?<Snjif »f>% 
 
 
 \
 
 L 1 B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 U N 1 VLRSITY 
 or 1 LLl NOIS
 
 CIRCULAR LETTER 
 
 ADVICE AND JUSTIFICATION 
 
 FROM THK 
 
 COMMITTEE FOR ENSURING THE ELECTION 
 
 SIR ROBERT INGLIS. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD WHO SIGNED 
 THE REQUISITION AGAINST MR. PEEL. 
 
 Inuinius ferro. Virgil. 
 
 OXFORD, 
 
 PRINTED AND SOLD BY \V. BAXTER, 
 
 OPPOSITE THK TOWN HALL; 
 
 SOLD ALSO DY MESSUS. WHrrfAliEU AND CO. J 3, AVE MARIA LANE^ 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 1829.
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 IN this awful and dangerous crisis, when 
 the King, the Ministry, the Commons, and the 
 Lords, with all the acknowledged talent, and a vast 
 majority of the property of this country, have wick- 
 edly and perversely agreed to destroy those institu- 
 tions, in whose safety their own happiness, and free- 
 dom, and property, and religion, are obviously and 
 necessarily involved ; compassionating this miracu- 
 lous blindness, which has thus seized upon all, whom 
 we formerly held up to admiration as the luminaries 
 and saviours of the nation : and convinced that we 
 only are now capable of managing the State : — We 
 the undersigned, in conjunction with the Duke of 
 Cumberland, Sir Harcourt Lees, and Mr. Cobbett, 
 have resolved to take upon ourselves the defence of 
 our betrayed Constitution, and to exert our utmost 
 efforts to perpetuate a policy, which those to whom 
 the country and ourselves have confided the direc- 
 tion of the State, and all whose information and 
 
 li
 
 wisdom should enable them to administer it rightly 
 have unanimously pronounced to be impracticable. 
 
 Convinced from the mere perusal of your names 
 that few, very few, of you are likely, from your ha- 
 bits of thinking, to discover any thing but wisdom 
 in this line of conduct, and knowing that, hke all 
 honest Protestants, whatever opinion you once may 
 have expressed, to this you will implicitly adhere, 
 (since when a man has once erred, consistency re- 
 quires him to err on, and when he has fallen into a 
 bog, it is dishonest to endeavour to get out,) we 
 place the most unHmited reUance on yom- vigorous 
 and uncompromising support. 
 
 However discordant we may be in rehgion, in 
 manners, and in affections, we are for once united 
 together by one common feeling — a feehng which 
 every lover of his countiy and every true Christian 
 is bound to cherish — by a hatred and detestation of 
 the Cathohcs. 
 
 Some of us, it is true, know little of that religion 
 but its name ; and some are now secretly engaged
 
 in perverting the tenets of that Estabhshed Church 
 which we openly affect to defend. Some also are 
 perhaps unconsciously influenced by a jealousy of 
 rival societies. These however are points which it 
 will be expedient to keep in the back ground ; while 
 we all join unanimously, with one cheer more, in 
 that noble and enlightened appeal to the passions of 
 our ignorant countrymen, whitewashed on the ho- 
 vels of London, and echoed by the rabble of Penen- 
 den, the cry, the British cry, of No Popery! No 
 Popery ! 
 
 That you should all be acquainted with the 
 grounds and nature of the plan you are pursuing, we 
 do not presume to expect. To speak confidentially, 
 our strength does not lie in ratiocination. But hap- 
 pily for ourselves and the country, we can in some 
 degree compensate for our ignorance of principles 
 by our vigorous adherence to conclusions. We are 
 therefore most anxious to inculcate on you the ne- 
 cessity of avoiding discussion, and of not rashly 
 venturing to encounter our antagonists on a field, 
 where we certainly are not in our element. Never 
 was prudence in this respect so necessary, sur- 
 
 B 2
 
 rounded as we now are by active and dangerous op- 
 ponents, who so puzzle and perplex us with argu- 
 ments, some of which we cannot understand, and 
 others we are unable to answer, that we shall as- 
 suredly be finally defeated, if we venture to act on 
 the offensive, and do not keep close within our 
 trenches. 
 
 Since however it is possible, that either by teme- 
 rity or stratagem, (for our enemies are as artful as 
 they are wicked,) some of you at some time or an- 
 other may be entrapped into assigning your rea- 
 sons ; and as the faculty of extemporaneously dis- 
 covering these is a gift among us of very rare oc- 
 currence ; we have thought it our duty, in behalf of 
 Sir Robert Inglis and the Church, to provide you 
 with a tolerable store of well-selected arguments, 
 carefully compiled and condensed from all the great 
 authorities on our side, and suitable to your various 
 capacities. And lest any from disuse or inexpe- 
 rience should find any awkwardness in managing 
 them, as children when playing with edge tools will 
 be likely to cut their own fingers, we have thought 
 it advisable to prefix to them a few rules and regu- 
 lations for their use.
 
 And first it should be a general maxim, that those 
 of you who know nothing of the subject, should 
 carefully abstain from talking on it. Nothing has 
 so injured our cause as the temerity of incompetent 
 friends. And though our active forces will thus be 
 considerably diminished, the great mass may still 
 act with considerable effect as a corps de reserve in 
 the rear. A significant shake of the head, an inver- 
 sion of the eyes, a half suppressed groan, or even a 
 melancholy silence, may be thrown in occasionally 
 with success to reinforce the positions of the talkers. 
 The only difficulty will lie in discovering the time 
 for their employment, and whether the argument 
 you support is favourable to yourself or the enemy. 
 Great mistakes and much evil have arisen from 
 some of our friends having ignorantly at times sup- 
 ported the wrong side. On this point you must 
 therefore be cautious, and advise with your leader. 
 But by all means do not trust yourself viva voce in 
 the front of the battle. Nature never intended that 
 cows should dance, and she never designed that you 
 should argue. 
 
