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London, England, 1828-10-25 00:00:00

violent when he has this sample of Brunswick vio-
lence before him. But I do not charge the whole
of this assembly with this gross and palpable injiis.
tics. The vast majority are on my side. (Loud
cheers from the right, mixed with loud cries of dis-
approbation from the left.) It is only a faction of
fierce and infuriated conspirators that seek to put me
down. But they shall not put me down, for I have
not only justice on my side, but, what is much bet-
ter, the majority of the meeting. (Applause and dis-
approbation.) Mr. Sheil then proceeded to speak to
the following effect amidst the incessant groan-
ing of one side, and the applause of the other.
I am, said Mr. Sheil, a Freeholder, but I put my
claim to speak not so much upon any ground of
strict legal right, as upon the title which I derive
'from your magnanimity and justice. You are bowel
by your own spirit of fairness, and just dealing, to
hear me in the cause of my religion arid of my coun-
try., for upon the character of that religion and the
interests of that country you are assembled to adju-
dicate. What iglu religion, and what it; my coun-
try ? I am a native of that island, which is one of
the finest spots upon the sea; ,but which, in place of
being the fortunate land, which nature intended it
to be, exhibits in its distractions and its wretchedness
the evidences of that condition to which its rulers
(and Englishmen are its rulers) have reduced it---
and with respect to my religion, I profess the faith
of seven millions of your fellow-citizens; and let me
add, the religion of those (your great ancestors) to
whom you are indebted for Parliamentary represen-
tation, for Magna Charta, and the Trial by Jury.
I am a Roman Catholic ;I am therefore deeply con-
cerned in the result of your deliberations, and that
concern confers upon me a right to speak. You
will only act in consistency with your own character,
as Englishmen, in hearing me, not with favour, but
with forbearance. I want nothing, to use a simple
phrase, drawn from your own national habits, but
" Fair Play." That I find you will not refuse me.
But it is right that I should tell you something
more toughing myself. I am not only an Irish-
man and a Roman Catholic but I arnsene of the
individuals, who have incurred .the displeasure of
many of you, but for whose vehement language,
and possibly over ardent emotion, you would, I
think, if you knew the full extent of the grievances
of which they complain, find, in your own feelings,
some extenuation. lam a member of that body,
which, you have been so often told, is among the
chief evils of Ireland, but which is the product, and
not the cause of its discontents, and, instead of giving
birth to the public calamities, is indebted to them
for its parentage. lam (and lam well aware that
in announcing it I do not beseech your partialities)
a member of the Roman Catholic Association.
You may net much relish me on that account,
but still, you owe it to yourselves, and not
to me to hear, why sentence of eternal discord
should not be pronounced against my country. I
will tell you more, for with Englishmen, plain and
direct dealing is the wisest, as it is certainly the
honestest cause. lam one of the most strenuous of
the persons who are designated as the agitators of
Ireland; yet, however inimical, I am entitled to
plead not guilty, and I stand at your bar for the pur-
pose of so doing. I have travelled here with no
other view than to raise my voice in this assembly,
anti I did so in despite of much remonstrance and
admonition. I was told that you would consider
me guilty of an intrusion, and.l answered, that can-
not be where my privileges as a fellow-citizen are so
deeply involved, and I must be affected by the issue
of their deliberations. L was told that you would
treat me with contumely and derision, arid I replied,
that you had too much respect for yourselves to
act such a part in my regard. It was said
to me that you would not hear me, and I
exclaimed, " they are Englishmen, and without
hearing they never will condemn." Protestants,
Englishmen, was I wrong, when I spoke thus ? I
am convinced that I judged you rightly; and I am
also convinced that I shall persuade you that many
of you have judged me, and the community to which
I belong, most wrongfully, in attributing to us many
sentiments and opinions which, so far from enter-
taining, we reject with abhorrence for their detest-
able character, and indignant astonishment that they
should be attributed to us. Would to heaven, that
Protestants and Catholics more frequently blended
and mixed their minds together, for upon a mutual
approach they would discover, with how much reci-
procal injustice they had cast injurious imputations
upon each other. If they would but meet calmly
and dispassionately, and with a little Christianity in
their tempers as well as in their creeds, they
would part, not perhaps with any change in
their religious opinions, but with a great proportion '
of acrimonious spirit of contention,. which vitiates
the heart so deeply, ss hile it obscures the judgment
in the investigation of truth. It were most desirable
that Roman Catholics should often attend assemblies
of their Protestant fellow-citizens, in order to set
theM right, and to be set right in return; and, upon
the other hand, but devoutly it were to be wished,
that strong zealots in the cause of Protestant liberty,
men of worth and honour, like Lord Winclielsea,
arid Lord Kenyon, arid the Duke of Newcastle,
would condescend to visit Ireland, and by ocular in-
spection ascertain the real extent and the substantial
cause of the calamities of the country. They would
possibly find reason to concur in the opinion which
Lord Camden,who administered the government, and
so many other Lords Lieutenant have arrived at, by
being actual observers of the condition of that unhappy
country. Oh! my good friends (permit me so to
call you.) Would to God that Englishmen and
Irishmen were bound in everlasting unity with each
other. You do not know the true state of that
country whose future destiny is in some measure in
your hands. You should actually see Ireland before
you take upon yourselves to pronounce upon her
fate. How many good and kindly natured, as well
as eminently gifted individuals, have seen cause to
change their opinions, after having actually visited
the country. 1 do not nrerely speak of statesmen
and politicians; their minds are engrossed by ambi-
tion, and clouded too often by passion; but of per-
sons who, occupying the middle class of life, had no
motive of personal Interest to sway them, and were
the most credible, because the most competent
judges. I might cite a thousand examples; but
there are two persons who are in themselves
most assuredly worth many ordinary ituthe-1
ritiee. I perceive that a gentleman, named
Dr. Fry, at a late dinner at Aylesbury, thought it
in accordance with his clerical character to indulge
in some curious specimens of Bacchanalian mirth,
mingled with Bachanalian savageness, at the ex-
pence of Ireland. On reading his after-dinner ho-
mily, my mind was carried by the identity, not in-
deed of character but of name, to the dismal t!un-
geon, and to the gloomy prison-house, where that
incomparable woman, that guardian angel of capti-
vity, that female Howard, exhibits all the elevation
of genuine Christianity, united with all the charities
of a human heart. Yes, we may well contrast her
with the Doctor, and triumphantly appeal to her
counter testimony in favour of Ireland. She went
to that country, attended by a relative of the same
religious opinions, arid she went merely upon a
mission of charity, yet the political state of Ireland
pressed itself upon her, and in the account
which she afterwards published of her journey
of benevolence, she stated that she had gene to Ire-
land with feelings adverse to Roman Catholic Eman-
cipation, and having seen the country, that she was
persuaded that it was absolutely necessary for its
improvement. But I deviate from the order of ob-
servation which I had intended to pursue. It is not
so much my office to invite you to visit my country
as to apologise for my coming amongst you. My
vindication for so doing was in a single sentence.—
You are called together upon a matter which affects
my interests and rights, I am entitled to address
intoyou re
. lioEnglishmengos —I am not come here to enter
disputation with you. It is not in
the year 1828 that we should enter into a scholastic
controversy upon controversynot--what
lo n
believe, and what matter is it to you what I believe ?
I do not want to take down the ponderous folios of dis-
putation, in order to blOw tho last with which

