dominion before the battle of Leipsic?) and then receives an overthrow; owes its deliverance to treaties which give that power its life, and these countries their security, (for what did you get from France but security?) If this power, I say, avails itself of the conditions in the treaties, which give it colonies, prisoners, and deliverance, and breaks those conditions which give you security, and resumes the same situation, which renders this power capable of repeating the same atrocity; has England, or has she not, a right of war?

Having considered the two questions, that of ability, and that of right, and having shown that you are justified on either consideration to go to war, let me now suppose, that you treat for peace; first, you will have a peace upon a war establishment, and then a war without your present allies. It is not certain that you will have any of them, but it is certain that you will not have the same combination while Buonaparte increases his power by confirmation of his title, and by further preparation; so that you will have a bad peace and a bad war. Were I disposed to treat for peace, I would not agree to the amendment, because it disperses your allies, and strengthens your enemy, and says to both, we will quit our alliance, to confirm Napoleon on the throne of France, that he may hereafter more advantageously fight us, as he did before, for the throne of England.

Gentlemen set forth the pretensions of Buonaparte; gentlemen say, that he has given liberty to the press; he has given liberty to publication, to be afterwards tried and punished according to the present constitution of France, as a military chief pleases; that is to say, he has given liberty to the French to hang themselves. Gentlemen say, he has in his dominions abolished the slave trade; I am unwilling to deny him praise for such an act; but if we praise him for giving liberty to the African, let us not assist him in imposing slavery on the European. Gentlemen say, will you make war upon character? but the question is, will you trust a government without one? What will you do if you are conquered, say gentlemen? I answer, the very thing you must do, if you treat; abandon the Low Countries. But the question is, in which case are you most likely to be conquered, with allies or without them? Either you must abandon the Low Countries, or you must preserve them by arms, for Buonaparte will not be withheld by treaty. If you abandon them, you will lose your situation on the globe, and instead of being a medium of communication and commerce between the new world and the old, you will become an anxious station between two fires; the continent of America, rendered hostile by the intrigues of France, and

the continent of Europe possessed by her arms.

It then re

mains for you to determine, if you do not abandon the Low Countries, in what way you mean to defend them, alone or with allies.

Gentlemen complain of the allies, and say, they have partitioned such a country, and transferred such a country, and seized on such a country. What! will they quarrel with their ally, who has possessed himself of a part of Saxony, and shake hands with Buonaparte, who proposed to take possession of England? If a prince takes Venice, we are indignant; but if he seizes on a great part of Europe, stands covered with the blood of millions, and the spoils of half mankind, our indignation ceases; vice becomes gigantic, conquers the understanding, and mankind begin by wonder, and conclude by worship. The character of Buonaparte is admirably calculated for this effect; he invests himself with much theatrical grandeur; he is a great actor in the tragedy of his own government; the fire of his genius precipitates on universal empire, certain to destroy his neighbours or himself; better formed to acquire empire than to keep it, he is a hero and a calamity, formed to punish France, and to perplex Europe.

The authority of Mr. Fox has been alluded to; a great authority, and a great man; his name excites tenderness and wonder; to do justice to that immortal person you must not limit your view to this country; his genius was not confined to England, it acted three hundred miles off in breaking the chains of Ireland; it was seen three thousand miles off in communicating freedom to the Americans: it was visible, I know not how far off, in ameliorating the condition of the Indian; it was discernible on the coast of Africa, in accomplishing the abolition of the slave trade. You are to measure the magnitude of his mind by parallels of latitude. His heart was as soft as that of a woman; his intellect was adamant; his weaknesses were virtues; they protected him against the hard habit of a politician, and assisted nature to make him amiable and interesting. The question discussed by Mr. Fox in 1792, was, whether you would treat with a revolutionary government? The present is, whether you will confirm a military and a hostile one? You will observe, that when Mr. Fox was willing to treat, the French, it was understood, were ready to evacuate the Low Countries. If you confirm the present government, you must expect to lose them. Mr. Fox objected to the idea of driving France upon her resources, lest you should make her a military government. The question now is, whether you will make that military government perpetual? I therefore do not think the theory of Mr. Fox can

be quoted against us; and the practice of Mr. Fox tends to establish our proposition, for he treated with Buonaparte and failed. Mr. Fox was tenacious of England, and would never yield an iota of her superiority; but the failure of the attempt to treat was to be found, not in Mr. Fox, but in Buonaparte.

On the French subject, speaking of authority, we cannot forget Mr. Burke. Mr. Burke, the prodigy of nature and acquisition. He read every thing, he saw every thing, he foresaw every thing. His knowledge of history amounted to a power of foretelling; and when he perceived the wild work that was doing in France, that great political physician, intelligent of symptoms, distinguished between the access of fever and the force of health; and what other men conceived to be the vigour of her constitution, he knew to be no more than the paroxysm of her madness, and then, prophet-like, he pronounced the destinies of France, and, in his prophetic fury, admonished nations.