 For our fighter troops the following directions
 
 may be useful. Remembering that our business is 
 to be defensive rather than offensive, never provoke 
 or permit a discussion, you can possibly avoid. 
 Should you be unwittingly drawn in to one, com- 
 mence with an appeal to your conscience. No one 
 on the other side pretends to have one, and it is an 
 advantage pecuUar to Lord Eldon and yourselves. 
 No man, we well know, whose conscience assured 
 him he was right, has ever been led into wrong. 
 And being a purely intellectual faculty, it is the 
 most infalhble criterion of remote and compHcated 
 contingencies. If a man with a conscience assures 
 you that two and two make five, and three angles 
 of a triangle are equal to four right angles, who is 
 there, that shall dare to dispute it ? We can only 
 apologize for using such an abstruse illustration. 
 
 Should your conscience, however, make little or 
 no impression, follow up the charge, by declaring 
 your opinion to be founded on unaltered and unal- 
 terable conviction. That is to say, that you beheve 
 black to be white, and round to be square, because 
 you believe it to be so. This is a position which 
 no one can possibly dispute, and you may therefore
 
 employ it with safety. No argument can prove 
 more convincingly the conformity of a man's con- 
 duct to the rules of truth and justice, than that he 
 always has acted so, and always will act so. 
 
 If after this you are pressed into more difficult 
 and disputable ground, put on at once a bold aspect 
 of defence, and assume without hesitation (remem- 
 ber we intreat you without the least hesitation) any 
 matter of fact which may be useful for your pur- 
 pose ; remembering always that it is one which 
 cannot immediately be disproved by reference to 
 documents and authorities. A reference you never 
 should hazard. It is only a trick of the enemy's to 
 get us into difficulties. Thus you may assume with- 
 out danger that the majority of the people are with 
 you; that the Catholics are rapidly increasing ; that 
 the Pope has at this moment three hundred emissa- 
 ries in London, who are carrying on treasonable ne- 
 gociations ; that the greater part of the House of 
 Commons is unfavourable to the Established Church; 
 that the Catholic religion is unchanged, or is even 
 more profligate than ever ; that Mr. Peel has re- 
 ceived £500 from the Duke of Wellington to induce
 
 8 
 
 him to change his opinion ; and others of the same 
 description, which the exigencies of the moment 
 will suggest and provide you with. And if you are 
 called on for a proof, you may either assume the 
 point in dispute as too notorious to be disputed ; or 
 declare next that somebody told you ; or, which is 
 the best method, assert your acquaintance with the 
 fact from your own individual experience. The 
 laws of society protect your own knowledge from 
 doubt, and you may escape in safety, perhaps w4th 
 triumph. 
 
 We have also found it extremely serviceable to 
 take two or three distinct propositions, and fasten 
 them together by connecting particles either as 
 cause and effect, or as premiss and conclusion. 
 And this may be managed in such a manner, that 
 the connexion shall defy all discovery, while the 
 result will astound your antagonist. This mode of 
 argument is somewhat analogous to the operation, 
 which fastened the head of a tattooed Otaheitan to 
 the tail of a Dutch red herring, and denominated 
 the union a mermaid. Thus if Emancipation be 
 conceded, all the Members from Ireland will be Ca-
 
 9 
 
 tholics. If you give them up seats in the House, 
 you infalUbly destroy the Church. If you concede 
 to them what you think right, you must also con- 
 cede to them what you know to be wrong. Mr. 
 Peel has changed his opinion, he has therefore done 
 so from dishonest motives, &c. &c. &c. A few in- 
 stances suffice to shew the mode in which this is to 
 be done, and a little practice will give you the ne- 
 cessary expertness. Remember only to take your 
 points as widely remote as possible ; for thus the 
 surprise to your hearers will be the greater ; and 
 while they are puzzling their heads to discover a 
 connexion which never existed, you may build on 
 their silence as defeat. 
 
 Another argument extremely efficacious is pro- 
 phecy. To be crazy and prophetical are in some 
 countries synonymous terms. Happily from such a 
 suspicion the majority of us are exempt, since no 
 one ever discovered in our conduct any symptoms 
 of that peculiar rapidity of thought, and unnatural 
 vivacity of sentiment, which characterizes intellec- 
 tual derangement. The best mode of employing 
 this argument, viz. that such events will take place
 
 10 
 
 because you are persuaded that they will, is to as- 
 sume a solemn and religious tone of voice, pausing 
 for a minute or two before you are delivered of your 
 burden, and calling the earnest and conscientious 
 attention of the hearer to the truth you are about to 
 assert. Express the fact itself in solemn and meta- 
 phorical language, something perhaps about the 
 sun, and the star of Brunswick ; and leave the 
 room immediately after, lest further conversation 
 should discover that your prediction did not result 
 from inspiration. 
 
 It may perhaps be advisable to deliver it standing 
 on a chair, with a request to the servants that they 
 would communicate it to the kitchen. 
 
 The faculty, however, most peculiarly desirable 
 at this dangerous crisis is ambidexterity, or the art 
 of fighting right and left at the same time. From 
 the extreme danger with wliich it is attended, we 
 must caution all our friends against its use, but 
 those who have studied Mr. Hinds' Logic, and Je- 
 remy Bentham's Fallacies. Before you employ it 
 know your man. If he be of an obtuser intellectual
 
 11 
 
 cast, you may perhaps hazard the leap. But avoid 
 all cunning and dangerous opponents ; and in ge- 
 neral divide the attack. If you would cut and 
 thrust both, cut one man and thrust another : do 
 not attempt such a mode with one and the same 
 individual. Thus there never was a time, when, 
 by the indiscriminate diffusion of knowledge, the 
 alarming increase of Dissenters, and the false libe- 
 rality of Mr. Brougham and his schoolmaster, the 
 bulk of the people had become so sceptical as at 
 present, so indifferent to religion, so impatient of 
 subordination. Or, on the other side, there never 
 was a time when the whole mass of the EngUsh 
 nation was so likely to embrace without hesitation 
 the grossest errors and absurdities of Popery, to 
 become blindly and brutally superstitious, and sub- 
 mit their consciences, their lives, and their property 
 to the control of a tyrannical priesthood. 
 