they are tiDpropriately laden into your eyes, and
to envelope myself' in a cloud of theology. You
think me an an idblater. I deny it. But supposing
I am, lam not the worse citizen—l have a right io
be an .idolater if I think proper, and my idolatry is
no business of yours. It would be very hard, hi-
deed, because I may have a fancy to holy water,
that I should be excluded from the benefits of the
-Constitution. But it is said that my religion is the
religion of slavery Now, this, I admit, culls for an
answer, and I must say that, with the exception of
William Cobbett's reply to the charge, I never read
a sufficiently strenuous defence against this accu-
sation. A Protestant in encountering this imputa-
tion may reason well, but he will not feel strongly.
I as a Catholic feel strongly, and such are the facts
in my favour that I should be dull and unskilful
indeed if my reasoning were not conclusive.--
I deny and I decry with a justifiable warmth that
there is any foundation for this charge; and although
I admit that there have been many Catholic despots,
I ask, with a retorting interrogatory, were there
never any Protestant despots ? Do I attribute a
spirit of tyranny to your religion ? no such thing;
but I claim the same indulgence for my own; and I
demand that you should not refer the atrocities of
Catholics to their religion, when I do not refer the
atrocitiesiof Protestants to theirs. Bat come, let
us go out of theories and speculations, and proceed
to facts. One fact is worth a hundred arguments,
and I have a host of facts upon my side. First, let us
open the pages of English history ; where do you
find the elements of your Constitution. Alfred
gave you the body of your common law ;
your judges, your magistrates, your sheriffs (you
hold your office, Sir, and have called this great as-
sembly by virtue of his institutions), your courts of
justice, your elective system, and the grand bulwark
of your liberties, the best and most useful, as well us
the most glorious of your rights, the shield of free-
dorn,--the Trial by Jury. He placed this great
aegis in the temple of the Constitution. Does the
Duke of Newcastle thiukrathat Alfred was a Pro-
testant ?. or that the Barons of Runnemode, with
Archbishop Langton at their head, were Protes-
tants ? But to touch upon a• case that appertains
more nearly to his Grace. Who was it that gave
the people the power of self-taxation, and fixed, if
he did not create, the representation of the people?
Edward the First. Oh ! my Lord Duke, there were
no rotten borough then. The House of Commons
was not returned by a set of Nobles, who, talking
about liberty, opposed all reform. There were
no great men, in those times of Catholic
slavery, who seat .in ten Members to the
House of Commons, and, when a corrupt bo-
rough was cut off, contrived to get its still more
rotten substitute into his pocket. The House of
Commons Was then a perfect mirror of the people,
which was unstained by the breath of an oligarchy.
Give up your ten Members, my Lord Duke, and
then you will talk of liberty with a better grace ; if
not to a more useful purpose. It was to the first
Edward that England was indebted for her Parlia-
ment, and her pecuMary controul over the Crown;
and the third Edward gave perfection to the system
by holding annual Parliaments. He, too, passed
the great statute against constructive treason. Eng-
lislunen, with these facts before you, how can you
listen to the men who tell you that Popery and sla-
very are necessarily allied ? Englishmen, when
you peruse the ancient chronicles of your
glory, do not your hearts beat with a sense of
exultation ; are not your motives deeply stirred, and are not
your natures highly kindled? Where is the English Loy,
who reads the story of his own great island, whose pulse
does not warmly heat at the contemplation of all the re-
nowned names, and all the lofty incidents with which the
early annals of his country are splendidly studded? Is
there one of you all who hath not almost fallen down to
adore the memory of Alfred? blaye not you turned idolaters
in the worship of the immortal Edwards ?—who is there
that hath not thrilled at the name of Runnemede, and
whose soul bath not swelled and dilated at the remem-
brance of the scene when Langton, with a Catholic mitre
upon his head, extorted from -a tyrant your mighty, and, I
trust in Cod, that it will prove your eternal charter?
Still little did you think (and yet how could you forget?)
when you experienced, as you must, this generous national
exultation—little did you think that it was at the altars of
religion, which you are instructed to consider as.the hand-
maid of oppression, that the great progenitors of liberty
knelt down—you may write damnation upon every grave
which bears slate before the year 15:1l, but in the face of
clear and indisputable evidence,withAlfred and the Edwards,
with Trial by Jury, with Parliament and with Magee
Charta before you, do not denounce the religion of your
forefathers as the brother of slavery, and visit it with all
the execration that should pin sue the part of so detestable
a child. Englishmen, I have spoken with warmth, I can-
not help it. But that warmth shall not carry me too far—
it is enough for me to defend my religion, without ani-
madverting on your's—hut if I were disposed so to do,
might I nut turn the leaves of history upon you, and after
you had charged my creed with its servile tendencies,
might I not ask, whether the cradle of the reformation
was not rocked with a bloody and an iron hand ? Whether
he did not trample upon the press of liberty, and his base
parliament did not make him a voluntary release and sur-
render of the Constitution? Did liberty exist in the reign
of that precocious theologian, Edward VI., or under the
auspices of the virgin of the reformation, who took infan

