Star.
London, England, 1812-04-24 00:00:00

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allow diem to do so—their sense of justice would riot
let Them.. He was not afraid of Court influence, he
had ertiountered it in 1782, and he had beat it down.
It wits in vain to think the Church could be employed
in favour of proscription and bigotry, as it was known
that there a very different feeling existed. He called
upon the House to look, if they now rejected his pro-
position to take the Claims of the Catholics into their
consideration, and thus determined on continuing
their disabilities f•r ever, of what breaches of engage-
ments they would he guilty. They would give him
leave to tell them, how much the honour of the Na-
tion, and of the Government was concerned ? He could
not forget the services the Catholics bad rendered the
State in 1789, and their hearty and cordial support at
timer periods ; nor could he forget, that they had
been led to hope tint a time would arrive, when, for
those exertions. they Might confidently ask what they
required, of the grateful recollectjon of England.—
(Hear, Lear.) He could not forget how they had
been taught to hope, that " a &vat coming was owl
its way," to end their disabilities.; nor could he for-
pet how like the Israelites of old, they had followed
faint and needy to the wilderness, and charmed with
the prospect hope displayed before them, blessed the
batten soil they trode; while their eyes were fixed on
the promised land. He could not forget the disip-1
pointment they had met with when on the verge of
that promised land ; yet still he could not think a
Princely promise bad been made to be broken ; that
the misfoi tunes of their foxefathers should be entailed
upon them, and also upon their innocent posterity.—
He would remind the House of the promise held out
at the time of the Unios, that all civil disabilities
sk tul.l he removed. The Union would never have

been obtained but for the expectations of this nature,
hich were excited at • that period. If such an en-
gagement was not proved to have been made accor-
ding to the letter of the law, he would say, that in
spirit, a promise had been given. He did not come
to ask it as that to which he was entitled from the

' letter of the law, but as that to which he was entitled
from its spirit. Onifidence in the English name made
• • him hope this appeal would be attended to, but if it
were not, why then he would say that, in retu.ing to
do so, they might depend upon it, they repealed the
Union. Doing this, they would tell England and
Ireland they were no longer one, hut two nations.—
They would not cnly say this but they would do it ;
they would make England and Ireland two nations.
They would destroy their ince] poration ; it woulit
be dissolved by desp::ir. They would not only make
them two nations, they would make them two na-
tions with different, nay, with hostile interests, and
engage each in acts that would tend ;o injure the
other. An Union should consist of two parts ; the
one should be the union of the Parliament ;—the
other the union of the people. He saw the union
of the Parliament, he saw the union of power, but
c here was he to look for the union of the people ?
Where was he to los,k for that consolidation wl''e

united their interest s ?—where for that spark ss
should animate the whole ?—and where for tat
gigantic whole which should be ready to, stretch
out its hundred alms for the service and support
of the Empire ? There existed no such thing, and
that there did exist no such thing was to be traced
to the circumstance to which he had alluded ; to
that of our not having realised the expectations
which were entertained at the time of the p
sing of the Union Act by the Catholics of Ireland.—
The Catholics now called on them to give'those rights
in which they were then led to believe they would be
allowed to participate ; and the Protestants called on
them also to listen to the Catholic Claims to consoli-
date the strength of the nation, and secure the inte-
grity of the empire ? Ireland had no fears for her
Church, and ckprecated those pen.:l laws which were
given fer her protection, as exposing her to dangsr
the most imminent ; and hi th the Protestant, and
Catholic religions begged that they might not be op-
pored to each other ; and that their common safety
might not be sacrificed by Government's teal ing that
bond of union which was as necessary to the Protes-
tant safety as the Catholic interest. He begged Gee-
tlemen to consider what must follow a continuation
of the Catholic disabilities. When a Government ap-
peared anxious to maintain itself by persecuton, it
lost all hold on the affections of the people, and could
only govern by coercion. Something worse than the
alienation of It eland must follow. What then would
it he followed by ? He must flatter them by conceal-
ing tie truth, but he was too honest to do so. He
v mild therefore tell them it would be followed by se-
pariiiion. A separatiou in fact, or a virtual separa-
fon would be the consequence. In either case Eng-
land would be undone. She would be undone, if Ire-
land w;thdrew from the Government of England;
she would Le undone, if the disposition and the heart I
of her Irish subjects were weaned from her. .Thus,
whether the separation was actual or virtual, it would
be eutially injurious to England. This would he fatal
to us. France could not accomplish our ruin, but we'
were perfectly competent to accomplish our own de-
struction. Ireland, in this case, must.go down to the !'
grave, but the gorgeous grandeur of England must
follow it to the tomb. Of population of sixteen mil-
lion's, they would thus strike out four millions from
them, an act unparalleled in the history of farther
times. If they acted thus with' an active population
who were every day fighting fcr this country against
France, they did that fir sshich they could have no
excuse, but that the hand of death precipitated them
to perdition. The day England signed the doom of
Ireland, that day she signed her own doom. The
King who sacrificed his subjects, and the people aho
sacritise 'their fellow-subjects, doing this sacrificed
themselves. This was unavoidable. They now held
in their own hands the scale of t!le ddstinies. of the two
countries. If lreland were cast out, England, remain-
ing in the balance, would be found wanting. En g;
land would finally lose herself, after losing America
and Ireland, by taxing the one and disqualiiyirg the
other. They made partial and arbitrary laws, which
no power could have aright to do. They denied men
those privileges to which they were entitled, On
g.rounds which could never justify such a measure,-,-
'lley might with equal wisdom and justice say, a
man of a black complexion should not sit in Par-1
Lament, as that a man should not be a General, I
because iie Was 1 Catholic. These things, however, I
vivre said f be done for the g( neral good. The ge-
neral good, in the modem signification of the phrase,
riteant-but the exercise of the power of the State against
vie happiness of the people. It was_said to be for tha