 Again, disfranchise the freeholders of Ireland ; 
 for who can be so unfit to pronounce on political 
 affairs as an ignorant and violent peasantry? Or 
 dissolve Parliament, and appeal to the numerous 
 majority of the country : for in a question which de-
 
 12 
 
 mands for its consideration a perfectly dispassionate 
 mind, an acute discernment of proportions, and a 
 clear and quick-sighted perception of remote con- 
 sequences, who are so likely to pronounce correctly 
 as the peasantry, the farmers, the operatives, and 
 the rabble of England ? Two instances will be suf- 
 ficient to illustrate our rule. 
 
 In the use of all these weapons you enjoy a 
 peculiar advantage over your opponents, by your 
 possession of all those extrinsic circumstances which 
 add weight and authority to truth. Do not spare 
 them, we intreat you. Seldom are arguments so 
 convincing in society as when supported by noise, 
 and clamour, and violence, or even by an oath 
 judiciously and seasonably introduced. And at a 
 County Meeting, no syllogism can more justly be 
 considered as a purely destructive hypothetical, 
 than a stout oak stick or a hard flint stone. 
 
 It only remains for us to lay down a few rules 
 for your final retreat. This you may effect either 
 amicably or hostilely. We would generally recom- 
 mend the latter : it serves to intimidate future
 
 13 
 
 attack, and proves that you have truth on your 
 side. If however you are compelled by circum- 
 stances to adopt the former, conclude your discus- 
 sion by asserting, that after all the subject is not 
 fitted for argument ; that it rests entirely on indi- 
 vidual feehng and opinions ; that nothing you have 
 heard has yet convinced you ; that you hope always 
 to retain the same sentiments, and are full of appre- 
 hension and fear for the safety of the Country and 
 the Church. This last is an invulnerable point. 
 By the principles of our glorious Constitution every 
 Briton has a full and indefeasible right to be at 
 all times and on all occasions just as much afraid 
 as he chooses : and if you will persist in continuing 
 so, no one can possibly prevent it. Should you 
 however prefer to retire in a formidable attitude, 
 nothing is more easy. Every man, who does not 
 anticipate from a measure the evils which you 
 apprehend, is anxious to produce those evils. Your 
 antagonist is therefore an enemy to the estabhsh- 
 ments of his country. All enemies to the esta- 
 blishments of their country are either Infidels, So- 
 cinians. Catholics, Radicals, or Methodists. You 
 may take your choice ; and a hint will be sufficient.
 
 14 
 
 To imply and insinuate the conclusion is better than 
 openly to develope it. More shortly also in this" 
 way : all who wish to extend to others the advan- 
 tages they enjoy themselves are Liberals, and all 
 Liberals are Atheists : a truth which by frequent 
 repetition has now become self-evident, and requires 
 no demonstration. For your conclusion proceed as 
 before. 
 
 It only remains that we should now fearlessly 
 and unshrinkingly, in defiance of obloquy and abuse, 
 and unintimidated by the sarcasm of that illiberal 
 liberality which now so unhappily prevails, state 
 boldly, both for your assistance and our own justi- 
 fication, the principles and reasons for our con- 
 duct. 
 
 And first. We hold it to be a self-evident and 
 indisputable truth, sanctioned by the principles of 
 our glorious Constitution, and confinned in its 
 utility by the experience of all past ages, that 
 every body of men who are possessed of privileges 
 or power, have a full, natural, and indefeasible 
 right to exclude all others from the enjoyment of
 
 15 
 
 them. We can discover no utility or gratification 
 in possessing advantages which are common and 
 open to all. We can discern no reason why seven 
 miUions of the Irish people, who confer no other 
 benefit upon the state to which we belong than 
 supplying the main part of its armies, consuming 
 its produce and manufactures, increasing its in- 
 ternal resources, and contributing with the sweat 
 of their brow to the maintenance and prosperity 
 of our institutions, why these poor wretches, we 
 repeat, should demand more in return, than per- 
 mission to live and die on their dunghills or their 
 hovels, without being massacred for discontent, or 
 burnt for their religious opinions. The ingratitude 
 of further expectations is obvious and heinous. 
 The folly requires no refutation. Our Protestant 
 ancestors, who founded our glorious Constitution, 
 when the power of this country was in the hands 
 of the Catholics, and they themselves formed but a 
 part, and a small part, of the whole population, 
 they never wished or attempted to obtain a share 
 of poHtical power, or access to civil distinctions. 
 They never felt anxious for the safety of their 
 property, their liberty, and their hves, when all
 
 16 
 
 these were at the mercy of legislators, judges, and 
 a populace inflamed with indignation at their opi- 
 nions, and ignorant, almost universally, of the 
 grounds and the motives of their dissent. They 
 found the door of the Constitution closed against 
 them in hatred and contempt ; and they remained 
 peaceably and quietly on the outside, grateful for 
 the liberty of breathing, convinced that every at- 
 tempt to obtain a share in working out the glory 
 of their country was rebellion against its best in- 
 terests, and warmly and zealously determined to 
 sacrifice both property and hfe in maintaining the 
 system as it stood. Such was the conduct of our 
 Protestant ancestors, and such we now demand from 
 the Catholic heretics of Ireland. 
 