Protestantism under her maiden auspices ? You mighl
say to me, if llvere sufficiently bold to press these eonsi•

thrations that I should not refer to such remote events—
well then—l should-,—but no—l will—that is a fact of

much importance, that without meaning to offer you
tLe smallest offence, I think it only due to honesty
to repeat to you ; on the -- day of --, John

Lord Russell, one of the noirtyt s to liberty, perished on the

t.eatiohl, and on the very same day (it teas a felicitou
_ .

selection) the University—the Protestant University of
Oxford—the seat of reformed Christianity, the throne of
English orthodoxy, published its ingenious declaration in
favour of passive obedience. I pray you, when you are
disposed to fling your projectiles against the Catholic reli-
gion; te• look round you, and consider of how much glass
yeur own house is built. But let us travel a little out of
England. Protestantism, it, is said, is the inseparable com-
panion of liberty—they are always found walking arm in
arm together in their march for the intprovment of men-
kind. If this be so, how does it happen that
Prussia is a Protestant, and Pr.t.ssia is a slave ; and
Sweden is a Protestant, and Sweden is a slave; and Den-
mark is a Protestant, and Denmark is a slave ; and half the
German States are Protestant, and are also slaves ; and

even Hanover (hear it, ye Brunswiekers!), even under the

moral government of the Duke of Cumberland, is also a

slave ! Turn now to Catholic Europe. Look at Italy__
not as she now is, but as she was long before the name of
Luther was ever uttered—look at her when the Catholic

