what has been the established principle of the British government in Ireland. This principle is that of disqualification; a principle which, whatever. we may affect to think of it, in its existence implies a right to govern by conquest. If the Irish were now in a state of half-allegiance, this species of government might be proper and necessary; if not, the policy is

erroneous and unjust. Let us reflect on the necessary limits to all human legislation. No legislature has a right to make partial laws; it has no right to make arbitrary laws, I mean laws contrary to reason, because that is beyond the power of the Deity. Neither has it a right to institute any inquisition into men's thoughts, nor to punish any man merely for his religion. It can have no power to make a religion for men, since that would be to dethrone the Almighty. I presume it will not be arrogated on the part of the British legislature, that His Majesty, by and with the advice of the Lords spiritual and temporal, &c., can enact, that he will appoint and constitute a new religion for the people of this empire; or, that by an order in council, the consciences and creeds of his subjects might be suspended. Nor will it be contended, I apprehend, that any authoritative or legislative measure could alter the law of the hypotheneuse. Whatever belongs to the authority of God, or to the laws of nature, is necessarily beyond the province and sphere of human institution and government. The Roman Catholic, when you disqualify him on the ground of his religion, may, with great justice, tell you that you are not his God, that he cannot mould or fashion his faith by your decrees. You may inflict penalties, and he may suffer them in silence; but if Parliament assume the prerogative of Heaven, and enact laws to impose upon the people a different religion, the people will not obey such laws. If you pass an act to impose a tax, or regulate a duty, the people can go to the roll to learn what are the provisions of the law. But whenever you take upon yourselves to legislate for God, though there may be truth in your enactments, you have no authority to enforce them. In such a case, the -people will not go to the roll of Parliament, but to the Bible, the testament of God's will, to ascertain his law, and their duty. When once man goes out of his sphere, and says he will legislate for God, he, in fact, makes himself God. But this I do not charge upon the Parliament, because in none of the penal acts has the Parliament imposed a religious creed. It is not to be traced in the qualification oath, nor in the declaration required. The qualifying oath, as to the great number of offices, and to seats in Parliaments, scrupulously evades religious distinctions; a dissenter of any class may take it, a Deist, an Atheist may likewise take it. The Catholics are alone excepted, and for what reason? Certainly not because the internal character of the Catholic religion is inherently vicious; not because it necessarily incapacitates those who profess it, to make laws for their fellow-citizens. If a Deist be fit to sit in Parliament, it can hardly be urged that a Christian

is unfit. If an Atheist be competent to legislate for his country, surely this privilege cannot be denied to the believer in the divinity of our Saviour. But let me ask you if you have forgotten what was the faith of your ancestors, or if you are prepared to assert, that the men who procured your liberties are unfit to make your laws? Or do you forget the tempests by which the dissenting classes of the community were at a former period agitated, or in what manner you fixed the rule of peace over that wild scene of anarchy and commotion? If we attend to the present condition and habits of these classes, do we not find their controversies subsisting in full vigour? and can it be said, that their jarring sentiments and clashing interests are productive of any disorder in the state; or that the Methodist himself, in all his noisy familiarity with his Maker, is a dangerous or disloyal subject? Upon what principle can it be argued, that the application of a similar policy would not conciliate the Catholics, and promote the general interest of the empire? I can trace the continuance of their incapacities to nothing else than a political combination; a combination that condemned the Catholic religion, not as a heresy, but as the symptom of a civil alienation. By this doctrine, the religion is not so much an evil in itself, as a perpetual token of political disaffection. In the spirit of this liberal interpretation, you once decreed to take away their arms; and, on another occasion, ordered all Papists to be removed from London. In the whole subsequent course of administration, the religion has continued to be esteemed the infallible symptom of a propensity to rebel. Known or suspected Papists were once the objects of the severest jealousy, and the bitterest enactments. Some of these statutes have been repealed, and the jealousy has since somewhat abated; but the same suspicions, although in a less degree, pervade your councils. Your imaginations are still infected with apprehensions of the proneness of the Catholics to make cause with a foreign foe. A treaty has lately been made with the King of the Two Sicilies. May I ask, is his religion the evidence of the warmth of his attachment to your alliance? Does it enter into your calculation as one of the motives that must incline him to our friendship, in preference to the friendship of the state professing his own faith? A similar treaty has been recently entered into with the Prince Regent of Portugal, professing the Roman Catholic religion; and one million granted last year, and two millions this session, for the defence of Portugal. Nay, even in the treaty with the Prince Regent of Portugal, there is an article, which stipulates, that we shall not make peace with France, unless Por

tugal shall be restored to the house of Braganza. And has the Prince of Brazils' religion been considered evidence of his connection with the enemy? You have not one ally who is not Catholic; and will you continue to disqualify Irish Catholics, who fight with you and your allies, because their religion is evidence of disaffection?

But if the Catholic religion be this evidence of repugnance, is Protestantism the proof of affection to the Crown and government of England? For an answer, let us look at America. In vain did you send your armies there; in vain did you appeal to the ties of common origin, and common religion. America joined with France, and adopted a connection with a Catholic government. Turn to Prussia, and behold whether her religion has had any effect on her political character. Did the faith of Denmark prevent the attack on Copenhagen? It is admitted on all sides, that the Catholics. have demonstrated their allegiance, in as strong a manner as the willing expenditure of blood and treasure can evince. And, remember, that the French go not near so far in their defence of Catholicism, as you in your hatred of it in your own subjects, and your reverence for it in your allies. They have not scrupled to pull down the ancient fabrics of superstition in the countries subjected to their arms. Upon a review of these facts, I am justified in assuming that there is nothing inherent in Catholicism, which either proves disaffection, or disqualifies for public trusts. The immediate inference is, that they have as much right as any dissentient sect, to the enjoyment of civil privileges, and a participation of equal rights. That they are as fit morally and politically to hold offices in the state or seats in Parliament. Those who dispute the conclusion, will find it their duty to controvert the reasoning on which it is founded. I do not believe the church is in any danger; but if it is, I am sure that we are in a wrong way to secure it. If our laws will battle against Providence, there can be no doubt of the issue of the conflict between the ordinances of God, and the decrees of man; transient must be the struggle, rapid the event. Let us suppose an extreme case, but applicable to the present point. Suppose the Thames were to inundate its banks, and suddenly swelling, enter this House during our deliberations, (an event which I greatly deprecate from my private friendship with many members who might happen to be present, and my sense of the great exertions which many of them have made for the public interest,) and a motion of adjournment being made should be opposed, and an address to Providence moved, that it would be graciously pleased to turn back the overflow, and direct the waters into another