The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-16 00:00:00

TO THE CONSTITUENCIES OF PROTESTANT

ENGLAND.-LETTER IT

" Infandum, Regina, jubes renovare dolorem."—Viac

FELLOW-PROTESTANTS,
Before proceeding further into the subject of my present
letter, allow me for a moment to recal your attention to the
two alternatives which are forced upon our acceptance by
Lord Morpeth's bill. Either Great Britain must submit to
see that great principle of the constitution—its Protestant
ascendancy—destroyed, by the admission into parliament of
an overwhelming majority of Popish members ; either we
must submit to see the powers of the House of Commons
directed exclusively to the furtherance of Popish ambition,
and to the weakening of Protestant establishments through-
out the empire ; or we must at once, resolutely and sted-
fastly, direct our energies to THE REPEAL OF THE BILL OF
1829 AS THE ONLY COURSE LEFT US TO PRESERVE THE
CONSTITUTION. Between these two alternatives, I submit,
the constituencies of England have to choose ; and I now
proceed to offer to your notice a few considerations which
may guide you in your choice.
And first let us examine the practical working of the mea-
sure of emancipation, during a period of twelve years, up to
the present moment. We were told in 1829 that the admis-
sion of some thirty or forty members of the Romish faith
into the British House of Commons, bound by their oaths
to respect the property and the religion of the established
church, would, so far as Protestant interests were concerned,
be quite innocuous ; that such a body would soon fall into
the ordinary divisions of party, and, upon questions of civil
woula lay aside entirely the distinctive character of
their creed in promoting the general welfare of the commu-
nity. Let us see, then, whether this prediction has been

The first circumstance which strikes us, in entering upon
this portion of our inquiry, is the startling fact that not even
one solitary member of the Romish church in the House of
commons can be found separated from the bulk of his party
The pr,,t.,ssors of other creeds—the most violent sectarians
even—can afford sometimes to differ with each other upon
great political questions ; but Romish legislators seem to
have bound up their political sympathies and opinions along
with their faith, and to receive the impulse which directs
both from one common source. Upon no great question do
we find them, by any chance, voting upon opposite sides ;
and if occasionally symptoms of coldness may be perceived
amongst particular members, au unseen influence immedi-
ately restores subordination, and draws together again into
a compact body the conflicting or the lethargic parts.
It is beyond dispute, then, that Popery refuses absolutely
to allow her representatives to be merged in the general mass
of the legislature. Whilst the professors of other creeds
mingle freely in, and differ upon, those questions of general
interest which invite discussion within the walls of the House
of Commons, Popery alone " walks apart "—her sympathies
and her judgment steeled against the entrance of any convic-
tion which may draw them aside from the path which leads
to her ulterior objects. Whilst the professors of other
creeds, upon their admission to that house, become at once
the representatives, virtually, of the general interests of the
community ; the professors of the Romish faith never lose
for a moment the distinctive character of their religion—
never lose sight of the fact that they are representatives, in
reality, of the church, and not the people, to which they