was her entire religion, and liberty was her glorious prac-
tice. I call up her crowd of republics as witnesses iu that
cause which I am thus daring enough to plead before you.
Venice, Catholic Venice, riseb up from the ocean, with all
her Republican glory round about her. Venice fell at last

into an ofigarchi; bnt Veniae was for five hundred years
a whle and lofty democratic government. I next produce

as witnesses in my favour Genoa and Florence, and al

the rest of those free States in which popery, liberty,
literature, and the arts, grew up and flourished together.
—You think, perhaps, that when Italy is.exhausted you
can bring Spain against me. Even there, before Xi,nenes
Crud upon the rights of Spaniards, the Catholic Cortes were
a tree assembly, and imposed upon the Monarch an oath,
iu which they told him that they were, individually, as
good, and, taken altogether, far better than himself; and
his power derived from the people. But if you think that you
can turn Spain against us, shall I not find in the country
,f Switzerland, and in the mountains of William Tell, a
glorious testimony in my firm. The parental hand that
bent the bow, and loosed the shaft of Tell, was raised in
prayer, before the altars, at church. / avaltold that none but
slaves have ever prayed. But to pass from distant periods,
and from sequestered vallies, there you may say, that sim-
plicity, in despite of
popery, -was the source of freedom.
1 bid you turn your eyes to France, and I ask of you,
whether, with her Charter, with her Trial by Jury, and
with her Chamber of Deputies, and observe also with her
glorious toleration, the is not ascending into competition
with yourselves? But no. I will nut wound yoU with

the comparison. I willnut tell you, that Catholic French-
alma are your competitors in free institutions, but will hid you
turn to a spectacle upon which every Englishroan msv
well repose with a sort of parental pride. From the old,
I travel to the new world, and I produce to England
her glorious pupils, the Catholic Democracies of South

Furth at
America. Republic after republic is bursting
your bidding, through that alnituat immeasurable continent,
and from the summit of the Andes, Liberty may be said to
unfurl her standard over half tho world. It is felso, utterly
false, never was there calumny more destitute of foundation,
and history aids out against it, that Catholicism and a
genuiue love of &Motu cannot s:4O together, Fit e I not