Gentlemen speak of the Bourbon family. I have already said, we should not force the Bourbon upon France; but we owe it to departed (I would rather say to interrupted) greatness, to observe, that the house of Bourbon was not tyrannical; under her, every thing, except the administration of the country, was open to animadversion; every subject was open to discussion, philosophical, ecclesiastical, and political, so that learning, and arts, and sciences, made progress. Even England consented to borrow not a little from the temperate meridian of that government. Her court stood controlled by opinion, limited by principles of honour, and softened by the influence of manners: and, on the whole, there was an amenity in the condition of France, which rendered the French an amiable, an enlightened, a gallant and accomplished race. Over this gallant race you see imposed an oriental despotism. Their present court (Buonaparte's court) has gotten the idiom of the East as well as her constitution; a fantastic and barbaric expression; an unreality, which leaves in the shade the modesty of truth, and states nothing as it is, and every thing as it is not. The attitude is affected, the taste is corrupted, and the intellect perverted. Do you wish to confirm this military tyranny in the heart of Europe? A tyranny founded on the triumph of the army over the principles of civil government, tending to universalize throughout Europe the domination of the sword, and to reduce to paper and parchment, Magna Charta, and all our civil constitutions. An experiment such as no country ever made, and no good country would ever permit; to relax the moral and religious influences; to set heaven and earth adrift from one another;

and make God Almighty a tolerated alien in his own creation; an insurrectionary hope to every bad man in the community, and a frightful lesson of profit and power, vested in those who have pandered their allegiance from King to Emperor, and now found their pretensions to domination on the merit of breaking their oaths, and deposing their sovereign. Should you do any thing so monstrous as to leave your allies in order to confirm such a system; should you forget your name, forget your ancestors, and the inheritance they have left you of morality and renown; should you astonish Europe, by quitting your allies to render immortal such a composition, would not the nations exclaim, "You have very providently watched over our interests, and very generously have you contributed to our service, and do you faulter now?" "In vain have you stopped in your own person the flying fortunes of Europe; in vain have you taken the eagle of Napoleon, and snatched invincibility from his standard, if now, when confederated Europe is ready to march, you take the lead in the desertion, and preach the penitence of Buonaparte and the poverty of England."

As to her poverty, you must not consider the money you spend in your defence, but the fortune you would lose if you were not defended; and further, you must recollect you will pay less to an immediate war, than to a peace with a war establishment, and a war to follow it. Recollect further, that whatever be your resources, they must outlast those of all your enemies; and further, that your empire cannot be saved by a calculation. Besides, your wealth is only a part of your situation. The name you have established, the deeds you have achieved, and the part you have sustained, preclude you from a second place among nations; and when you cease to be the first, you are nothing.

The motion was opposed by Sir Francis Burdett, Mr. Tierney, Lord Milton, and Mr. George Ponsonby. They conceived it to be an unwise measure for Great Britain to go to war for the purpose of getting rid of one man. The real object of the war might, perhaps, be to restore the Bourbons; and if the treaties bound the allies not to lay down their arms, until this object was accomplished, the country might be involved in a very expensive and protracted warfare. The treaty concluded at Vienna on the 13th of March, which placed Buonaparte out of the pale of nations, was much censured. Mr. Watkins Wynne, Mr. Plunkett, and Mr. Law supported the amendment. The House divided on Lord John Cavendish's amendment, Ayes 331, Noes 92; Majority 239. Tellers for the Ayes, Lord Binning and Mr. Robert Ward. Noes, Mr. John Smith and Lord Geo. Cavendish.

ROMAN CATHOLICS.

SIR HENRY PARNELL MOVES FOR A COMMITTEE TO ENQUIRE INTO THE LAWS THAT AFFECT HIS MAJESTY'S ROMAN CATHOLIC

SUBJECTS.

May 30. 1815.

IN consequence of a difference of opinion between Mr. Grattan and some of the Roman Catholics, respecting the mode of managing the Catholic question, the petition was entrusted to Sir Henry Parnell, and, on the 11th of May, was presented to the House; when he produced certain resolutions which he proposed as the ground of the relief-bill. On this day he brought forward his promised motion; and after having set forth their claims, and the disabilities to which they are subject, he concluded by moving,

"That this House will resolve itself into a committee of the whole House, to take into its consideration the state of the laws affecting His Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects."

Sir John Cox Hippisley, who had formerly supported the mea-. sure, declared, that when he found these petitions praying for unqualified emancipation, and when he knew that some of the most respectable Catholics were not averse to limitations regarding the appointment of their bishops, he could not agree to support the motion. Lord Castlereagh was of opinion, that the way in which the question was introduced, was not likely to advance the measure. The Catholics ought not to suffer themselves to be led by men who took such pains to inflame their passions; and now that it was taken out of the hands of that champion*, who had supported it under all its difficulties, there could be no doubt that it was intended as a contrast to the course pursued in 1813. He was desirous, however, of going into a committee; but he thought, that if the Catholics did not adopt a system of conciliation, their cause would retrograde. The measure was opposed by Mr. Peel, Mr. Bankes, Mr. B. Bathurst, Mr. Knox, Mr. Charles Yorke, and Mr. Serjeant Best.

It was supported by Mr. Whitbread, Sir N. Colthurst, Mr. Wm. Elliot, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, Mr. W. W. Pole, Lord Binning, the Knight of Kerry (Mr. M. Fitzgerald), and Sir John Newport. Mr. Ponsonby observed, if a consideration of the conduct of the Catholics were to bias my vote upon this occasion, when I consider the course which they have pursued towards my right honourable and highly respected friend (Mr. Grattan), it would place me in the list of their enemies. To him they owed more than to any other man alive, and yet how did they pay their debt of gratitude? I am persuaded, however, whatever may have been the motives by which they were actuated, or however ill-counselled they may have been, that the feelings of his great mind have not been altered, and that their conduct has made as little impression upon him as it has upon me.