their loyalty and attachment to the Constitution, and that beneficent Sovereign placed at the head of it. Their loyalty, I will acknowledge, has been for a series of years highly meritorious: I am not inclined to withhold from them the rewards due to that loyalty and attachment; but those rewards I have understood to have been long granted to them as fully as they could possibly require. I have no doubt that the Petitioners are men such as they have been stated, honourable and conscientious; but I will not argue what the sentiments of great bodies of men may be, from those of individuals, nor even what those of individuals would be under strong and peculiar circumstances.

I give the Petitioners credit for their sincerity and integrity; but even those qualities are subjects of alarm to me in the present case: I am anxious to avoid being accessary to the disastrous consequences which may result even from the acts of honest men obeying the impulse of their consciences. Much, my Lords, has been said on the subject of toleration. But, in my mind, toleration the Catholics of Ireland enjoy in a degree as ample as can be acceded to them consistently with the security we owe to our Constitution and Establishment. The Noble Lord has admitted that their toleration is complete as to every exercise of their religion. But he demands for them considerably more ;-no less than a participation in political power. Their claims then are for something of a more comprehensive range; it is for undefined privileges artfully suggested under the convenient phrase of Catholic Emancipation-a very convenient term I will confess for those who have other views to answer, but certainly one not calculated to promote the object of the Petitioners. It is calculated to awaken the hopes of the great bulk of the Irish Catholics, that other objects may be gained by persevering in the same steps which led to this. They care little for the privilege of sitting in Parliament; but they have an object in getting

rid of the oath of supremacy. The Noble Baron who commenced this debate, has adopted, for him at least, a novel line of argument. He began with arraigning the policy adopted towards the Catholics by our ancestors, and which, with little variation, has been followed until within the last twenty years. But what, I would ask the Noble Baron, is the true object of this Petition? Is it not to get rid of the Oath of Supremacy and the Declaration-tests which the wisdom of those who have gone before us thought indispensible to the maintenance of our Constitution? If we dispense with the Oath of Supremacy, it will pave the way to other objects, which I cannot contemplate without alarm.

My Lords, the penal laws under which the Catholics of Ireland formerly laboured, are as revolting to me as to any man; but they arose out of indispensible necessity, nor was there any of them that will not appear fully justified by reference to the history of the country, from the Reformation to the Revolution. I will admit, however, that those laws were forced upon Ireland; and, in making this declaration, I speak from my conscience, and with the regret of an honest Englishman. It cannot be denied that they were forced upon that country by a cruel and overbearing necessity. (The Noble Viscount here entered into an historical detail of the various plots and rebellions in Ireland, which he alledged to have justified the various penat restrictions upon the Catholics). From these statements on facts, I aver that our ancestors were justified, by such various acts of treason and rebellion, to impose those severe laws they have enacted, upon such of the population of that country as professed the Roman Catholic Religion. Some of the most severe of those statutes were passed in the reign of William III. than whom no Prince or other man ever entertained a truer notion of, or a more sincere attachment to the genuine principles of toleration and rational liberty. (The Noble Viscount here went through the history of the political re

straints

straints imposed on the Catholics by the penal code, down to the commencement of the present reign.) But, my Lords, during the reign of his present Majesty, nearly the whole, and certainly the most severe and obnoxious of those restrictions, have been done away and under the Constitution, as it now stands, I will ask, what are the inconveniences felt by the Catholics? Are they not as fully protected in their characters, their properties, and their liberties, as any other description of his Majesty's subjects? I call upon any friend of the Catholics to point out a single statute in our legislative code which, at this day, bears hard upon them, and I am persuaded, if any such statute does exist, it is only necessary to point it out in order to induce its repeal. I acknowledge, my Lords, that many of the arguments formerly used against extending any indulgence to the Catholics, are no longer applicable. I am free, also, to confess, that the existence of a Pretender to the throne, can no longer be urged as an argument against their claims; and if I thought that the effect of conceding, the substance of this Petition would be to unite the mass of the population of Ireland, perhaps I might have been disposed not to oppose it so decidedly as I find myself under the necessity of doing. But when I see the Catholics, almost undisguisedly, endeavouring to become, not merely a part of the State, but the State itself, it is an object which I can never be induced to grant them. It is not merely a civil right, but political power in the most comprehensive signification of the term, which they seek to attain. I agree fully, my Lords, with the argument adduced by the illustrious person near me (the Duke of CUMBERLAND) that there is no instance of Catholics and Protestants dividing political power, without infinite mischief to the country. The unhappy James II. who was at once the patron and the dupe of such a project, affords us a striking proof of this observation, in a series of misfortunes, which terminated, in the loss of his throne. We have seen, from recent ex-. perience