made out a case by evidence which cannot be overthrown,
and is it not hard, is it not worse than hard, is it not most
unjust and cruel, to use such an argument, or rather so
baseless an assertion, as a ground for keeping seven mil-
lions of people in their degraded and exasperating condition.
Englishmen, I willingly forgive uny imputation but this;
heap insult upon insult upon our creed, even that it is
idolatrous, write damnation on the grave of your forefathers
—call us image worshippere, water-sprinklers, sin whis-
perers, and God-eaters it yi,it bear it all, but do
not call me, and do not deem me slave—tell me not, and
deem me not a wretch made to lie prostrate before a tyrant,
and bow my head into the dust—you do me and you do my
country wrong—where were men, animated with a stronger
passion for their liberty than the people of Ireland are at
this instant. How did the hearts of a whole nation beat
for the attainment of freedom with a strange palpita-
tion—never were men more resolved, and never
were men more deserving cf being free. Englishmen,
look at Ireland—that do you behold—a beautiful country
witk wonderful agricultural and commercial advantages=--
the link between America and Europe—the natural rest-
ing place of trade in its way to either hemisphere—in_
dented with havens, watered by deep and numerous rivers,
with a fortunate climate, and a soil teeming with easy fer-
tility, and inhabited by a bold, intrepid, and, with all
their faults, a generous and enthusiastic people. Such is
rational Ireland—what is artificial Ireland—such is Ire-
land as God made her—what is Ireland as England made
her? For she is your Colony, your dependent, and you
are as answerable for her faults as a parent is for
the education of a child. What, then, have you
made Ireland. Look at her again. This fine country
is laden with a population the most miserable in Europe,
and of whose wretchedness, if you are the authors, you
are beginning to be the victims—the poisoned chalice is
returned in its just circulation to your lips—your domestic
swine are better housed than the people. Harvests; the
most abundant, are reaped by men with starvation in their
faces—famine covers a fertile soil, and disease inhales a pure
atmosphere—all the great commercial facilities of the coun-
try are lost—the deep rivers that should circulate opu-
lence, and turn the machinery of a thousand manufactures,
flow on the ocean without wafting a boat or turning a
wheel—and the wave breaks in solitude in the silent mag-
eincence of deserted and shiph harbours—in place of
being a source of wealth and revenue to tLe Empire, Ire-
land cannot defray its own expenette, or pay a single tux ; her
discontents cost millions of money, and she hangs like
a financial millstone round England's neck—in piece
of being a bulwark and a fortress; she debilitates, ela-
hausts, and endangers England, and offers an allurement
to the speculators in universal ruin. The great mass of her
enormous population are alienated and dissociated from the
state—the influence of the constituted and legitimate au-
thorities is gone—a strange, anomalous, and unexatnpled
kind of government has sprung up from the public pas-
sions, and exercises a despotic sway over the great mass of
the community, while the class, inferior in numbers, but
accustomed to authority, and infuriated at its hw, are
thrown into a formidable reaction—the most ferocious pas-
sions rage from one extremity of the country to the other—
hundreds of thousands of men, arrayed with badges, gather
in the south, and the smaller faction, with discipline
and with arms, are marshalled in the North—
the country is strewed with the materials of civil commo-
tion, and seems like one vast magazine of powder, which a
spark might ignite into an explosion, which would shake
the whole fabric of civil society into ruin, and of which
England would not only feel, but perhaps never recover
from the shock. And gracious God ! (for I cannot re-
frain from the exclamation) is this horrid, this appalling,
this accursed state of things, to be permitted to continue ?
It is only requisite to present the question, in order that
all men should answer—something must he done. Well,
then, what is to be done ? Are you to re-enact the penal
code? You were obliged to relax the penal code when
the Catholics were only three millions, and now that they
are seven, will you lay on their chains again? Are you
to deprive the Catholics of their properties, shut up their
schools, drive them from the bar, strip them of the
elective franchise, and reduce them to a state of
Egyptian bondage ? It is easy for some vi-
sionary in oppression, in his dreams of tyranny,
to imagine these things. Certain parts of the Established
Religion hare, in the drunkenness of their sacerdotal de-
bauch, given vent to such sanguinary aspirations, and many
are the teachers of the gospel, the ministers of a mild amd
merciful Redeemer, who lift up their hands from the altar,
to invite peace and tranquillity from heaven.—who dis-
tribute the communicative cup, and circulate the sacra.'
mental chalice, have recently uttered in the midst of their
ferocious wassails the bloody aspiration, that the whole
country should be covered with massacre, and that upon
the pile of carnage the genius of Orange ascendancy should
be placed on a secure and appropr4ate throne. But these
men are set down as maniacs in ferocity, whose ravenous
appetites for blood you will merely undertake to satiate.
I will therefore take it for granted, that you are not in-
clined to renew the system of torture which was once prac-
tised in Ireland—and that you will leave no other but
those of the imagination, to the amiable religionist', who
previously implore you to indulge them in the luxuries of
laceration and the lusts of cruelty again. You would not
wish, if you thought that Ireland could be thus trested
with impunity, to have recourse to such a dreadful expe-
dient, as the extirpation of a whole people, and therefUre,
I will take it as conceded, that the recondite theories fur
the salutary pacification of Ireland will not be adopted—
what then is to be done ?—you have tried a great deal—.
Every thing has failed—surely when the patient is getting
worse and worse, you will not have. recourse to
the same prescriptions—especially when you are told by
the great moral leaders, the " Ministers to the
mind diseased," that there is a specific whieh would
cure Ireland of her paroxysms and convulsions, and restore
her to wholesome vigour and to rational strength again.—
Englishmen, when
you consider, as surely you must consi-
der, what ought to be done in this emergency, surely you
will not dismiss from your recollection that the greatest,
the wisest, and the best Statesmen and Legislators who
have for the last 50 years directed your councils, and con-
ducted the business of this flighty empire, all concurred
in the opinion that without a concession of the Catholic
Claims, nothing permanemly useful and effectually sana-
tive could be done for Ireland. Without going through
the catalogue of splendid atones which stand engaged
in the cause of emancipation, I shall select only three ;
Burke, and Pitt ,aad Fox ; they were all different in habit,
in character, and in theory, yet on this question their great
minds met is a deep conflux. Burke the foe tp revolution ;
Fox, the assertor of popular right; Pitt, the stay and prop
of the prerogative--the grand triumvirate of lgislation,
concurred in this single opinion. See to what a conclu-
sion you must arrive when you denounce the advocates of
emancipation as the foeut and the enemies of their country.
To whom will your anathema read' ? It will take in one-
half of Westminster Abbey—and is not the very dust in
which the tongues and hearts of Pitt, and Burke, and Fox,
have mouldered, better titan the living .hearts and tongue
of those who have survived them? Yes. I will put it on
this test—lf you were to try time question by the venerable
authorities of the illustrious dead, and by those voices which
may be said to issue from the grave, bow would you decide ?
If,i ustead ofcounting votes in St. Stephen's, you were to count
the tombs in the mausoleum beside it, how would the di-
vision of the great departed stand? Enter the sacred aisles

which contain the ;ties of your greatest men, and ask

yourselves, as you pa.s, how they felt and spoke when
they had emotion, and they had utterance in that Senate,

where they can be heard no ;more ? Write "Eniaricipa.

