ciple, the Irish militia, which must be in a great proportion Catholic, stands, and on the same principle the Irish yeomanry,who must be in a far more considerable proportion Catholic, stands; and on the same prin ciple you have recruited for the navy in Ireland, and have committed your naval thunder-bolts to Catholic hands. Suppose, in Egypt, the general had ordered the Catholics to go out of the ranks; or if, in one of our sea-fights, the admiral had ordered all the Catho lics on shore, what had been the consequence? It is an argument against the proscriptive system, that, if adopted practically in navy or army, the navy and the army, and the empire, would evaporate! And shall we now proclaim these men, or hold such language as the Learned Member; language which if he held on the day of battle, he must be shot; language for which, if a Catholic, he must be hanged; such as you despised in the case of Corsica and of Ca nada, in the choice of your allies, in the recruiting your army and your navy, whenever your convenience, whenever your ambition, whenever your interest required? Or let us turn from the magnitude of your empire, to the magnitude of its danger, and you will observe, that whereas Europe was hereto fore divided in many small nations of various reli gions, making part of their civil policy, and with alliances, influenced in some degree and directed by those religious distinctions, where civil and religious freedom were supposed to be drawn up on one side, and on the other, popery and arbitrary power; so now the globe has been divided anew-England and France. You have taken a first situation among mankind, you are of course precluded from a second; Austria may have a second situation, Prussia may have a second, but England seeins to have linked her Being to her Glory, and when she ceases to be of the FIRST, she is nothing. According to this supposition, and it is a supposition which I do not frame,

but

but find in your country, the day may not be very remote, when you will have to fight for being, and for what you value more than being, the antient renown of your island! You have said it yourselves, and you have added, that Ireland is your vulnerable part. I admit it. Why vulnerable? Vulnerable, because you have misgoverned her. It may then happen, that on Irish ground, and by Irish hearts and hands, the destinies of this antient monarchy, called Great Britain, may be decided. Accordingly you have voted your army, but you have forgot to vote away your prejudices you have forgot to vote your people you must vote their passions likewise :their horrors at the French proceedings will do much; but it is miserable to rely on the crimes of your ene mies. Always on your own wisdom? Never!-Besides, those horrors did not prevent Prussia from leaving your alliance, nor Austria from making peace, nor the United Irishmen from making war. Loyalty will do much ; but you require more, patience under taxes, such as are increased far beyond what we have been accustomed to, from one million and a half to eight millions; nor patience only, but ardour, The strong qualities, not such as the scolding diaJect of certain gentlemen, would excite the fire;-a spirit, that, in the case of an invasion,will not sit as a spy on the doubt of the day and calculate; but though the first battle should be unsuccessful, would come on with a deperate fidelity, and embody with the destinies of England. It is a wretched thing to ask, how would they act in such a case? What after a connexion of six hundred years, to thank your admi ral for your safety, or the wind, or any thing but your own wisdom! And therefore the question is not, whether six or ten Catholics shall get so many seats in this House, but whether you will give to three mik Hons of your fellow subjects, a participation, full

and

and equal, of that Constitution enjoyed by their Pro testant countrymen-and attach to you so many grateful and faithful millions? In such a case, you would live, all a people. What is it that constitutes the strength and health of England, but this sort of vitality, that her privileges, like her money, circulate every where, and centre no where? This it was which equality would have given, but did not give to France; this it was which the plain sense of your ancestors, without equality, did give the English; a something, which limited her Kings, drove her enemies, and made a handful of men fill the world with their name. Will you, in your Union with Ireland, withhold the wholesome and invigorating regimen which has made you strong, and continue that regimen which has made her feeble? Give to the Irish Catholics the participation they desire, and all your affections and wishes will be the same. You will further recollect, that you have invited her to your patrimony, and bitherto you have given her taxes, and an additional debt; I believe it is of twenty-six millions: the other part of your patrimony,I should be glad to see thats talk plainly and honestly to the Irish; 'Tis true your taxes are increased, and your debts multiplied

but here are our privileges; great burthens, and great privileges-this is the patrimony of England, and with this does she assess, recruit, inspire, consolidate. But the Protestant: ascendancy, it is said, alone can keep the country; namely, the gentry, clergy, and nobility, against the French, and without the people. It may be so: but in 1641, above ten thousand troops were sent from England to as sist that party; in 1689, twenty-three regiments were raised in England to assist them; in 98, the English militia were sent over to assist them; what can. be done by spirit will be done by them: but would the City of London, on such assurances, risque a guinea?

8

guinea? The Parliament of Ireland did risque every thing, and are now nothing; and in their extincs tion left this instruction, not to their posterity, for they have none,-but to you, who come in the place of their posterity,-not to depend on a sect of religion, nor trust the final issue of your fortunes to any thing less than the whole of your people.

"The Parliament of Ireland of that assembly I have a parental recollection. I sat by her cradle:I followed her hearse! In fourteen years she acquired for Ireland what you did not acquire for England in a century-freedom of trade, independency of the legislature, independency of the judges, restoration of the final judicature, repeal of a perpetual Mutiny Bill, Habeas Corpus Act, Nullum Tempus Act-a great work! You will exceed it, and I shall rejoice. I call my countrymen to witness, if in that business I compromised the claims of my country, or tempo. rized with the power of England. But there was one thing which baffled the effort of the patriot, and defeated the wisdom of the senate-it was the fully of the theologian. When the parliament of Ireland rejected the Catholic Petition, and assented to the calumnies then uttered against the Catholic body-on that day she voted the Union. If you should adopt a similar conduct, on that day you will vote the separation. Many good and pious reasons no doubt you may give; many good and pious reasons she gave; and there she lies with her many good and her pious reasons! That the Parliament of Ireland should have entertained prejudices, I am not astonished; but that you, that you, who have, as individuals and as conquerors, visited a great part of the globe, and have seen men in all their modifications and Providence in all her ways-that you, now, at this time of day, should throw up dykes against the Pope, and barriers against the Catholics, instead of uniting

with

with that Catholic to throw up barriers against the French! This surprises; and in addition to this, that you should have set up the Pope in Italy, to tremble at him in Ireland: and further, that you should have professed to have placed yourself at the head of a Christian, not a Protestant league, to defend the civil and religious liberty of Europe, and should deprive of their civil liberty one-fifth of yourselves, on account of their religion-This surprises me: and also that you should run about like a grownup child, in search of old prejudices, and should prefer to buy foreign allies by subsidies, rather than subsidize fellow-subjects by privileges; and that you should now stand, drawn out as it were in battalion, 16,000,000 against 36,000,000, and should at the same time paralyse a fifth of your own numbers, by excluding them from some of the principal benefits of your constitution, at the very time you say all your numbers are inadequate, unless inspired by those very privileges! As I recommend to you to give the privileges, so I should recommend the Catholics to wait cheerfully and dutifully. The temper with. which they bear the privation of power and privilege is evidence of their qualification; they will recollect the strength of their case, which sets them above impatience; they will recollect the growth of their case from the time it was first agitated to the present moment, and in that growth perceive the perishable. nature of the objections, and the immortal quality of the principle they contend for. They will further recollect what they have gotten already rights of religion, rights of property, and above all the elective franchise, which is in itself the seminal principle of every thing else. With a vessel so laden, they will be too wise to leave the harbour, and trust the fal- . lacy of any wind: nothing can prevent the ultimate success of the Catholics but intemperance: for this they will be too wise: the charges uttered against