The National Register. — London, England, 1815-06-11 00:00:00

F ( I CATHOLIC SECURITIES. THE NATI, Le . our atti.ude l our measures, our language announce •-r rds kitions. Let us abjnr' for ever cur vain boast . ieg, th • look of contempt, and the habit of menace. Let assume the useless appellations of grail ma s9rere ,;; - ;2 people. If we cannot forget our glory, let re, not be measure!: - ss in its praise ; we have no oc ca..on to mention it incessantly and to offer an eternal challenge= to t'w linnetsr of rations. However moderate, e never h^ suspected either of fear or of weakness. Mode-f% snits real power ;it is the dignity of true con. rage. We have given sufficient proofs of our valour, and have a right to declare for peace. We may love and long rot- p, , ace without disgrace', after hating s( long been fowl' of war, and hariug it still in our power to wage it socessfully. At the aspect of a people acknowledging its errfTs, and returned to sound maxims, .confidence will revive, and prejudice, already weakened, will vanish bufore calm reflection. It will he seen, that rushing from a sy stem of self defence to one of agetession, seduced and most pledv.ed by her successes, Franc,e was carried away against her own sense of right by the pleasure of conquering. It will be felt that t!;is passion being sup vorted by a system which seemed an excuse for its injus tice, f he self love of France could not allow it to be checked, ei:h .r it should have gained the object of its ambi tion, or should have ascertained the impossibility of at. taming it. We had too much glory to part with it will ingly, awl unless it should he torn from us. We were ti , o guest not to wish to become still greater, at the risk of our ruin. Ft wa- necessary that France should fall in •order to resume her place, and our reverses were perhaps more useful to ourselves than to our enemies. The exe cution of our gigantic plan to conquer, in order to free the world is now clearly proved to he impossible. Hence our passion has no object, it becomes futile and must perish for want of food. The love of rest and peace is therefore as natural to us at present, as lately was the luve of agita tion aad war. TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL REGISTER. ST 11 1 —In the late parliamentary debates on the Ca tholic Claims, the entire question of granting or refusing those claims turned on securitieF. indeed securities are, in a view of either right or policy, the only rational point of discussion on this occasion ; for where there is no danger in granting a man an equal admission to all the benefits and privileges of a Constitution, which be contributes an equal proportion to support, there can be no right in excluding him from it ; and there can be no good policy in disaffecting a large body of people to the government, by withholding from them what .there is no danger in granting. But if grunting this equal admission wou•d be dangerous, certainly self-preservation gives the r i,ot i and point, out the policy of withholding it; nor is it at a I wonderful, that Mr. Yorke, Sir. J. Cojllippesley, ands vt:ral realty honest, benevolent, and in many re. ap..ets liberal persons should think it dangerous to grant the Catholic Claims without additional sccurqies, when Mr. Grattan himself perceives tlr , necessity of them, and ha.s his alarms at unconditional emancipation. Of Mr. • • Grattan, who that admires the splendour of talent, the brilliairt, the vigorous and the sublime of genius, who that what is grcatcA to be bet, would not grieve to REGISTER. J.UNE think any thing but unsullied purity, gutarnished pa. 1- ti4otlsnt ? AndV-thougkifiiiust be owned; thartht alarms are new-born,_ and that the watch-wore way not 44 Se Cu_ rifles, " when the order of the day was "Xing. over sp:ir eibu.ses," let not wbat u4s done be foigotten in what is not done. But notwithstanding the late decisions in Pat liament on the necessity of additional securities, let us examine what this necessity is. First 14.:t us enquire, whether the already existing securities froM thi!Clitholics towards their . fellow-subjects are not sufficient, and thee w.hether the re quired additional 'securities would not be weakening the real security towards the f crernment. If the question appear in the affirmative, it must be allowed, that there i is not only no necessity for those additional securitie s , ; but that there is, if not an absolute necessity, at least i a very weighty force of policy•against them. The existing securities from the Catholics towards their fellow-subjects are three-fold ; the moral rules or principles of their religion, the criminal la.ws of their country, and their present conduct. Now where are the moral ruleser principles of the Ca tholic religion contained ? Certainly in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments of God, which, as the order of God himself, the Catholic religion holds sacred and indispen sihle, and never pretended to annul, repeal or alter ; while it is plain to common sense, that it is the moral prin ciples of their religion, and not its speculative points of faith, direct the conduct of the Catholics towards their fellow-subjects. A man may believe in fairies, in genii, in gnomes and sylphs, and not be the less holiest a n d fair in all his dealings and transactions with his fellow men, though they may not believe in any of his airy favourites. llis speculative belief of those fanciful beings has no connexion with his moral principles. The Catholic .belief of the real presence of the body, and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and of the continual virginity of his Mother, however absurd it may be, is surely equally harmless and has equally little connexion with the moral principles of the Catholics. But the Decalogue says, " thou shalt not take the name of God in vain," that is, thou shalt not swear in the name of Qod falsely, " thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not. steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet thy neighbeur's goods." Those are the fundamental moral principles of the Ca tholic religion ; and whatever may be the old bulls and musty sheep-skins, which Sir J. C. llippesley, in his anti quary researches may'drag into ligh4 they.were, and arc, and will he always its fundamental moral principles; nor has any Pope or Council power, nor even pretender to have power to change them. Besides, not one Catholic in a thousand, knows any thing of Sir John's old bulls and musty sheep-skins ; every Catholic, even the most unlet tered Irish peasant knows these commandments, and holds them as the word of God, sacred and indispensible, and if he is not most honest and most virtuous, it is mot the fault of the moral principles of his religion. . The next security from the Catholics towards their fellow subjects consists in.the criminal laws of the country. By those laws they are at present as le lir brestrained as their fellow subjects from dishonesty and from crime. Indeed their fellow subjects, the Protestants, notwitticta tuliug their 'mutual prejudices and je,aloesies, acknowledge, that in all their private intercourse and transactions with them % tkey meet with as much honesty, candour and honour as amongst each other. In the higher rfioiks.,O.f. society, 111 7 6- te3tantr, perceive as polished manners, as nice strictne; L. I pa. arms secu- yotir at is meat wine the their re. , the here least , ards S or their Ca- e or God pen. ter ; prin- s of ards , in and ow- miry ings olio esps v of ally oral ays, t hou )ea r Ca- and nfi- RFC, tier • to cin and let-