1

us by the wisdom of our ancestors. In pursuing that we can encounter no dangers. The other, a way untrodden and perilous, and leading to innovation, the consequences of which no human foresight can develope. I am not prepared, my Lords, to rush heedlessly into a path leading to such desperate results, and therefore I shall vote against the motion for referring this Petition to a Committee.

Lord MULGRAVE.-" Feeling it my duty not to give a silent vote on this question, I shall trespass as shortly as possible on the patience of the House, in declaring my sentiments. On this occasion, my Lords, I must differ from both my Noble Friends who have spoke against the motion: because from the best attention I have been able to give the subject, I cannot perceive those dangers which they seem to apprehend to Church and State from admitting Catholics of property and education into a share of legislation; neither can I agree with the Noble Secretary of State in disapproving of the gradual system of amelioration adopted towards the case of the Catholics: a more rapid mode of proceeding might have produced a revulsion, dangerous in its consequences. Whenever restrictions are to be taken off, it is the duty of those who propose the removal, to take care it be done with as little risque of inconvenience as possible. With respect to the Petition on your table, my Lords, I do not hesitate to profess myself friendly to its object; and I only lament that the time for introducing it has not been more properly chosen.` I apprehend the general sense of the country is not favourable to it; that it is not likely to succeed in the general approbation of either House of Parliament. I fear the introduction of it at present will only tend to excite religious dissensions, that will tend ultimately to frustrate its great object. Those who have brought it forward at this time, could not but know it was without the least prospect of success, and, therefore, their conduct has tended to

throw

throw the measure desired to a much greater distance than I, who am a friend to it, could wish. I cannot, therefore, feel disposed to give it that support, when thus urged forward precipitately and intemperately, that I otherwise should have done. My confidence in the professions of those Petitioners is much shaken by their precipitancy on this occasion, which will certainly teach me to observe well their measures and proceedings henceforward. Upon this ground it is that I am disposed to resist the Petition in the first instance. There is another ground, too, on which I am induced also to resist the Petition, namely, that it is not the claim of the mass of the people of Ireland, but that of a few interested individuals. Where, my Lords, are the other Petitions in favour of it? There are none. If, my Lords, the Catholics are to be let into political power, I see no reason why it should be restricted to the Catholics of Ireland alone, whose toleration under the Constitution is far preferable to that of the English Catholic. For these reasons, though I profess myself friendly to the principles of the measure, I shall resist it for the present, although, when the time shall be safe, and the general sentiment favourable, I shall have no objection to the removal of all restraints that may be no longer thought necessary.

Lord HOLLAND." My Lords, so deeply was my mind impressed with the importance of the subject now under your Lordships' discussion, that, when I first entered the House this night, I was extremely anxious to trouble your Lordships with my sentiments upon it. But when I heard the able and argumentative speech of the Noble Baron who opened the debate, I conceived it so wholly unnecessary for me to trespass on your Lordships' time, as that Noble Baron, in the course of his admirable speech, seemed to me not only to have exhausted all the arguments that could be urged in favour of his motion, but to have anticipated and refuted

I 2

every

every argument that could be found to bear against it. But, notwithstanding this, my Lords, some arguments have been since offered from that side of the House, and particularly by a Noble Secretary of State, so extraordinary, that not even the perspicacity of the Noble Baron could have forescen, and therefore I shall beg leave to trouble your Lordships with a few remarks on the subject before you, in answer to such arguments urged by my Noble Friend, the Secretary of State, who has been so little in the habit of agreeing with me on political subjects, that I trust our difference on this occasion will not, more than former differences, disturb our private sentiments of esteem for each other; and from the Noble Viscount (Lord SIDMOUTH) whom I have heard this night for the first time in this House, but with whom it has been as little my good fortune to agree in politics, as with my Noble Friend (the Secretary); and, indeed, from the strange deductions the Noble Viscount has this night drawn from the occurrences that have passed since the Revolution, I do not think it likely that I ever shall agree with him but if the doctrines laid down by both the Noble Lords were to be sanctioned by this House, they would indeed be pregnant with the most grievous calamities to Ireland, as the great mass of the people in that country would then have no prospect of ever being relieved from the grievances under which they labour. But if both the Noble Lords, and particularly the Noble Viscount, act in consistency with their own principles, if they allow themselves to be bound by their own arguments, they must vote for going into the Committee. When I heard the Noble Viscount recapitulating that dreadful code of laws which barbarized the people, and disgraced the Statute Books in Ireland; when I heard him complacently descanting upon that horrible and immoral system, and lamenting the concessions which have already been made to the Catholics, I thought, at least, he could have no ob

jection

jection against referring the Petition to a Committee, were it only for the purpose of having those laws reenacted, the repeal of which he appears so sincerely to deplore; but when Noble Lords speak with regret of the repeal of the Ponal Statutes against the Catholics, will they seriously call the periods in which those statutes were enacted and enforced, periods of tranquillity? Have they contributed to banish division and discontent from the country?-Was this the state of Ireland, as justified by history? On the contrary, my Lords, have we not seen in those laws the cause of perpetual dissensions, and the means by which every discontent was apt to become rebellion dangerous to the State? The arguments that have been offered against this motion are reducible under two heads; those against the principle of removing the restrictions on Catholics, and those against the measure, not on its own account, but the time at which it is brought forward. But whatever may be the objections of the Noble Lords to the former, I cannot see the importance of their particular objections against the present time, seeing they have avowed that at any time, and always, their objections to the principle must be insurmountable. The Noble Secretary has stated, that any man of plain understanding coming into the House, and hearing the Petition read, and the arguments in favour of it, must imagine nothing less is desired than a repeal of the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, and to erect the Catholics into a complete ascendency in the Empire. The Noble Viscount said too, that the repeal of the Test Act is a minor object, compared with the claims of this Petition;-but I ask, is it a fair inference to draw, that because it may be deemed prudent to place the Catholics, in point of eligibility for admission to power, on the same footing with Protestant Dissenters, that there must be a consequent necessity for admitting the Protestant Dissenters to some privileges they do not now enjoy ? To do so, may or may not be a wise expedient. On

that

that point I shall not now argue, but it by no means follows as a necessary consequence of the Catholic claims! And surely, my Lords, it is a strange argument, to say, that the Catholics must be still kept under severe grievances, lest, if they were relieved, some other class of persons, with whom the Catholics have nothing in common, should ask for something else. Those, therefore, who are inclined to vote against the motion, must do so, either on the ground that the laws, as they now exist, require no alteration-or that this is not the time for it. The Noble Secretary has argued, that all nations have acted on the principle of tests-but he has forgot, that in this very House, the principle has not been pushed to the extent for which he has argued; for many persons have been allowed to sit in it who have not concurred in the religious doctrines of the Church Establishment. Those persons, indeed, may be liable to tests if they accept of offices, but they are not precluded from sitting and voting in Parliament as Catholics are. The Noble Secretary has drawn an elaborate distinction between civil rights and political power; but the whole of his inferences from the position may be answered by a single question-where could civil rights exist unaccompanied by political power? for the one must be nugatory without the other; political power, being, in fact, the only security for civil rights. Here, then, his argument, that toleration is already complete, must be obviously defective. Can the Noble Lord look at the situation of Ireland and not know that for the want of political power, to raise the great mass of the people from degradation; that for the want of political power to render effectual those indulgences which the law has conceded, many of those indulgences are vain and uselss? and I contend, that until they obtain a share of political power, the rest will be merely nominal. Much, my Lords, has been said by a Noble Viscount, respecting the great conces→ sions made at different times to the Catholics; but