 We cannot moreover consent to deprive our- 
 selves of the gratification which results from the 
 possession of a coercive and vexatious legislation 
 over a large proportion of our countrymen. We 
 possess little influence in the State, and still less 
 authority with our neighbours. Why should we 
 abandon the only power which still remains to us, 
 by suffering the Catholics to escape ? That such a
 
 17 
 
 principle of enjoyment is implanted in animals by 
 the hand of nature herself, is evident from the plea- 
 sure a cat takes in tormenting a mouse. Neither 
 are we able to discover, though we have coolly and 
 impartially considered the question, what advan- 
 tage will accrue to the State from the admission of 
 Catholics to the Constitution, or what danger will 
 result from their exclusion. 
 
 We do not believe, whatever timidity or wicked- 
 ness under the garb of liberality may profess, 
 that the removal of a grievance will mitigate ani- 
 mosity; that parties equalized in privileges and 
 united in interest, and that interest the happiness 
 of their country, will be at all more inclined to 
 amicable association, then when one is the victim 
 of the legislature, and the other the instrument of 
 torture ; when one is the oppressed, and the other 
 the oppressor ; when one side is meditating re- 
 bellion, and the other expecting to be massacred. 
 We see no cause to suppose that a reconciliation of 
 mind and interest, even if it should be effected, 
 should tend to tranquillize the state of Ireland; or 
 how that tranquillity is desirable ; oi- in what way it 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 can conduce to the accumulation of capital; or how 
 it should improve the moral habits of the people; 
 or why we should require any addition to the re- 
 sources of the country, unincumbered as we are 
 with debt, with all our manufactures in full vigour, 
 and with Europe in a state of the profoundest 
 tranquilUty. Any addition to our intellectual re- 
 sources for the proper administration of the State 
 we do not require : for though affairs are at present 
 in the hands of madmen and rogues, the majority 
 of us are still sane ; and long may we continue so. 
 
 It is also an indisputable principle of political 
 wisdom, that to govern by force is far better and 
 more effectual than to rule by affection ; and seven 
 millions of men, with nothing to lose and every 
 thing to gain, in possession of a magnificent coun* 
 try, and organized by experienced leaders, will 
 submit we are sure with delight to any conditions 
 we impose on them, rather than hazard a strug- 
 gle, whose failure will leave them as they are, and 
 whose success will erect them into an empire. 
 
 And the whole history of the world declares, (at
 
 19 
 
 least those who have read it assure us so,) that 
 to maintain in the heart of a country an immense 
 proportion of your subjects discontented, demoral- 
 ized, and detached from it, is the most effectual 
 of all methods to render that country tranquillized 
 and happy ; abundant in its resources, and secure 
 from all foreign interference. To this we may 
 add, that as Ireland was conquered by our an- 
 cestors seven hundred years ago, w^e have in the 
 present century an indisputable right to misgovern 
 it just as we choose. 
 
 Satisfied therefore with the existing state of 
 things, and anticipating no possible advantage from 
 a change, neither do we discover any danger in 
 remaining as we are. We believe that the state of 
 Ireland renders existence there delightful, and pro- 
 perty productive, and life secure. We hear of no 
 murders committed there, no families abandoning 
 it, no open violation of the laws, no obstruction or 
 perversion of justice, no dangerous organization of 
 physical force. We believe that the Irish populace 
 are devoted to the cause of England, whose tender 
 mercies they have so long and so thoroughly ex- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 perienced. And we believe that all the accounts 
 of the country, whether derived from personal ob- 
 servation, From public authorit}', or communication 
 with government, are totally false ; and that Mr. 
 Peel's letters were forged to give a colour to his 
 horrible treachery. 
 
 Since, possessing no property in Ireland, and 
 living in the heart of England, we are much more 
 competent to form a judgment of its state and 
 exigencies than its inhabitants and governors, we 
 neither anticipate a rebeUion there, nor feel horror 
 at the possibility of its occurrence. Our nerves, 
 unlike those of the weak and vacillating Premier, 
 are too strong to be shaken by the thought of a 
 civil war. We can hear without shuddering of 
 countrymen massacred, of towns pillaged, of pro- 
 perty confiscated, of all the ties of social and do- 
 mestic life broken asunder, and never to be re- 
 united. We have an army to extirpate the Irish, 
 and in God's name let us fight it out. 
 
 As to the threat which is held out, that the Irish 
 seceding from England will unite themselves with
 
 21 
 
 America or France, we treat it with the utmost 
 contempt. We see no reason why the poor 
 wretches should wish to desert the common in- 
 terests of their country. And even if the event 
 should take place, we contend from the history of 
 antiquity that it would be no interruption to our 
 happiness, or diminution to our prosperity, to make 
 Ireland the Decelia of Great Britain. 
 
 Lastly, Gentlemen, on this point, we have no 
 property or interest in Ireland, and but little in the 
 funds of Great Britain. We are not likely to be 
 called on to serve in the army ; and if money is 
 wanted, it may easily be borrowed : so that lying 
 under no responsibility, and secure from any dis- 
 turbance to our own enjoyment, we really feel 
 very indifferent to any commotions which may 
 result from the measure which we advocate. We 
 are only extremely sorry for those of our Pro- 
 testant brethren who are not so well off as our- 
 selves. 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, are the unanswerable proposi- 
 tions by which we have proved to all impartial
 
 22 
 
 and honest Protestants, that it is both our right 
 and our interest to fight against Cathohc Emanci- 
 pation. 
 
 We see, as we have before stated, we are sure, 
 to your perfect satisfaction, that no good can arise 
 from the success of that measure, and no evil from 
 its defeat. But the main, the vital question lies 
 not here. In the face of our country and posterity, 
 loaded as we are Avith contempt, and deserted by 
 all who supported us, we still avow our sincere and 
 conscientious conviction, and we are ready to die 
 in its support, that once admit the Cathohcs to 
 freedom, and the Church Property, the Christian 
 Religion, and the British Constitution, are gone 
 that moment ; that the sun of Great Britain has set 
 for ever ! Listen, we intreat you, to the arguments 
 by which you may support these positions. 
 
