\
 
 L I E) RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N 1VLR.SITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 _aj^
 
 
 
 LETTER TO A PROTESTANT; 
 
 OR, THK 
 
 BALANCE OF EVILS: 
 
 BEING A COMPARISON 
 
 OF THE PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES 
 
 OF EMANCIP/^TING 
 
 THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND, 
 
 WITH THOSE WHICH ARE LIKELY TO RESULT 
 FROM 
 
 LEAVING THEM IN THEIR PRESENT CONDITION. 
 
 BY STEPHEN WOULFE, ESQ. 
 
 BARRISTER AT LAW. 
 
 '• Entre deux fafons d'agir opposees voulez vous savoir celle a qui In preference est 
 due 7 Calcullez les effets en bien et en raal et decidez vous pour ce qui promet Is 
 plus grand somme de bonheur." 
 
 Bentham traite de legislation. 
 
 DEDICATED TO H. BROUGHAM, ESQ. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 PRINTED BY RICHARD COYNE, 
 
 4, CAPFL-STREET, 
 
 PRINTER AND BOOKSELLEK TO THE ROYAL COLLEGE 
 
 OF ST. PATRICK, MAYNOOTII, AND PUBLISHER 
 
 TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS 
 
 OF IRELAND ; 
 
 AND SOLD IN LONDON BY KEATING AND BROWN. 
 
 1825.
 
 UiUC 
 
 "•^Oiy*!^
 
 TO HENRY BROUGHAM, ESQ. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 I beg you will consider the following 
 sheets, which I take the liberty of dedicating 
 to you, as a small but a sincere token of the 
 profound respect that I entertain for your 
 public worth. 
 
 I have the honor to be 
 Your most obedient and 
 Humble Servant, 
 
 STEPHEN WOULFE. 
 
 Duhlin, 2Srf Feb. 181 9- 
 
 AS
 
 LETTER TO A PEOTESTANT, 
 
 dec. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 IN fulfilment of the promises you exacted 
 from me when we last conversed together, I 
 sliall proceed to submit to you the reflections 
 which have occurred to me from time to time, 
 respecting the great question of Catholic eman- 
 cipation. If in the course of my observations 
 any expression shall escape, which you might 
 regard as too strong, you will, I am sure, give 
 it the most favourable construction ; and re- 
 member, that when " we speak of our injuries," 
 some allowance should be made for " leaviuir 
 our duty a little unthought of." 
 
 It has always seemed to mc,that the opponents 
 of the Roman Catholics confined their attention
 
 exclusively to the evils which they ima^rined 
 were likely to result from making concessions 
 to that body, and that they omitted altogether 
 the consideration of the probable consequences 
 of withholding them : They seemed to 
 think that they had triumphed in their 
 argument, and had irrefragably demonstrated 
 the wisdom of leaving matters as they are, 
 when they had pointed out some evil which 
 might follow from a change, without giving 
 themselves any trouble to enquire, whether 
 other evils of equal or greater magnitude, are 
 not more likely to ensue from adhering to the 
 present system? There is no measure that man 
 can frame, or can imagine, from which some 
 possible evil may not be deduced ; but we are 
 not therefore to sit still and to do nothing. If 
 the evil which flows from any measure, is over- 
 borne by the good which it causes, a wise man 
 will adopt it, and the course which he takes 
 when he deliberates upon the choice of opposite 
 modes of policy is, to calculate the good and 
 evil upon both sides, and to determine for that 
 which presents the larger balance of favourable 
 result. 
 
 The plan upon which I have arranged this 
 letter is, to enquire, first, into the nature of the 
 evils that are apprehended from emancipating 
 the Catliolics, and to endeavour to estimate the 
 probability of their occurrence ; and secondly.
 
 I shall examine what the consequences are, 
 which may reasonably be anticipated from 
 leaving them in their present state. 
 
