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who are decidedly averse to it, that in this United Kingdom you have a population of from three to 5,000,000 of fellow-subjects, who have been educa-` ted in the Roman Catholic Religion, who profess that faith, and are firmly attached to it, and whom you must consider, for every purpose of Government and Legislation, as persons to be treated as Roman Catholics. In Ireland, it must be recollected, that three-> fourths of the population of that country are composed of persons of that persuasion, and that it is therefore impossible, in attempting to provide for the Government of Ireland, or for the happiness of its inhabitants, without adverting constantly to this fact, and giving it that leading consideration which it must always deserve.

We are to consider this state of the fact, as it has been since the period of the Reformation, as it is at the present moment, and as it is likely to be, beyond any time to which we can rationally look. It is impossible for any wise man to shut his eyes upon the fact, that three-fourths of the people of Ireland are of the Roman Catholic faith, and say, 'I will provide only for those who profess the Established Religion, and leave all the rest out of my consideration.' I hope no man will be found to maintain such a proposition. If any person should entertain such an opinion, let his eye turn back to the time of the Reformation, and point out, if he can, at what period, since that event, he will not find the state of religion in Ireland to be nearly the same. And how can he look

forward to any means of governing that country, without that feature which has been so strongly marked for more than two centuries? I will not detain and trouble your Lordships with long, tedious, and wearisome details of Catholic history. At the Revolution the Catholics were viewed as connected with those political sentiments which were adverse to the Revolution. It was not so much against the religion of the Catholics that our efforts were then directed, as against those politics then enter

tained by the professors of the Catholic faith, in favour of the exiled family. I do not mean to condemn, or even to arraign the policy of those times, which depended very much on a variety of important local circumstances: but the situation of those days, is not the situation of this.— It is only doing bare justice to one of the greatest of Princes, to one of the best and most enlightened friends of toleration, when I say that it is not on the memory of King William, that a departure from the principles of toleration, should be charged. No part of such a system could have obtained the approbation of that illustrious Monarch. In the subsequent reigns, an opinion was maintained, that a Roman Catholic must ever be the irreconcilable enemy of Protestant Establishments and Protestant Governments, both in England and in Ireland: that no alteration of circumstances, no acquisition of benefits, no lapse of time, could ever extinguish, in his heart, the implacable seeds. of animosity which the bare profession of his religious faith had implanted there. How incapable such a doctrine must be of support, from fair argument, every thinking man must perceive; it will not bear it for a moment; yet, upon such a principle, the system of conduct towards the Catholics seems to have been founded. The consequence was, to exclude the Irish Catholic from all share in the privileges of his Protestant fellow-subjects. Thus all influence was to be taken from him, because it might lead to the possession of power, and all acquisition of property, because it led to influence. Even the favour of toleration was denied him, and the rites of domestic life were forbidden; not even the intermarriage of the King's subjects was allowed, where one of the parties chanced to be a Roman Catholic. In short, the system seemed to have for its object, to drive the whole body of the Roman Catholics out of the island, or to reduce those who remained upon it to a set of wretched, degraded, ignorant

ignorant, illiterate peasantry: and as a great ma once said, If the object was a wise and good one,' undoubtedly no system was ever better calculated to produce its end.' They were kept poor and inconsiderable; they were persecuted, degraded, and excluded; they were, by every mode, alienated from the Constitution; and, in proportion as they were alienated, their feelings were exasperated, and their hearts embittered. I state, my Lords, the situation in which his present Majesty found three or four millions of his subjects. What has been done in the course of this reign, and what a striking contrast does it offer to the injustice and impolicy of the former system? By wise and gradual measures, the better perhaps because they have been gradual, you have reversed the whole of the system. It is hardly to be credited, that within the present reign it should have been found necessary to pass an Act to enable the King's subjects to intermarry. A full toleration has followed, and the privileges of education, which the repeal of many most odious measures, which were originally passed to correct evils, not by making Catholics good Protestants, but by making them bad members of families. They have likewise received an interest in the land, by affording them a participation in the soil. They are also now allowed to share in the increasing benefits of trade: they have gained the elective franchise, and a large share of the executive offices of the country, with the exception of some of the higher, and of seats in the Legislature. All this you have done, and by degrees you have seen the wealth and the resources of Ireland increased greatly. Few countries, if any, have, in so short a time, made so rapid a progress in opulence, in commerce, and, in what is so important, in civilization. Great encouragement has also been given to agriculture, and in so doing, the wealth of the nation has been much augmented. You were not so ignorant as not to know that this amelioration would soon shew itself in the lower and

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in the middle classes of society, and it is no small consolation to know, that you have raised up a middle class of society in that country, a class that, till lately, hardly existed there. As they rose in wealth, they naturally increased in attachment attachment to the country, and in that importance which you professed to wish. At last you extended all those British privileges, except those now solicited. You gave them eligibility to offices, with a few exceptions. Here then a stand was made for a time. Not be

cause it was right to say, 'Here we will take our stand and go no farther,' for the system of concession was gradual, and the mode and terms of the concessions never implied that nothing more should ever be granted. It was necessary so to grant, as to make the concessions compatible with that harmony which was desirable on all hands in the case of such large concessions, which were made without unseemly hesitation and grudging, and in a manner tending to conciliate those to whom the boon was given. There were considerations of great weight, which rendered it doubtful whether we could give all that might be wanted in the Irish Parliament, without something, perhaps, very like a convulsion in the country. The popular part of the Irish Legislature, did not rise by accident, as in this country, till it became a representation of the various interests of the nation; but a large part of it was expressly framed for the purpose of making the Legislature entirely Protestant, and of excluding threefourths of the country. Many reasons, indeed, appcared, against endeavouring to adopt this measure in the Irish Parliament; but these reasons, I am happy to say, are now entirely done away, by the salutary operation of the wise arrangement for the distribution of the Representatives of Ireland in the United Parliament: and it should be remembered, that in proportion as you give additional influence to the Catholics of Ireland now, you give the same to the great body of Protestants throughout the Em

pire. The Union not only removed these difficulties; but it did more which your Lordships, I am sure, will bear in mind; it excited ardent hopes in the minds of the Irish Catholics. On this subject I speak from a knowledge of the facts. There was no positive obligation nor authorised promise, on the part of Government, in the event of the Union, to the Catholics; but it is no less true, that the whole of the argument and reasoning of those who supported that measure, in and out of doors, went to prove, that this important subject would be better considered here than in the Irish Parliament. And one great consideration in favour of the Union was the prospect it held out of a mode of destroying those religious animosities, and that party-spirit, which had been the cause of so many great calamities. It was from the nature of the subject itself that the Irish Catholics were justified in their expectations of this measure: at least this assurance was given them that the United Parliament would undoubtedly receive their petition, and attentively consider the whole circumstances of their case. It is this pledge, my Lords, that I now call upon you to redeem. I do not mean at present to propose any particular measure, though I shall not refrain from stating what I think ought in policy and justice to be done: but I ask of your Lordships, in candour and fairness, to hear them with patience, and to remember, that the diffusion of equal rights and equal privileges, under the same Constitution, is the most effectual mode of securing equal affection and equal attachment to the Government and the country. The motion I shall submit is, that this House do resolve itself into a Committee to consider the Petition, which I think cannot be opposed, unless by those who are willing to give a full negative to the whole of the matter under consideration. I must say, that with respect to the different parts. of the Petition, I think it is highly expedient to grant the whole, if you mean to discharge that duty D

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