 And first, we hold it to be an unanswerable fact, 
 that the State was formed for the Church, and not 
 the Church for the State ; and that, therefore, every 
 measure of public policy is to be viewed with re- 
 ference to its effect, not on the happiness and pro-
 
 2^ 
 
 sperity of the people, but on the wealth and se- 
 curity of the Establishment. 
 
 We believe in this Estabhshment, if any altera- 
 tion were effected ; if its revenues were equalized 
 or diminished ; if its patronage was removed from 
 secular hands, and distributed solely in proportion 
 to the religious utihty of its Ministers ; if the minds 
 of its Bishops and Pastors were withdrawn from all 
 political bias ; if no excuse was allowed for indo- 
 lence, and no hope held out to cupidity ; if, in fact, 
 the Ministers of the Gospel were released entirely 
 from the world and its affairs, and exclusively con- 
 fined to the salvation of souls ; if by any approach- 
 ing calamity these horrible anticipations should be 
 effected, we believe that the spirit of Christianity 
 will vanish from the face of the country. 
 
 Anxious therefore to protest against tamely sub- 
 mitting to this destruction of rehgion in the shape 
 of its revenues, we warn you and the country alike, 
 that the first Catholic Member who, enters the 
 House of Commons will, in conjunction with a 
 majority of that Assembly, half of whom are ac-.
 
 24 
 
 knowledged to be Infidels, and the other half Dis- 
 senters, strip Ireland of its wealthy Establishment. 
 This measure, and the subsequent annihilation of 
 Church Property in England, will meet with a ready 
 assent and zealous cooperation from all the wealth 
 and respectability of the country, none of whom are 
 in any way connected with the interests of the 
 Establishment, or have property involved in its 
 security ; and especially from the Ministry itself, 
 by far the greater part of whose influence arises 
 frcMn their share in its possessions. And we need 
 not apprehend any obstacle from the previous ne- 
 cessity of annihilating the fundamental principle of 
 society, the right of private property. Thus will 
 Christianity be destroyed ; and Ireland, instead of 
 being, as it is at present, the garden of Protestant 
 Divinity, be abandoned, as a desolate wilderness, 
 to herds of Catholics, Socinians, or Mahometans. 
 
 We believe, that when the Catholics are made 
 admissible into Parliament, that instant they will 
 all be admitted, since whenever a thing becomes 
 possible, that moment it is done. And if, when 
 inflamed by resentment, and thirsting for the re-
 
 25 
 
 dress of their wrongs, united in one common object, 
 organized by experienced leaders, and driven on by 
 spiritual terrors, the Irish have for years been 
 unable to command the representation of their 
 country ; much more will they be able to command 
 it when tranquillized by concession of their de- 
 mands ; when every bond of union is withdrawn, 
 and the wealth and aristocracy of the nation are 
 opposed to a quiet and divided peasantry. Re- 
 member also, that you never can hope to satisfy 
 the cravings of Catholic cupidity. Be assured, that 
 to the bulk of the people Emancipation is a matter 
 of indifference ; and that all this fermentation has 
 been produced by the petty ambition of a dema- 
 gogue, in his anxiety for popular distinction. But 
 be also assured, that when he has obtained his end, 
 he and the whole Irish people, indifferent and care- 
 less as they are, will crowd on us with additional 
 demands. If we concede now, we must concede 
 then ; if we yield to justice, we must succumb to 
 menace. Remember that liberahty is folly, bene- 
 volence a weakness, and justice to others destruc- 
 tion to ourselves. Cling therefore to what you 
 possess, and abandon not a tittle to the enemy : 
 for no maxims can be more self-evident, than that
 
 26 
 
 if you do right you must also do wrong ; that to 
 grow twelve feet is as easy as to grow six ; and 
 that if you pay a creditor his debt he will infallibly 
 cut your throat. 
 
 We need not call upon you to observe, that the 
 more elevated the rank, and more Uberal the edu- 
 cation, the greater is the probability that their pos- 
 sessors will submit themselves implicitly to the 
 guidance of a vulgar and ignorant priesthood, and 
 to the intrigues of a foreign interference. And the 
 Catholic Members of Parliament, excluded by their 
 property from any interest in the tranquillity of the 
 country, and, from their intercourse with society 
 and enlarged information, the bigotted supporters 
 of Popery, with all its grossness, w'ill have no other 
 end or ambition than to encourage institutions of 
 Jesuits, or preach a crusade against the Church. 
 
 For, Gentlemen, we cannot conceal it from our- 
 selves, every Catholic, by virtue of the religion 
 he professes, is an idiot, a perjurer, a slave, an 
 idolater, a murderer in his heart, with cloven feet, 
 and a forked tail ; and we cannot therefore con- 
 scientiously admit him to the privileges of a coun-
 
 i27 
 
 try, all the members of which are, by virtue of their 
 name, wise, honest, free, rehgious, virtuous, cha- 
 ritable, with toes to their feet, and without 
 tails. 
 
 Standing as we do before the great Maker of us 
 all, with minds free from every error, and conta- 
 minated by no crime, filled with a sober conviction 
 of our own infallibility, and warmed with ardent be- 
 nevolence towards all who profess to be Christians, 
 we feel it our duty, that men, who, by weakness 
 and ignorance, and the influence of authority, have 
 been led into errors in religion, should be stigma- 
 tized as damnable heretics, as hateful to God, and 
 to be persecuted by men. 
 