 You are aware, that it is not pretended that 
 the Catholic bears any hostility to the civil part 
 of the constitution — it is not pretended that he 
 prefers a despotism to a limited monarchy ; that 
 he is hostile to a House of Lords, or that he 
 would wish to convert the House of Commons 
 into the supreme assembly of a republic ; it is 
 not pretended that he likes a trial by court 
 martial more than a trial by jury. With regard 
 to all the lay establishments of the country, he 
 has precisely the same interest as a Protestant, 
 and consequently he cannot be supposed to be 
 differently affected towards them — it is only in 
 the ecclesiastical department of the State, that 
 it is imagined that his feelings and interests are 
 distinct : it is respecting this part alone, there- 
 fore, that any danger or revolution can be 
 apprehended from him. If authority were 
 wanting for such an obvious position, I woidd 
 refer to that of Mr. Peele ; the evil as stated 
 by him, to be dreaded from emancipating the 
 Catholics is, " that when they become the pre- 
 ponderating body in Ireland, as in time they 
 must, they will endeavour to strip the Estab- 
 lished Church of her political supremacy, and 
 restore their own to the splendour she anciently 
 enjoyed."
 
 8 
 
 This evil consequence lias been expressed by 
 otlier persons, who think like Mr. Peele, in a 
 great diversity of ways ; but notwithstanding 
 the multiplied shapes which it assumes, and the 
 various arguments by which the probability of 
 its occurrence has been attempted to be proved, 
 it is substantially as that gentleman has put it. 
 If any other apprehension be entertained, it is 
 studiously concealed. 
 
 The nature of the apprehended evil being 
 agreed upon, the next thing to be done is, 
 to enquire into the probability of its occur- 
 rence. 
 
 The probability of the occurrence of an evil 
 to be inflicted by a human being, depends upon 
 his power and his inclination. As to the power 
 of the Roman Catholics to strip the Established 
 Church of her temporalities, it has been demon- 
 strated to be quite unequal to the purpose ; this 
 topic I shall touch upon very slightly ; it is on 
 their inclinatioji to do so, that I shall submit to 
 you the result of my reflections at more length. 
 I think 1 can satisfy you, that such an inclina- 
 tion is imputed to them without sufficient 
 reason. / think I shall he able to prove, that 
 there are no grounds for attributing to the Romaii 
 Catholics, either at present, or in the event of 
 their emancipation, amj disposition or desire to 
 interfere with the endowments of the Kstablished
 
 9 
 
 Church, or to ohtain any thing shnilur for their 
 own* With this view I shall enquire, 
 
 First, AVhether that they entertain such an 
 inclination, can be fairly collected from their 
 creed, that is, from Christianity in general, or 
 from those particular doctrines by which they 
 differ from other sects of Christians. 
 
 Secondly, Whether it can be collected from 
 what history records of the conduct of the 
 religious sects in general. 
 
 Thirdly, Whetlier it can be collected from 
 those general principles of human nature which 
 we are supposed to arrive at by self-examination 
 or reflection. 
 
 * Of course I do not mean to deny, that there are hidivi- 
 diials in the Roman Catholic body of Ireland, who would 
 diminish the revenues of the Established Church, if they 
 could do so without violating public or private principle. 
 Many members even of the Established Church, are stre- 
 nuous advocates for a reduction in the emoluments of the 
 higher departments of tlieir ecclesiastical polity. All I 
 mean to contend for is, that " the desire to strip the Estab- 
 lished Church of her political supremacy, and to restore the 
 Roman Catholic Church to the splendour she formerly 
 enjoyed," does not prevail among the Roman Catholics 
 considered as a public body ; and that even if it did, it has, 
 by lapse of time, become a sentiment too feeble as a motive 
 to great enterprise, to require or justify coercion to repress it.
 
 10 
 
 Fourthly, Whether it can be collected from 
 the demeanour of the Roman Catholics of Ire- 
 land, and the character they have recently 
 exhibited in their proceedings. 
 
 As to the first of these enquiries, I believe you 
 will agree with me, that there is nothing in the 
 letter or the spirit of the gospel, considered by 
 themselves, by which the desire of a political 
 establishment for our churches could be sug- 
 gested or generated. That the labourer in the 
 ministry should be decently sustained, the 
 sacred writings certainly enjoin ; but although 
 they impose this duty upon each person, they 
 do not command him to coerce others to per- 
 form it. If it be said, that every believer in 
 Christianity must be desirous of ensuring the 
 administration of its rites, my answer is, that it 
 does not appear, either from holy writ or from 
 experiment, that this object can be best at- 
 tained by giving the priesthood a political 
 establishment. The Catholics of Ireland have 
 reason to know, that the duties of the Christian 
 ministry may be well discharged without one. 
 They have reason to know, and they feel, that 
 without other support than the spontaneous 
 offerings of a grateful people, and with no expec- 
 tations but those which are placed beyond the 
 grave, these duties have been performed with 
 diligence, with zeal, with unexampled self-devo- 
 tion. Exalted as is the calling of a Christian
 
