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 frame of 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, yet kind of honour,
broad principle of party prude, 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 to abuse
" 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 practice
• 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
. .

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