 And we believe, that these errors of opinion are 
 the fit subject for civil punishment ; inasmuch as 
 nothing is more easy than to detect, to measure, 
 and coerce them ; and nothing so effectually pre- 
 pares the mind for the reception of truth as abuse, 
 intimidation, and contempt. And it is upon these 
 grounds that we have prepared a Bill, to be brought 
 into Parliament by our next Protestant Member, 
 which shall command every student of mathematics
 
 28 
 
 to be previously placed in the pillory ; and subject 
 to civil disabilities all those who believe in ghosts, 
 witches, fairies, animal magnetism, Jacob Bryant, 
 or Lemon's Etymologies. 
 
 We believe that the whole system of Romanism 
 is a mass of pure and unadulterated corruption, ar- 
 bitrarily invented by the Popes to enslave our con- 
 sciences and destroy our souls ; that it sprung not 
 from a gradual perversion of truth, and a mistaken 
 pursuit of utility, but from pure unsophisticated 
 wickedness ; that it never can be modified or im- 
 proved, and will remain in an age of illumination 
 precisely the same as in a century of darkness. 
 And that such is the actual fact — that Catholics 
 do continue to believe in the infallibility of the 
 Pope, in his right of dethroning princes, in his 
 encouragement of perjury, in unconditional and 
 final absolution, and in the duty of murdering Pro- 
 testants — is a fact most indisputably true ; since, 
 though they profess to deny it, we are thoroughly 
 convinced of its reality. Nothing indeed shall ever 
 persuade us to the contrary, but their full and un- 
 reserved recantation of all the tenets and forms of 
 their religion. And we think it just to require,
 
 29 
 
 and natural to expect, in their existing situation, 
 that such a recantation should be made : we, who 
 to a change of opinion, with whatever sacrifices 
 attended, instantly affix the stigma of interested 
 motives, and consider the abandonment of error as 
 treachery to reason and to honesty. 
 
 We have taken the most effectual means to en- 
 courage their acknowledgment of error • we have 
 offered for it the premium of perjury, and damned 
 it with the obloquy of interest : we have excluded 
 every modified concession by imperious and indis- 
 criminate proscription : we have chained them man 
 to man, by shame, by honour, and by sympathy : 
 and still they refuse to be converted. We know 
 not what this may be considered by a foolish and 
 false UberaUty ; we call it perver^on and obstinacy ; 
 and we think it an indisputable proof that Popery 
 has never been changed ; a fact which we farther 
 infer with respect to the bigotry of Ireland, from 
 observing the bigotry of Spain, or the customs of 
 Portugal and Rome, since the crimes of one country 
 are assuredly the crimes of another, and a Pro-
 
 30 
 
 testant of England may be hanged for a murder by 
 a Protestant of Holland. 
 
 We know that all the members of our profession, 
 the poor and the rich, the ignorant and the instructed, 
 the artizan and the gentleman, have all minutely 
 scrutinized and approved the grounds of the reli- 
 gion they adhere to ; that none of us, who now are 
 rallying around the temporalities of the Church, 
 are ignorant of its tenets, and of all the nice and 
 difficult questions connected with their final esta- 
 blishment ; that none of us have received our re- 
 ligion as an heirloom from the hands of our fa- 
 thers ; and that none of us would hesitate to 
 abandon it, if assured of its falsity and errors by 
 arguments we could not understand, and by the 
 mouth of a contemptuous enemy. And we think 
 it extremely hard, that an ignorant peasantry should 
 rather trust implicitly to the example of their an- 
 cestors, and to the advisers of their youth, than to 
 the representations of men, who call their kinsmen 
 idolaters, and themselves idiots ; who accuse them 
 of crimes they abhor, and of absurdities they deny ;
 
 31 
 
 and who commence the great work of conversion, 
 not by warming their hearts into gratitude, but by 
 treating them as rebels and as slaves. 
 
 Gentlemen, the Church of England is as far 
 removed from the Church of Rome as one pole 
 from another. They are totally distinct in their 
 principles, perfectly incompatible in society, tho- 
 roughly irreconcileable in the State. The last 
 point we may prove by a reference to all those 
 constitutions of Europe which are at this moment 
 striding on in the paths of prosperity under the 
 united auspices of both ; the second by an appeal 
 to all those who have resided in foreign societies ; 
 and the first is as easily demonstrated. 
 
 For acknowledging with the wisest humility the 
 truth of many mysteries in religion which we can 
 neither explain nor comprehend, we believe that no 
 man can assent to the mysteries of the Catholic 
 Church but a villain, a madman, or a fool. Re- 
 verencing as we do from our nature the authority 
 of our teachers, the sanction of our friends, and the 
 advice of our pastors, and adopting half our reli-
 
 32 
 
 gious opinions upon the faith and experience of 
 others, we denounce every man as a slave who 
 submits but his spiritual conduct to the guidance 
 of his Church and his Priest. 
 
 We endeavour, both in religion and in life, to 
 warm our feelings and stimulate our imagination, 
 by external and visible objects, by painting, by 
 music, by architecture, and sculpture ; and we be- 
 lieve therefore that no Catholic can employ the 
 same mistaken means of devotion, without being 
 guilty of idolatry, and worshipping the canvas or 
 the stone. 
 
 We address all our prayers and petitions through 
 the medium of a superior Being ; and we therefore 
 reject with abhorrence such a notion so revolting to 
 our reason. 
 
 We anathematize in the CathoHc tenet the sub- 
 jection of politics to rehgion ; and we zealously call 
 upon our rulers at the present alarming crisis to 
 sacrifice the State to the Church.
 
 33 
 
 And such with innumerable others being the 
 fundamental and irreconcileable differences of the 
 two rehgions, we believe it impossible that by kind- 
 ness, and conciliation, and respect, and a participa- 
 tion in one constitution, the perversions of the 
 CathoUc Church should be recalled to their original 
 truths ; that reason should predominate over error, 
 and knowledge ameliorate prejudice. And we think, 
 that the best mode of conversion is to make them 
 regard us as enemies ; and the most proper method 
 to attract, is violently and hostilely to repel. 
 
