the other. Those privileges are the security of your church, and those disabilities, its danger. I am the more convinced of the truth of this, and of the necessity of removing the disabilities that affect the people of Ireland, when I behold the progress of their disquietude; ever since the policy of Europe, with regard to religion, had changed, and the Emperor of Germany repealed the laws that were penal on the Protestants, the Irish penal code became a subject of discussion, and ever since 1792 a subject of disquietude; for instance, in the year 1792, when the Catholic petition was rejected, in 1793 when the petition was received, and the hostility of the Irish government rendered acquiescence unsatisfactory. In 1795, when leave to bring in a bill of repeal was refused; in 1805, when their petition was presented, and a committee was refused; in 1808, when their petition was presented, and a committee was refused; in 1810, when their petition was presented, and a committee refused; in 1811, when their petition was presented, and a committee refused, and now is added to disqualification, a litigation with threefourths of His Majesty's subjects about their dearest privileges. You go to war with America; you have gone to law with Ireland; the Catholics resort to a new mode of petitioning; the government consider that mode to be unlawful; the government issue ten informations against the delegates; the delegates persist, are arrested, and bring three notices of actions against the magistrates, and five against the Chief Justice; the printers publish the proceedings of the court, and the Catholics; the court issue six attachments against the printers; these twenty-three suits are supported by an eloquent bar of great legal ability and splendid powers of elocution; those eloquent men must, as in duty bound; mark the errors, and point out the misconduct of the one side, as well as the other; the rudimental principles of government are put in a course of discussion, and the whole machine examined from centre to circumference; whatever has been committed in history on either side, the conduct of Parliament, and the rights of the people, must of necessity form the subject of their eloquence; animated by two auxiliary spirit-stirring subjects, the freedom of person, and the liberty of the press. Wait, say gentlemen, for the discussion of three-and-twenty suits, and the return of public repose. Unfortunately for that repose, it happens that the law in question seems formed and calculated for renovated litigation; the best lawyers differ; eagle against eagle, long robe against long robe, verdict against verdict, now a defeat of the government, now a defeat of the people! The convention act says for instance, all representative bodies met under pretence of petitioning for the alteration of matters established in church and state, are unlawful." Under pretence," says one side, means " under pretence." No, says the other side," under pretence" means "under no pretence," but "for the purpose;" and they quote, with great plausibility, the authority of statutes. Again there is a proviso which saves the right of petition from the operation of the bill. You had no right to petition by representation, you legislate by representation, and petition in person. Aye, says the other, but you might have prepared a petition by representation, though you could not have signed it. Again, a question arises, what is representation? The bill makes representation the soul of the offence, and leaves you to guess what that representation may be, whether delegation in itself means representation, or what species of delegation imports representation, or what quantity of power and of confidence must be given, in order to constitute that crime; this is bad for the public repose: but this is not the worst, it is much worse that the evil arises not from temporary causes, not from any bigotry in the Lord-lieutenant, or his secretary: the defence made for these gentlemen, is a decisive argument for the repeal of the disabling code: these gentlemen, it is said, came to the country without enmity to the Roman Catholics; admit it, it is the disqualifying law; the evil arises from the law: the law has disqualified three-fourths of the people, and you must repeal the law to remove their disquiet; you have stopped the circulation in the political body, and she naturally falls into convulsions. I venture to affirm, that as long as those restrictions remain, no administration, whig or tory, can govern Ireland, with repose to itself, or satisfaction to the community. It will be an alternate victory of a Protestant government, or a Catholic people. I am against such victories. I would not enfeeble the government, or break the spirit of the people. I do not desire the triumph of one sect over the other, but the triumph of both over their common prejudices; and in the triumph of both, you will find the consolidation of the people, and the strength of your empire, -a tranquil people, and a combined empire. I think I have shown you, that hitherto the people of Ire land have been discontented under the penal code. What will they be now? A new question arises, not whether the Catholics of Ireland shall be under a temporary disqualification, in consequence of a temporary bar, but whether they shall be disqualified for ever? You will have this session to pronounce the doom of the Roman Catholics, whether their lot in the British empire is to be eternal disqualification. Sir, you can not impose it, the very sound is horrible. What! take away the Irish Parliament, and then exclude the Irish from your own. What! use the prospect of admission into this Parliament as an inducement to procure the abolition of their national Parliament, and then make their exclusion from the English Parliament eternal! You take away the government of their country, you take away the Parliament of their country, you take away their church, you establish your own, you make them pay that establishment, and then disqualify them! This people, with their fellow-subjects, pay you in rental two millions; they pay you in commerce at the current price near ten millions; they pay you revenue, six millions; they bleed for you in every quarter of the globe! and you propose to disqualify them for ever: you cannot do it; your good sense and your good feelings forbid it; the feelings of your countrymen forbid it;-it is an interdict, horrible, unnatural, impossible! That you may, in your present difficulties, triumph, is the sincere wish of my heart; but as Ireland must be one great instrument of your success, so must she be a partaker of your advantages: she shares your danger, she must share your privileges. The House divided, at half-past five in the morning, on Lord Morpeth's motion: for the motion 135, against it 229; Majority 94. Tellers for the Ayes, Mr. W. Wynne, and Mr. Freemantle, GRANT TO MAYNOOTH COLLEGE. SIR JOHN NEWPORT MOVES A GRANT OF 13,000l. IN LIEU March 9. 