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perience, the alarming consequences that have already risen from the rapid relaxation of the popery laws in Ireland, which, instead of securing a strict and orderly conduct in that community, very shortly was succeeded by an open rebellion. What, then, may be the consequence of abolishing all remaining restrictions, and admitting the Catholics to a full participation of political power? One consequence of acceding to the prayer of this Petition would be, that their clergy would acquire an authority, which, under the peculiar tenets of their religion, and the facility it affords them of influencing the minds of their flocks, it is much to be feared they would convert to a dangerous use. I will put out of the question all evasion, mental reservation, and many other dangerous tenets charged upon the Catholics, and only ask your Lordships to consider of two such dangerous powers as those of excommunica tion and auricular confession, and say, whether they will not open a door to all the dangers that may accrue to the National Church from the employment of such engines? There is but too much reason, my Lords, to apprehend that the Catholic Clergy in Ireland have never relinquished the hope of becoming the hierarchy of the country. I have the authority of the late Lord Clare, that there continues to exist Catholic Consistorial Courts in every diocese in Ireland; and I have that of Dr. Troy, the Catholic Bishop of Dublin, to prove, that a Cabinet of Cardinals actually sits at Rome, to superintend the ecclesiastical affairs of the Irish Catholic Church. Nay, more, my Lords, there is not a dignity in the Established Church that has not (its counter-part in the Catholic. The ostensible, and, perhaps, the real object of those Noblemen and Gentlemen who signed this Petition is, I am ready to own, fully and fairly expressed. I am willing to give them every credit for candour and sincerity. .. But is this the sole object of the great mass of the Catholics in Ireland? Will they not be desirous of

going a step further? Will they not naturally look to the attainment of this measure as the means of re-exalting their fallen priesthood, and various other privileges, which cannot be granted to thein without imminent danger to the established Constitution in Church and State? But even if nothing more was required than the objects limited in the Petition, I agree with the Noble Secretary of State, that it cannot be done without the certain sacrifice of the Act of Settlement. The admission of Catholics to corporations, we have the authority of Lord Clarendon to prove, caused the Rebellion of Ireland in 1641; and what must be the consequence in the first instance of admitting Catholics to seats in this House, through the medium of popular election ? In this country we have frequently witnessed the scenes of riot attendant on such elections, from the attachment of parties to favourite individuals; but what must be the case in Ireland on such an occasion, where the force of numbers would be opposed to the influence of property, and religious propensities combined with popular fury?

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My Lords, it seems to me a proposition monstrous and shocking, to be called on to place the Catholics on a superior footing to so many other classes of his Majesty's subjects, the Protestant Dissenters; and upon the condition of only a limited allegiance, to grant to those who refuse to admit the King's Supremacy, and withhold from those who do. I call upon your Lordships to preserve your Protestant King and Protestant Parliament, and to recollect that it was a Protestant Parliament who rescued this nation from the dangers of a Popish King. I conjure your Lordships to follow the example of your great Protestant Deliverer, William III.; and resolve to die in the last dyke of the Constitution, both of Church and State, rather than abandon one principle of either. There are two roads, my Lords, before us: one of them, that old, venerable, and well known way, traced out for