 Of the moral character of the Catholics we say 
 nothing ; they are universally sunk in the lowest 
 and most abandoned depravity. 
 
 One point alone we shall remark ; that they 
 consider themselves utterly exempt from all the 
 obligation of oaths ; and believe that the Pope can 
 dispense with their sanction, and that no faith is to 
 be observed towards heretics. And for this reason 
 we have always considered, that nothing could ex- 
 clude them from power but the rigid enforcement of 
 an oath ; and have never found a single individual 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 whom the offer of any power or emolument would 
 induce to acknowledge or take it. We see in the 
 morals of Catholicism nothing but a tendency to 
 depravity. We discover there no rigid self-denial ; 
 no check upon the secrets of the heart ; no ardent 
 though misdirected zeal, no warm affection^, no 
 active charity, no sense of an all-present Deity ; 
 no elements, in short, which as ignorance and 
 cupidity perverted into superstition, so knowledge 
 and example may redeem into virtue. That 
 wherever this system has been established all free 
 institutions have perished, we prove by the example 
 of the countries which are at this present moment 
 both Catholic and free. 
 
 And both of this and our former position we are 
 irrecoverably persuaded, since not one of those of 
 om' ancestors who laid the foundation of our glorious 
 Constitution, who died in the field to preserve it, 
 who have left us as the heirlooms of the State our 
 free institutions, and our boundless resources for 
 charity, education, and rehgion, not one of these 
 we know was a Catholic.
 
 35 
 
 We believe that on the instant when Cathohcs 
 are admitted into ParUament, this reUgion, thus 
 senseless, thus depraved, and thus slavish, will be 
 eagerly embraced and adopted by the body of the 
 British population. Though between these two 
 propositions we can discover no possible connec- 
 tion, except that hatred is the first step to love, 
 and midnight comes on just at noon-day. We see 
 at present no abhorrence of Popery in the general 
 opinion of the nation, though we its numerical 
 majority detest and abjure it with all bur hearts, 
 and with all our soul, and with all our strength. 
 And we believe the great mass of the people is prone 
 to political slavery, declaring, as we do on our 
 conscience, that the tendency of this liberal age 
 has rendered them licentious and ungovernable. 
 
 We believe that superstition and error will meet 
 with a ready reception in an age of universal 
 education ; that the Clergy of the Protestant 
 Churches, amiable, enUghtened, refined, pious, 
 and supported by the strength of Truth, and the 
 assistance of Heaven, will be unable to retain their 
 flocks against a few infuriated bigots, or an irrup-
 
 36 
 
 tion of Jesuits from Ireland. And we think that 
 the rapid increase of Dissenters will considerably 
 augment this probability. 
 
 We believe, in short, that within six months 
 after the measure has been carried, all England, with 
 the exception of ourselves, will immediately become 
 Catholics ; that the Pope will be installed in St. 
 Mary's, attended by his Cardinals and Friars • that 
 Mr. O'Connell will be Chancellor of Oxford, aiid 
 Dr. Doyle Vice-Chancellor, and Mr. Shiel Pubhc 
 Orator, and that all the Fellows of Colleges will 
 become either Dominicans or Franciscans. The 
 Bodleian Library will immediately be burnt by the 
 Catholic hangman ; the statues in the Radcliffe 
 be converted into saints and martyrs ; high Mass 
 be performed in our Chapels ; and while some of 
 us are thrown into the Inquisition, and others tor- 
 tured into recantation, a splendid auto da fe will 
 be celebrated, consisting of the Heads of Colleges 
 and Halls with their respective societies, Dr. Routh 
 taking the lead for his opposition, and the Dean 
 of Christ Church following for his neutrahty ; while 
 Drs. Whatelv, Macbride, and Shuttleworth will
 
 37 
 
 stand by in their Cardinal's caps, as assistants to 
 stir up the fires. 
 
 Lastly, Gentlemen, Nolumus leges Anghse 
 mutari. We venerate antiquity, we detest inno- 
 vation. We beUeve that it is a fundamental prin- 
 ciple of the British Constitution, that it never 
 grows old, never requires improvement, never ad- 
 mits of alteration. That circumstances are now 
 the same as they were two hundred years ago ; 
 and that two hundred years hence they will be 
 precisely the same as they are now : that nothing 
 so impairs the strength of a citadel as to fortify a 
 weak position, or clear away a ruined outwork ; 
 and that the Cathohcs never can be admitted to 
 power, because they never have been. And we 
 glory in the maxim of our ancestors — a maxim 
 which they never asserted in the sense we have 
 chosen to apply to it ; which they never could ven- 
 ture to assert, without passing down to their chil- 
 dren as fools; and to which if they had ever ad- 
 hered we should be at this moment under the do- 
 minion of the Pope. Closing therefore our own 
 eyes against the shifting varieties of circumstances,
 
 38 
 
 adhering to the theory of our policy, without ever 
 examining its practice, we abhor, and abjure, and 
 despise the man who regulates his conduct by the 
 exigencies of the times. We believe that no min- 
 ister is honest who abandons a system once em- 
 barked*on; that accumulating dangers ought not to 
 affect a resolution conceived in security ; that no 
 man is convinced but by interest ; and that from 
 interest that man is a traitor, who, by the conduct 
 he determines to adopt, abandons the lead of a 
 most powerful party, who exposes his character to 
 infamy; who embarks in difficulties, and perplex- 
 ities, and toil, when an honourable ease is in his 
 power ; who knows that all pohtical authority is in 
 England annihilated by suspicion, and yet volun- 
 tarily incurs this suspicion, by quitting the friends 
 who adored, and uniting with a party, that despise 
 him. And we believe, that all those who dissent 
 from us have been purchased, or blinded, or are 
 mad. That all the great spirit of the age differ- 
 ing in all other things, and only united in this, in 
 other points are idols to be worshipped, but in this 
 are fanatics or idiots. We hold that they are all 
 rogues together. That the Duke of Wellington
 
 39 
 
 has been bribed by popularity, and Mr. Peel by his 
 thirst of power, and the House of ^Commons by 
 their love of Atheism, and the Heads of Colleges 
 by Livings and Stalls. That £20 apiece are to be 
 paid to each Master of Arts, and £50 to each of the 
 Proctors, with the reversion of a place in the 
 excise to be equally divided between them. 
 
