The National Register. — London, England, 1808-06-06 00:00:00

354 THE NATIONAL REGISTER. of their superiors, but as that operation directly atfeeis themselves. For thougu the numbers of those Cataidies who actually stand so high, as to knock at ti:st gate and hear their admission refused. be actually very inconsider able, yet the exclusion is considered a grievance bey all those who hope at any future time to attain high situations. What parent can send his son to the bar, without hoping to see him a judge? and yet there can be but twelve judges. What spirited youth ever entered the navy, without hop ing to become an admiral? and vet there are few admirals. What en,Ogn ever waved a pair of coitiors, without the hope of ad% aucinq w the staff? and vet there are but fCw gene rals. To ail such persons, therefore, the exclusion of Ca tholics to great offices hecomes necessaril; a matter of com plaint : and though the hopes of nine hundred and nine!)- n:ne aspiring minds in a thousand must necessarily be este. must necessarily blighted at last, yet those hopes, as long as they endure, sustain the vigour of the human frame amidst all its adver sities, and are the cheap reward which the country bestows upon her sers ants. Desixoy the possibility of suecess, and hope of course must wither : but allow the existence of the possibility, even in the remotest degree, and a thousane, exertions will be made to obtain the prize which only one can ultimately gain. Our statesmen and legislators, who for the most rare the sons of noblemen, bred in affluence, and placed without their own exertion in the high road of honour, little know the influence of proud hopes in bear ing up those souls on which poverty sits with heavy op press4m, and whose wings are clogged by unfavourab;e connexioas. Many and many a -youthful mind, expanded by education to a painful consciousness of its ow, strength, aed opposed by obstacles that sicken the sense as they rise, overcomes its impediments by continued vigour, and though death or misfortune at length cut off the wished reward, yet have triumphed as far as they have gone, and as sisied to exalt their country, by their struggles for their own exaltatmu. hut a. Catholic, born amid adversity, has no motive for contending against it. Honour is not permitted to the reveries of his fancy : or if it ever become a portioe of his hopes, it. is hoped only when revolution shall have cleared the way for his advancement. When he can gain no tither things,by the existing fram e o f is it not too nature; that he should wish to change that frame ? Nay, the very lowest ranks of the state have a direct, as well as an intermediate motive for murmuring against the exclusions under which they labour. ft is natural for there to conceive, that their situation, which at present is in many instances deplorable almost beyond belief, mould be amended if persons of their own religious faith were admit ted to the two houses of parliament, to the bench, to the magistracy, to the army, and to the navy. At any rate, even the mass of the people must feel that the condition of the whole body would be more honourable; for this principle of honour, though it is often stilled by fashion and by habit, and by the profligacy of civilized society, does in fact exist often most powerfully among moo who, Irons the humility of their situation, would hardly hp sup posed capable of so relined a sentiment. Though the Wee tics of personal honour arc not often found except in po lished and couit4 company, y et kind of honour, broad principle of party pru d e, which in higher circles is generally subordinate to selfish views, glows amotr: humbler individuals, in all the fervour of nature, anti With a fierceness which it is dangerous to resist. And perhaps of all the nations of the world, the Irish are generally the most tenacious of what they . call their ho pour, whether real or imaginary: Any insult to that honour, is an injury which they resent : and we be seech our country to redress her injustice, before rebellion ' become necessary resistance, and massacre be again called if:d e _efenc by the Legislature desig to he wondered at if they insult ? An excellent an , said I " When any order by the law, and placed, *able woodcut,- inn con- JUNE 6. " teinptible or humiliated position, the consequence infal " ilbly will be, that they will become objects of contempt • and distrust in all things, and will be subjected to the " insults and oppressions of those who are placed above • them. The multitude of men are naturally disposed to " domineer and insult their inferiors. If the law gives • them this licence in any degree, they arc sure t o a b use " it ; if itcountenauce their insolence in any thing, it will " be unable to check it in any other : and the sanction • which it affords to a certain measure of oppression, will be made thewarraol, and pretext for unmeasured usurpation, In all cases, indeed, of inequality of conditions, the laws only lay the foundation on which usage erects the " superstructure ; they set the example, on which practi ce • improves, :id only give the first local impulse to that " vast undulation which embraces the whole expanse of " society." It seems then to be tolerably clear, that the insult and oppression which the Irish Catholics suffer, are caused by the &gradation to which they arc condemned by the legis lature : and that this degradation, this insult, and this op press;on, united, are the causes of the discontents H hich prevail among the Irish. But the effect, in all probability, must be destroyed by the destruction of the cause : so that if we put an end to the disgraceful inlCriority which has been stamped by the Government on the unfortunate Ca. tholics, we shall probably put an end also to the insubs and oppressions which that inferiority superinduces, and the Catholics, like the rest of his Majesty's subjects, will have no misfortunes to lament, but the evils incident alike to all human nature, those evils which Providence may he pleased to inflict upon them. When the laws that arc the root of Catholic displeaSure shall have been plucked up, Ca tholic displeasure must fade and die. If the Catholics had never been held forth to vulgar prejudice, by legal exclu sions and disabilities, they never would have been invidiously aistinguished from the other subjects of Great Britain: and the invidious distinction itself must surely cease, NV hen Ca tholics shall be pronounced by !he Government to be trust worthy persons : when they shall he seen in the senate, on the bench, and in the army : when their noblemen shall share the honours which the Sovereign bestows ou other peers : and when their merchants and their country gentle men, by obtaining situations in corporate bodies, and ex ercising' the functions of the magistracy, shall acquire that 'ufluence which every man of fortune and respectability is entitled by the customs of these kingd::ms to' possess. In our next Number we shall speak more largely and de. finitely of the clingers that are to be apprehended from 4 continuation of the existing laws. REVIEW OF POLITICAL DECLAIMERS. No. XXIlt. CORBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL. REGISTER. Cohbett, in the P9!ilica! Register of the 21st of May, speaks at large of the application made by Sir Frauers Burdett to the House of Collusions on the subject of the Westminster Election, an application concerning which we have already delivered our sentiments nt considerable length. But iu the course of that article' Mr: Cobbett. tcke•s occasion to inculcate smile of those apparently just and reasonable principles %shirk are so much the fashion in the Junto - to which he belongs : and as those principles to us appear as flimsy and futile after due consideration as they appear admissible and even laudable at first sight, we shall devote as Much roont'as we can spare, to the refutation of an author whose theories are fit for no place less ;sure than Utopia, but whose style of inculcating those theories is suited generally to nothing aboire the tisb.4riarket or the hust ings. In many of his writings he exhibits, draymanslikc, a vulgar and dirty strength : hut in the - article to Which we now allude, he gives us. not as usual,. powerful arguments coarF.ely , -onveyed, but a string of false premises and illogical conclu sions, recommending to practice What is utterly ,impracticable, and preiehing a purity in politics which will never be attaived while every thin else is impure: In the present state of society . . . - self:Cleleuce. 'Hie Cu i lldic, arc nated as qiish . nitkpfssoils : is it Ina s lit' - ' k . n ,in 'victual i th 11 - ,..4111 4 , 1 , . Ilan 4‘ r . 4 .). _4, ,tr .e d b 4 4 ' f-.1 i " tit f''''N''' s' i • , tisid ) 41111 r i z j e , ... tit is -•-- • ' _:,/ 1 r i ? ! 1 i 1 . .1 1/1 , 4.. , •