tion" on the grave of every great advocate, and its counter.

epitaph on that of every opponent of the peace of Ireland,
and will there not he a majority f sepulchres in our fa-
vour ? But pass from authority—and consider Low such

a system as that of exclusion ought. to work. How'elid
it operate in other countries ? You will find a parallel to
the state of Ireland in the condition of the Colonies of
Spain. Before the revolUtion, the natives of the country
were shut out from all offices of emolument and honour,
which were monopolised by Spaniards. They were in
possession of all the wealth of the State, and of
01 its distinctions. None but Spaniards were ad-
missible to stations of power and influence—the
finances, the Church property, the administration of jus-
tice, were all in their hands. and was the result? That
the most ferocious detestation arose from this Spanish as-
cendancy, between monopoly and exclusion, and ended in
events which throw a terrific light upon,the system. There
is this difference between Protestant ascendancy with
you, and Spanish ascendancy with them—there is indeed
this difference, that rdigion throws additional hatred into
the feud, and the contest for pre-eminence on the one side,
and for equality on the other, is embittered by the pro-
verbial animosity of polemics. But put all comparisons out
of the way, and look at the matter itself. Can that be a
wise and politic course of government, which creates not an
aristocracy of opulence, and rank, and talent, but an
aristocracy in religion ; and places seven millions of people
at the feet of a few hundred thousand ? Try this fashion of

government, by a very obvious rest, and make the case
your own--if a few hundred thousand Presbyterians
stood towards you in the relation in which the Irish
Protestants stand towards the Catholics, how would
you endure it ? How would you brook a system by which
Episcopalians should be rendered incapable of holding seats
in the House of Commons, by which the oldest nobility in
the country should be turned by plebeian Presbyterians out
of the House of Lords—should be excluded from sheriff-