 Here, Gentlemen, we pause. That Ireland 
 should be benefitted by tranquillity, or England 
 by the accession of her strength ; that a civil war 
 should be averted by pacifying sedition ; that kind- 
 ness should conciliate affection, or that liberty 
 should encourage civilization ; these distant, these 
 shadowy possibilities of good arising from the adop- 
 tion of this measure we banish at once from our 
 minds. So also those contingencies of evil, to re- 
 sult from its rejection, which ocular observation 
 asserts, and which we conscientiously deny. That 
 seven milUons of men, organized, disciplined, and 
 infuriate, should rise up in arms against oppression; 
 that Ireland should be lost to us for ever, or re- 
 covered as a devastated wilderness ; that our Pro- 
 testant brethren there should be massacred, and
 
 40 
 
 our Protestant establishment annihilated ; and that 
 the whole fabric of the Constitution — the Church 
 and the State ahke — should be shaken to its base by 
 the convulsion ; these, Gentlemen, are vague, and 
 distant, and visionary dreams, which we call on you 
 to reject with disdain. 
 
 Weigh then against these improbabiUties the 
 certainty, the indisputable certainty, of the follow- 
 ing evils. That twenty Catholic gentlemen, Chris- 
 tians and Britons hke ourselves, will be Members 
 of our Protestant Legislature ; that with these both 
 the State and the Government will unite to plunder 
 the temporalities of the Church ; that this plunder 
 will undoubtedly be accomplished, and if accom- 
 pHshed will destroy Christianity ; and that the 
 Sovereign, the Commons, and the Lords, the Min- 
 istry, the Clergy, and the Gentry, with all the 
 Dissenters, and Socinians, and radicals, and in- 
 fidels in the country, by the influence of these 
 twenty gentlemen, and the agency of their priests 
 and dependents, will immediately be converted to 
 Popery.
 
 41 
 
 We need not subjoin any more ; we know well 
 that every honest man, every sincere Protestant, 
 every humble Christian, and every genuine Eng- 
 lishman, will acknowledge our decision to be 
 right. 
 
 With this solemn, and conscientious, and de- 
 liberate conviction, which we never have changed, 
 and never will change, which we hope to carry with 
 us to the grave, and which with the thoughts of 
 all its consequences will solace us when lying on 
 our death-bed ; we not only felt it our duty to 
 struggle against the liberation of our countrymen, so 
 long as that struggle could be effectual ; but we 
 now are most deeply impressed with the wisdom, 
 and propriety, and charity, of embarrassing a 
 measure, which we do not expect to defeat ; of 
 pouring poison (it is all that remains) into the cup 
 of conciUation and peace, and, if God should prosper 
 our endeavours, of letting loose all the horrors of 
 war upon a country, our sister and ally ; and of going 
 down to our last rest with the applause of our 
 conscience in our hearts, and the blood and the 
 
 ' E
 
 42 
 
 curses of seven millions of our fellow creatures on 
 the heads of ourselves and our children. 
 
 Here at least we are safe — the walls of Oxford 
 will not ring with the cries of Ireland. We shall 
 hear of massacres, and pillage, and confiscation, 
 but we shall not behold them. We shall set fire to 
 the pile, but we shall not be employed to extinguish 
 it. The God of mercies will pardon us for sacri- 
 ficing seven millions of his creatures to our zeal for 
 the wealth of his Church. And he never will call 
 us into judgment for the crime of a perverse 
 incredulity, dictated by the cowardice of selfish- 
 ness. 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, are the principles which have 
 uniformly regulated our conduct on this great and 
 momentous question. And such are the arguments, 
 which you may safely employ either for the 
 conviction of others, or the defence of your- 
 selves. We have omitted none. We have 
 garbled none. They are open for the pubHc ex- 
 amination.
 
 43 
 
 And retaining them as we do with a firm and 
 uncompromising consistency, we cannot elect as 
 our Representative a man, who, with full inform- 
 ation of the dangers which crowded on his path, 
 and having pledged himself in the face of his 
 country, that there lay on one side the remote 
 possibility of detriment to the property of the 
 Church, and on the other the immediate certainty 
 of a bloody intestine rebellion ; has yet shrunk 
 from the course he was pursuing, and abandoned 
 one horrible alternative. That we may stigmatize 
 this cowardice and treachery with the brand of our 
 indignant contempt ; that we may join with all the 
 rabble of the country in hurling from the helm the 
 only men capable of its management ; that amidst 
 the convulsions of Europe, and the menaces of 
 Russia, and the accumulating embarrassment of our 
 resources, we may strip the State of its armies and 
 its counsels ; that we may stand forth for ever a 
 triumph to our enemies and a wonder to Europe ; 
 and that with the vulgar, the ignorant, and the 
 senseless, we may join our imperious clamour, 
 adding fire to their fire, and fury to their fury. 
 Such is the object of our efforts.
 
 44 
 
 And we db" not believe, that an awfitl, a most 
 awful, responsibility lies upon the head of every 
 single man, who by silence, or clamour, or even by 
 an uplifted finger, shall plunge us into the gulf Of 
 ejxdl war. Wt do not bdieve it-^We cknhot 
 b6li€ve it'-r-We will not believe it. 
 
 So HELP US' God ! • 
 
 Signedy &c. ^g.
 
 ■t.
 
 \L
 
 #^