1812. On this day, the Irish miscellaneous services were read, on the grant of 41,5391. to the Protestant Charter Schools. Mr. Pole appealed to Mr. Grattan (one of the members of the Board of Education), for his opinion respecting these schools. . Mr. GRATTAN said: That having been referred to by the right honourable gentleman, he rose merely to observe, that the commissioners of education in Ireland, had made an extreme good report, but it was not within the purview of their commission to suggest or follow up any new. plan for con ducting the Charter Schools in a way differing from their original institution. He must say, however, that since the report of the commissioners of inquiry, in 1788, these schools were very much improved, both as to the health and cleanliness of the children, and that it was much better to make ample provision for their maintenance, than to defeat their object by a parsimonious one. The price of provisions had been greatly on the increase; the buildings also of the charity had been greatly improved; and these circumstances sufficiently justified the increased vote, both of the preceding and of the present year. The grant was agreed to. On the grant of 89731. for the support of the Catholic college at Maynooth, Sir John Newport rose, and having stated, that the increased population of Ireland rendered a more numerous clergy absolutely necessary; and as foreign education was by the war rendered impossible, it would be adviseable, that the grant of 1807 should be continued; he accordingly moved, "that the sum of 13,000l. be inserted in lieu of 9,000l." This was opposed by Mr. Secretary Ryder and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Percival); the former said, he was averse to give a hostile religion the power of making proselytes; and Mr. Percival objected to the principle of the grant altogether. The motion was supported by Mr. Whitbread, Mr. C. Wynn, Mr. Herbert, and Mr. Grattan, who said, That he was not aware of the strength of the right honourable gentleman's argument, that because we adopted the original grant, therefore we were not obliged ever to enlarge it. If once the principle were adopted, he contended that the limitation of the sum was only to be fixed by the circumstances of the times: to act otherwise, was nominally to adopt, and ultimately to defeat, the principle. What was the meaning of establishing a Catholic college, if the exigencies of such a college were not to be supplied as they should vary from time to time? The House should recollect, that the Catholic population paid for the Protestant establishment; and it was extremely just that something should be given to them. The grant was not for the propagation, but the practice of the Catholic religion. The question was not, whether we should extend this or that faith by any act in the power of Parliament to make; such a system had been tried in Ireland, but it had failed. Acts had passed, which were mischievous in their operation, certainly disgraceful, and entirely useless for the purposes for which they were intended. Every effort to force conscience would have a contrary effect, because then it became no longer a matter of religion but of spirit to persist in that faith against which such force was directed. Catholics were Christians, as well as Protestants; and every attempt to destroy catholicity, was an attempt against christianity. The question was, in fact, between christianity, and deism; between foreign, and domestic education. We must choose to educate the Catholics at home, or give them up to deism, or to foreign education; to act otherwise, was forcing the Catholic to be an infidel, or a disaffected man. When the House had once adopted the principle, he thought it was bound honestly to follow up that principle, and to meet the exigencies of the establishment whose existence it had sanctioned. As the people increased, so increased the demand for religious instruction, and so ought the grant to be increased, from which that instruction flowed. If the grant was not to be increased, then the principle of the institution was only poorly and inadequately met; half the people only could be instructed. The right honourable gentleman had asked, was there any instance of a state having supported a hostile religion? Yes! he would tell him, Ireland. Ireland did now actually support the religion of another country; for, when the right honourable gentleman said, "state," he must have meant by it, not the government, but the nation; and the Catholic' people did contribute by taxes to the support of the Protestant establishment. Again, the right honourable gentleman had said, that there was no proportion between the means given for the education of Catholic priests and Protestant pastors. Would any man in his senses have used such an argument? He would ask the right honourable gentleman, was the Catholic rich in proportion to the Protestant church in Ireland? Was the Dublin university nothing? Were tithes nothing? Were bishoprics nothing? Was the half million by which the Protestant church was supported nothing? Would the right honourable gentleman then consider the small, though respectable, number of persons, for whose use these endowments were intended? and would he then compare them to the overflowing numbers, for whose religious instruction 80007. was thought too much? In fact, there was not in the world a richer than the Protestant, nor a poorer than the Catholic church of Ireland. Christianity was the title of the Irish to education. The grant was not to gratify a sect, but to cherish a branch of the christian religion. To deny the necessary grant, was an attempt to starve the people out of their faith, which could not be successful. To deprive the people of Ireland of education, was a struggle for a new victory over them. It was not only destroying their temporal rights, but their spiritual faculties; it was not only |