ships, and from corporate offices, and from the Bench of

Anise' illacti,
Justice, and from all the higher offices in the for Mgrs
tion of the law; and bow would you like. to K., k 44 titt
building and repairing of Presbyterian churehes ap!'ewe ltee, 1
while you should be deprived of all voice in rtir . if it
ation ? and how would you like, I pray rut
.aa , • ltislim
rian tythes, and ceases, and ecclesiastical courts ? 1-. ,'.44t t
would you like to be tried by none taut Prosbyten
,Ittibat
flushed with the insolence of power, and infuria;o. ~"1,04
all the venom of passion ? how would you like tdi Itioe:
and, more than this, how would you like the di tsto o'
which would arise from such a system, and the 054 I.tilhooPl
I
scorn and coutumeliee and disgrace, which 'I.-bet): tee 0
from it ? Englishmen, would you, beer with all t 0 . 4140,1
above all, would you listen with patience to men el ed;, wtol:
you that there was no:grievance in all this, that yv-o,ok.K‘dg,e,
plaints were groundless, anal that your language 4, !stew
of factious menaces, and that the very right of Ina_r pall'lltr,te(
ought to be taken away from you ? Are Irislu"-e, ' %it Ci
Roman Catholics so differently constituted front I.° "h. 14 tr„,
that they are to behold nothing but blessings, in de. 1%;
which you would look upon as a mass of lifeendO ke- ty
wrong ? Protestante and Englishmen, howete 0 t s%ti,
you may deem our country, and however slavish rtigla 104(04
regard our religion, believe me that we have vitrefor !set
human nature left within us, we have enough of 044 Ikeietti
of manhood, all Irishmen as we are, to resent A Ott iiikt Yo
this kind. You would not hear the yoke for sillo 'Slai, 1
We are gored and galled by it, but . We, 0t: Sid
throw it oft'. You are told that there 0 :der j'efela i:
tional calamity in the exclusion of a few geodes
from Parliament, anal a few lawyers from the re: tisl"l4, .th
at the bar. How heinous a view of the coe;dlookleili
Don't you feel that this very exclusion throws deg 4410,1stitit
over the whole of the disfranchised community, a.,°,4olitilre a,
the spirit which is derived from that political dishwgoll :kilt tei
of a whole people, must run through all the depatt,°ooo No,
society, and roust be baneful indeed ? A brand' fie 'Nand
upon the forehead of the country, and it teeters therell? 1,4 tiv
nation is divided into two castes. The powerful as it 1141 '
vileged few .are patricians in religion, and eligaroor tern
aEnvietyr•yopf
rtohteesiauniltliotnhsinkwshc;h
iamresellafida
creed, and trample upon and despise the plebeian v.,,,fd.. lethal
,„ betal4 4111 l
at they i. S.
every Protestant feels lihnself the member of a pt
to
pratthroalteic
corporation which must be protected their Judge* io, ale,ta
Sheriffs, their Crown Counsels, their Crown Attoraersot . 4%4
Juries, are Protestant to a man ; what confidencti Afti Nid
Catholic have in the administration of publie in0th".,...,0 Ilittatti
have the authority of an eminent Irish Judge, the on tit 14%
Fletcher, who declared, that in the southern coito o' Nt)
Protestants guilty were uniformly acquitted, and 0 ,A, N
~
Sa,
tholice innocent, were as undeviatingly conderunn-00 N
body of armed Orangemen fall upon and inirder.t 011 I;
defenceless Catholics.:--they are put upon their tinn letgian
when they raise their eyes and look upon the hill loei1oei
00 hir,ki
are commanded to do, they see twelve of their brethioo kk.„„,
massacre impannelled for their trial ; and after this, !di iia „fa
be told that all the evil of Cetholie disqualification il!./1.1 4441.
stuff gowns of lawyers, and the disappointed 1057 Picts
some dozen gentlemen after the House of Comtroso,.d. Se i
it is the shame, the disgrace, the balm, the oplOroat.. S a
the stigma, the brand, the contumely, the note tuttziott thebe
of dishonour, and the scandalous partialities, the 016.00, %eat
broils, the sacrilegious and perjured leanings, and tio
rot %%tn.
strous and hydra-headed injustice, that constitute thug f 4 Neil:ill
and essential evils of the country. And you think tig , kit :
wonderful (you, forsooth, that cut off the head of to y Se
for imposing an illegal tax epon you) that we sbn..;11001 ,
,loff
indignant at all this. Yon marvel, and are ast°',.oo Nie e
and think it prodigious, that we are hurried by 110 e '4,lllled-
of these injuries into the use of rash and 4.101 Cat'
ment phrases; for I won't deny that we, and "1;01 %I, an
myself in particular, have occasionally turned ray " 10: Sat
emotions into language, the employment of which love kltittior
have had reason to regret. But are we the only i . Nets
duals who have forgotten the dictates of temperancevol Itleoce
of chastity; and have our opponents been always t'..,. 0 hersguished by their meekness and forbearance? and klyti d likt ci
exasperating expressions, and no galling taunts, e‘elletai
fierce sarcasms, and no ferocious , menaces, ever • , :sttite
from them? Look, look, I pray you, to the Brous `that
orgies of Ireland, and behold, not merely the tortures 0 4 Sht t
ninety-eight—who, like retired butchers, feel the viaPiji 11114,11
00,
their own occupation, and long for the political shin;i4 fired
again—but look to the Ministers of the• Gospel, nl, rei
out their votive libations to the Moloch of
.Ascendanci,i, i NI etiC.l
cheering their demon with the promise of a becatOdo Nvet„
of blood--oh! Englishmen, and therefore generous, to Ilie trt
magnanimous, and/ ley-minded men, may I ini....4 4t6u
some allowance for the excess into which with mualt.riet kiki it
vocation we may be hurried, and pardon us when 1110 tithe
collect how under the same circumstances you somalol . b
likelihood feel yourselves.. But perhaps you will 01 00 ti
while you are conscious that we have much- to suffird, klitt4t,
owe it to your own safety to exclude us from r":if %%16'
Englishmen, we have power already—the power to do "0 kitti ti
chief—give us that of doing good, Disarray us, 'dii'll°.d Itttko
us, break up our confederacy, take from the law (for it,..lr 4
k 4,11,1
the great conspirator) its combining and organising 4. N% h:
lity—make us equal, and we shall no longer be uslio Iletctst.
by the bad chain of slavery with each other, lill Peot
by the natural bonds of allegiance and of contentraeutllor Nit
cin
you. But you fear our influence in the House of eft 4'4116e
mons—don't you dread our actual influence out of it.
000 Itiditei
are only Catholics out of the House of Commons, we Oh" )tiere
be Citizens within it. Rut you say that we are ro,„i skin
ridden, I du assure you that the Priests find us very 000 iiiiiktit
and high' trotting. We are ready to go at fall galiel/' of kliput
own way, but if a Priest attempts to curb us, or to
sof ,le,to
us from the. road we like, we straight begin to pltinge..A to 2,4,
rear, and throw him off. The Priests lately attempt be N
it
stop the quiet assemblies" of the people in Tipperary, aP, De? iilsteat
people told them to mind their own concerns, to react:, IN,
breviaries, and to go home. The Priests have great i.. 0 l'in .1
suss, you think at elections,—yes, when they ruu With:4ll :tie
popular passions ;--hut if they endeavour "to coinitil N...]
them, the tenant sweeps them away. Bust reallY. d
laughable to. hear men talking of the influence of Pro7ii, bttit
ti
over Catholic Members of the House of Commons, to 'of kat;
Catholic gentleman, before he gave his vote, wouldelo 44:
be much more likely to listen to a whisper from a lUit'' do N, t
or a shout from the people, than to the injunctions at of 44 }
Confessional or the Anathemas of the altar. Why' of L 7411
God ! Do you ever hear of the Catholic Deputielor L''lle,,,-
France or Belgium, asking their ghostly &there hoW t
efil
strati
should vote? Or do the Catholic Members of Cong:Tb, . ya
ask the Pope how he would like to ha* a Popish estabood No., 4
ment in the United grates ? Are they not as go ly; i.,411101
citizens as any other members of the coninnold 'bettei
and do you ever hear one word about Popery sog 11446,
despotism being established in America ?. But supWipt heat
that Catholics had the will, would they have the Pay/ereie; I"ktZen.
overthrow the Constitution ? What ! some twentY,, lit L ,
tholics overwhelm the British House 0 ennunnns l P:jths ' lil I]
is suggested that.they will aim at the annihilation °f t.? IN,
Church.. Why should they be actuated by any such sn'.ll; 1.h16,
tude, when the Church will no longer affect their ialllgbi, Not
dual interests, or stand in the way of their personal sn'..,, vNII
lion ? The Presbyterians of Ireland are a powerful hod Y..„, t,
they have wealth, intelligence, and public spirit, and 47 Ci'lki '1
stitute the Protestant population of the north of Irelol, IQ
They have as strong a political nature for distaste tatt t,!ei to
the establishment as the Catholics, anti before they W . N.
emancipated (for they have been long since put 06, tiii)::l4
level with the members of the establishment) it was inso7,-.,
especially by Swift, that their equalization would lead t°,l tki ),cl
4°
destruction of the legal religion. The direct contrarYp,, rte!,
been the result. The Presbyterians are professedly in Ltivel
foenreenj
it,
ttowtlh,eethaelrmaseLs
porfdthoer Ea stabi3isliiisloivm, ewntbilinder they
0;c4bo,01 re
_;;;S i,,t zri
front Ireland or from Heaven, has twenty thousand a
at his command. You allege, however, that we Cathu'..lir
01 l hot
ifrlbk,
would be anxious to raise our Church upon the ruins, t:11,
yours, to strip your clergy of tithes, and to possess li' NI ,
1
selves of the gorgeous opulence of an anti-apostolic :0 1114
anti-scriptural establishment. Never was there a 0.
,"t,ilial
t,
unfounded imputation. The whole body of the Irishtholics look upon a wealthy priesthood' with abhorrent. _, N
• - • . • . . _..W. nw I Is. .

