The National Register.
London, England, 1819-03-21 00:00:00

,Jiet (114/sy/44,7 71
7Dir P. ationat ir

Na 552.--VOL. XII.]

The press of other important matter in our long Posts
script of last week, prevented us front noticing the Pa. .
tition of the English Catholics presented by Lord Nugent
to the House of Cautmous. It has been customary for
marry years for the English Catholics to separate their
cause from that of the Catholics of Ireland, at least as
far as presenting a distinct Petition for relief from their
civil disqualifications does so. •Anxious, however, to
avoid all cause of jealousy or dissatisfaction among their
brethren, they have still forborne to petition for any pe-
culiar or exclusive privileges, and have endeavoured, as
fates possible. to connect the relief of the whole Catho-
lic Body with their own. His Lordship, therefore, no
doubt, in conformity with the instructions lie had re-
ceived, declined making any further motion upon the
Petition than simply that it etclie upon the table, wait..
as he then intimated, till the fate of the Iri,it Pe-
tition, about to be presented to the !louse of Commons
by Mr. Grattan, and by Lord Grey to the House of
'Lords, should be decided. Should this last mentioned
lid of its object, which it is rather expected it will nut,
as, among other grounds of hope, Lord Liverpool is
himself said to have been at last convinced of thejiastice
and policy of concession, some further measure, on be-
half of the English Catholics will be then adopted.
So strong, indeed, and so entirely unultiectionable ap-
pear to be the claims of our English Catholics, that had
they chosen to prefer a different course of proceeding,
and to have at once insulated their own question, it is
httilly possible to conceive upon what grounds it could
bate been resisted. The common claims of the whole
•Catholic Body, and the unreasonableness of the restric•
lions u, whioh their.eivil rights continue to be sultjected,
are -tapies which hate been over and over again urged
by all the istadiera of eloquence and tb. force of truth.
AVhatever sanction the weight of authority can confer on
any measure, or what onewould think an unanswerable
argument, the union of even the most eager of 1)01i:ie.:al
opponents' on inivetsubjects, has been repeatedly thrown
intwilse balance of our Parliamentary divisions on Ca-
tholic Emancipation, and yet those ponderous materials,
ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance, have outweighed
the whole, and may do so again. We are no friends to
a rash and hasty spirit of legislation; we would have
even abuses apparently the most flagrant, well and de-
liberately considered before they are swept away, lest
Cie very mode or lime of effecting their destruction
-should itself occasion mischief. We arc, therefore,
neither astonished nor indignant at the course of cor-
rection and improvement which the lapse of lintels
perpetually demanding in our social and civil institu-
tions, being somewhat more tardy and obstructed than
our most honest and zealous politicians would frequent-
ly contend for. We have seen a cobweb rudely brushed
from the corner of a mirror, and the glass shivered to
pieces by the seal of a cleanly house-maid. But this
reasoning is happily no longer relevant to the point now
at issue. The complaints and prayers of the Roman
Catholics for admission to their civil rights, have been
almost constantly before the Legislature ever since the
Revolution. Objections which were then, perhaps
'Andy thought insuperable, have gone on gradually
disappearing. The family of the Pretender, which was
always urged as the natural rallying-point of their alle-
giance, is now extinct. The progress of society, and
the general spread of knowledge have taught the Catho-.
br, as well as others, to distinguish between civil end
nil loos obedience. The interference of L'opes in.the
temporal affairs of Princes and Slates, is row no Imager
heard of. The British Catholics of, the.pretott day dif-
fer lust as widely froin.the politics of Bellarmio-. as the
Clergy of the.-Establishou....Church now differ from hose
%silo maintained, as an . orthodox doctrine, the divhe
a of Kings in the days of Same'. A naore unirersai

Our sing, tondutution anb t aims.