that opinion on oath. I have heard of Athens, that cruel republic, excluding fo many of her own children from the rights of citizenship; but the only had the wifdom of Socrates, the light of Plato ;fhe had not, like you, revelation, to inftruct her; befides the had not prefs--fhe had not the benefits of your leffon. What leffon that to a people it was not life;-but the condition of living, and to be bound without your own confent, was to be a flave; and therefore you were not fatisfied in 1782 with the free exercise of your religion. However I do not rely on your private productions. What are your public tracts, your repeated addreffes to the king, the Speaker's annual speech to the throne, what are they while the penal code remains, but fo many dangerous and inflammatory publications, felicitating the proteftants on the bleffings of that conftitution from whence three-fourths are excluded, but above all that inftrument, infinitely more incendiary than all Mr. Paine has written, that inftrument which you annually vote; what is it now? A challenge to difcontent. I mean a money bill, wherein you difpofe of the money of 3,000,000 of the people without their confent. You do not ftir, nor vote, nor fpeak, without fuggefting to the catholics fome motive either in provocation of your bleffings or the poifon of your free principles; fome motive, I fay, which is fatal to that ftate of quietism, wherein, during this age of difcuffion, you must enlay your people in order to give your government the chance of repose. You are ftruggling with difficulties you imagine; you are mistaken; you are ftruggling with impoffibilities. To enchain the mind-to cafe in the volatile effential foul-nor tower, nor dun the LI 2 geon, geon, much lefs parliament, can be retentive of thofe fires kindled by yourselves in the breafts of your fellow fubjects. I would have you at this time diftruft that religious' vanity which tells you that these men are not fit for freedom; they have answered that vanity in a strain of oratory peculiar to the oppreffed; it is the error of fects to value themselves more upon their differences, than their religion, and in thefe differences in which they forget the principles of their religions they imagine they have difcovered the mystery of their falvation, and to this fuppreffed difcovery they have offered human facrifices; what human facrifices have we offered, the deareft, the liberties of our fellow fubjects; diftruft again that fallacious policy which tells your power is advanced by their bondage; it is not your power but your punishment; it is liberty without energy, you know it; it prefents with a inonopoly, and the monopoly of others, not your own;-it prefents you with the image of a monster in a state when the heart gives no circulation, and the limbs receive no life;-a nominal reprefentative, and a nominal people ;-call not this your misfortune, it is your fentence, it is your execution. Never could the law of nature fuffer one fet of men to take away the liberty of another, and that of a numerous part of their people, without feeling a diminution of their own ftrength and freedom; but, in making laws on the subject of religion, we forget mankind until their own diftraction admonishes, ftatefmen, of two truths, the one that there is a God, the other that there is a people; never was it permitted to any nation, they may perplex their understanding with various apologies, but never long was it permitted to exclude from effential, from what they themselves have pronounced effential blefs - ings; a great portion of themselves for periods of time, and for no reason, or what is worse, for fuch reafon as you have advanced. Conquerors, or tyrants proceeding from CONQUERORS, have fcarcely ever for any length of time governed by thofe partial difabilities, but a people fo to govern itself or rather under the name of government, fo to exclude one another, the induftrious, the opulent, the useful, that part that feeds you with its induftry, and fupplies you with its taxes, weaves that you may wear, and ploughs that you may eat; to exclude a body fo ufeful, fo numerous, and that for ever-and in the mean time to tax them AD LIBITUM, and occafionally to pledge their lives and fortunes! For what? For their disfranchisement. It cannot be done, continue it, and you expect from your laws what it were blafphemy to afk of your Maker. Such a policy always turns on the inventor, and bruifes him under the ftroke of the scepter or the sword, or finks him under the accumulation of debt and lofs of dominion. Need I go to instances? What was the cafe of Ireland, enflaved for a century, and withered and blafted with her proteftant afcendancy, like a fhattered oak, feethed on its hill by the fires of its own intolerance. What loft England America, but fuch a policy? an attempt to bind men by a parliament wherein they are not reprefented, fuch an attempt as fome would now continue to practife on the catholics, and involve England. What was it faved England to Ireland, but the contrary policy? I have feen their principles of liberty very far by yourselves. -I have heard addreffes from counties and cities here, on the fubject of the flaves, to Mr. Wilberforce, thanking him for his efforts to fet free a diftreffed people; has your pity traverfed leagues of fea to fit down by the black boy on the coaft of of Guinea-and have you forgot the man at home by your fide, your brother? Come then, and by one great act cancel this code, and prepare your mind for that bright order of time which now feems to touch your condition; but I have tired you-fuffer me to fit down, and thank you for your patient attention. After Mr. Grattan had done fpeaking, a few words were alternately fpoken by the doctors Brown and Duigenan and Mr. Secretary Hobart ; the queftion was carried in the affirmative with only one negative, and the bill committed for Monday with three negatives, MONDAY, February 25. Mr. Graydon having expreffed his approbation of the principle of putting proteftant and catholic on an equal footing, in refpect of the elective franchife, and ftating the ill confequences of admitting fo large a number of electors as the bill would introduce, if freeholds of 40s. fhould be fuffered to confer a vote, moved, ' That the committee of the whole houfe, to whom the catholic bill is referred, fhould be empowered to receive a claufe to limit the value of freeholds entitling to vote at county elections, without prejudice to the right of freeholders now registered." Hon. D. Browne faid that the hon. genleman had a few moments before the speaker took the chair ftated the matter to him of the motion he had now brought forward: that the queftion whether there should be equality of franchise between catholic and proteftant he had no doubt of at all there fhould be none. Whether freeholders of either religion fhould vote from freeholds of 40s. was was a queftion of great delicacy and moment; it was however a fubject for an election bill, and not for the bill about to be committed. He entreated of his hon. friend to withdraw it for the prefent, it might tend to embarrass the present queftion, the immediate paffing of which into a law was a measure of justice and policy He faid, he was not fure that he would be ftrictly in order in speaking juft then to the principle of the bill introduced by the right hon. gentleman, but in order to avoid troubling the committee on a fubject he had fo often given his opinion, as the catholic claims on, he would now ftate his opinion of it as shortly as he could. He agreed with the right hon. gent. on the floor, that it was a fubftantial measure, full of benefits to the roman catholics, and for which they ought to be highly obliged. The advantages it gave were materialthe deprivations few ;-the great fault of the bill was, that the deprivations were on the face of it, and the benefits in the back ground. The bill gave an unlimited right of voting at elections. As to the proteftant, the revenue through all its various branches, the ordnance, the treasury, the offices of the law courts, with few cxceptions; the army and the navy, were to follow by an English law through their different details; the poft-office, magiftrates in counties, right of juries as to protestants. The offices catholics were capable of holding by the bill were two thousand; thofe they were still restricted from not one hundred and fifty. The good fenfe of the measure was apparent from the debate of laft night-it was ftrongly fupported and little refifted-fo much fo as to leave to the friends of the measure a strong hope that it would be an unanimous meafure of parliament. If the right hon. gent. had waited till the fears and prejudices of the countrywere at an end, there was по |