They not only do not desire that their Bishops ilhoo
invested with pontifical gorgeousness and prelatic I')"4,'
but when a Bill was introduced in order to vokei
small, and no more than a decent provision, for the Cath°n
Clergy, (lid they not themselves repudiate the offer,
prefer their honourable poverty, and the affectioo PI !hi
people, to the directions of the croviA? And how 6" "id
people out? Although a provision fur the Priesthood moot'.
relieve them from a burthen, did they not deprecate Weir
adulterous connexion with power ? The Catholics .of
and well know that if their Clergy were endowed With
the wealth of the establishment, they would bis-
corrupt and profligate corporation of lazy churchol
bloated with insolence, tampered with uxury, swelling ';ifiti
sacerdotal pride, and presenting in their fives an,
persons a monstrous contrast with that simplieni
and poverty of which they are now as well tie prat'
titers as the teachers. They well know that 0
place of being the pious, active, and indefatigaba
instructors of the peasantry, in place of being their coif'
solers affliction, their resource to calamity, their weer
tors and their models in religion, the trusties of their 0'
terests, their visitors in sickness, and their compauious 10
their beds of death, they would he a v.iin, saperciliouls
reckless, heartle6s, troop of abandoned profligates, equadi
insolent to the humble, eel q:copliantic t 4 the great!'
flatterers at the noble's table, and grinders in the poor Mitoci
hovel—rapacious in extortion, slaves in politics, 01.
tyrants in demeanour, who from the porticoes of p34'',e;
would give their instructions in humility—whu from
banquets of patricians would prescribe their
iu
obstinacy—who from mitred chariots would pronounce