belong

The natural result—and, I have no doubt, the well-antici-
pated result—of such a system of self-violation on the part
of the Roman Catholic body in parliament, is to render
their support, to any ministry or to any party, in the present
balanced state of the House of Commons, an object of vital
importance. Through the medium of this isolation a united
strength of upwards of forty votes (making a difference of
upwards of eighty in a division) is created, which can be
brought down to the house to turn the scale upon any ques-
tion—which, unlike any other equal number of votes, is ca-
pable of being wielded by an unseen influence—and which,
when so wielded, never stays to weigh arguments—never
iesitates at principles. At the present moment this body
notoriously and avowedly possesses and exercises a control-
ing power over the entire working of the political machine
—can regulate the extent to which concession may be made
by the legislature to the constitutional expression of the
national will—can hold and does hold, in abject subserviency
to its insolent behests, the representatives in parliament of
the whole empire. For five years a compact with this body,
or with the power which works the springs by which its mo-
tions are directed, has enabled a profligate and imbelice mi •
nistry, in defiance of repeated majorities of both houses,—in
defiance, too, of a standing majority of British members in
the House of Commons, and of the great mass of the British
people,—to continue in possession of the reins of govern-
ment—to menace our holy church with " heavy blows and
great discouragements"—to tamper with democracy—to sap
the foundations of our commercial and financial prosperity—
and to degrade and dishonour• the name of England through-
out Europe and the world!
It may be urged, indeed, in vindication of such an exer-
cise of their legislative privileges, that as representatives of
the " liberal" party in Ireland, the Roman Catholic mem-
bers only act consistently in supporting with their whole
strength a " liberal" government—a government which,
according to their views, legislates for the social and religious
welfare of Ireland. It may be urged, too, that so long as
they respect the oath, into which they have entered, to ab-
stain from any act of hostility to the established protestant
church of the realm, they have a constitutional right to take any
part, which they may judge most to their interest upon ques-
tions of general policy, and even to make any compact which
they may choose as to the conditions upon which their sup-
port is afforded. I deny, however, that the Roman Catholic
members of the House of Commons are the representatives
of any lay interest in the sister kingdom—" liberal" or
otherwise. Those members are "de facto" the represen-
tatives of the Romish Church in Ireland. They " live,
move, and have their being" by permission of " the church"
alone ; and can make no compact and will make no compact,
which has not for its object the aggrandisement of that
church. That in the pursuit of this object they adhere out-
wardly to the observance of the faith which they have sworn
towards the protestant establishment of the realm I will not
at present stay to deny. Although perfectly convinced that,
in its spirit ,—that good faith, and the oath by which it was
endeavoured to be secured, have been repeatedly violated, I
am unwilling to impute deliberate pedury to any body of
my christian fellow-countrymen. But if I can establish the
fact that, in the exercise of their admitted constitutional
right of judgment upon general questions, they are influenced
by motives partaking of the principles of their creed—that
whilst ostensibly and professedly preserving their faith they
are in reality, through other agencies, effecting their object—
(which cannot, if they honestly entertain the opinions and
principles laid down by their councils, and inculcated in their
colleges, and from their altars, be any other than the ulti-
mate prostration of our holy church, and the raising of the
" damnable idolatry" of Rome upon its ruins) ;—in Unit
case, I apprehend, I shall have laid before you an amply
sufficient ground for coming to the conclusion, that the
repeal of the measure of 1829, if not at present even justi-
fiable, must be the inevitable result of a further increase
of power being granted by Lord Morpeth's bill, to the de.
mocracy of Ireland, ostensibly, but, in reality, to the church
of Rome in that kingdom.
Let us examine then the nature of the compact, implied
or expressed, which exists between the present government
and the members of the church of Rome in parliament. The
government of Lord Grey was a reforming—was a " liberal"
government ; and yet it is notorious that the support of the
Irish Catholic members in parliament was not, as at present,
upon every occasion at the service of the minister. On the
contrary, an extensive agitation existed in Ireland, fomented
by the present member for Dublin, and was conceived to be
of so dangerous a character as to require for its suppression
the temporary suspension of the constitution. The govern-
ment of Lord Melbourne succeeded that of the noble Earl;
the celebrated Lichfield House compact was entered into with
O'Connell and his supporters, and the cry of " justice to
Ireland" was, for a time. stilled. What then, I ask, was
the propitiation by which popery was conciliated and agita-
tion appeased ? It was not, alone, place and emolument am]
patronage, liberally showered amongst the dependents of tlu
Irish mendicant ; no : it was, distinctly and notoriously, tin
prospect held out to popery of the " appropriation" of ;
slice of the revenues of the established church in Ireland
to secular and to popish uses. The interests of protestantisn
were contracted to he surrendered, in exchange for the versa
votes of the mercenaries of the pope.