 11 
 
 pastor, it does not so completely lift him above 
 humanity, as to exempt him from the influence 
 of those circumstances which form the character 
 of other men : he enjoys no special privilege 
 to he rich, and to despise wealth ; to be great 
 and to be meek of heart ; to enjoy those things 
 which make the world delightful, without oc- 
 casionally forgetting, or at least regretting, 
 that it is not his home for ever. 
 
 That the public endowment of a religion 
 may be useful in a political point of view, I 
 shall neither deny or assert ; all I contend for 
 is, that the scriptures do not require it, and 
 that it is not necessarily an object of ambition 
 to those who have adopted them as their guide. 
 It suffices for my purpose to shew, that to be- 
 lieve in Christianity, and to desire a political 
 establishment for its ministers, are things so 
 totally distinct, that from the existence of the 
 one you could not, without reference to expe- 
 rience, infer the existence of the other. How 
 far history, which is experience, warrants such 
 an inference, will be the subject of a subse- 
 quent enquiry. 
 
 If, therefore, the Roman Catholics are to be 
 accused of this ambition, by reason of their 
 religion, and if it cannot be attributed to the 
 general doctrines of Christianity which they 
 hold in common with the other members of
 
 the christian family, it must, to justify the 
 accusation, be traced to something peculiar to 
 their faith ; but is there any thing peculiar to 
 their faith to which it can be traced ? Exa- 
 mine it article by article, and nothing of that 
 nature will appear ; but in going through the 
 process of examination, you must take care 
 not to attribute to the Roman Catholics any 
 article that they disclaim : it will not do to say 
 that the Catholic church adopted a particular 
 article some centuries ago, and that as the 
 Catholic believes his church to be immuta- 
 ble, he must believe the articles to this day. — 
 If all the steps in this kind of reasoning were 
 true, it would only prove that the Catholic 
 was guilty of a logical absurdity ; but by no 
 means does it prove that he believes the article 
 disclaimed. To ascertain whether he does not, 
 you have no other means than his own confes- 
 sion ; for it is notorious that men do not al- 
 ways assent to conclusions justly drawn from 
 premises they admit. Human opinions on 
 mixed subjects are not placed in the mind in 
 regular succession like mathematical truths of 
 which the first reposes upon admitted axioms 
 and every other is elaborated from the preced- 
 ing, and is consequently consistent with all 
 the rest ; they are received in isolated masses 
 unconnected with each other, and uncom- 
 pared ; most of them without any proof, and 
 very few pursued to their results. When we
 
 13 
 
 would demonstrate to another person the truth 
 of any opinion, we do nothing else but shew 
 that it is regularly deducible from some other 
 which he admits. And is there a man, to 
 whose experience it has not come home, that 
 deductions of this kind, which seemed to him 
 as clear as the noon day, have failed in con- 
 vincing others ? Every failure of this kind is 
 an irrefragable proof of the injustice of those 
 persons who attribute to a Catholic, opinions 
 which he disclaims, because these opinions seem 
 to them to be convertible into, or follow from 
 the principles that a Catholic acknowledges. 
 
 The truth is, that with the generality of 
 mankind, every species of assent is more matter 
 of habit than of reasoning. " It belongs ra- 
 ther to the sensitive than to the cogitative part 
 of our nature ; " if it be so, we should not 
 wonder that doctrines which clash with hu- 
 man instincts should be repudiated by human 
 beings, although a subtle logician shall deduce 
 them from notions that they actually hold. 
 
 You may object, that to abide by men's own 
 avowal or denial of their opinions exposes us to 
 deception : it unquestionably does, but we have 
 no better mode of ascertaining them. God 
 has not thought proper to give us any other ; 
 he has reserved for his own scrutiny the secret 
 folds and recesses of human thoughts, from
 
 14 
 
 which, if man were humble, he would leani 
 that his jurisdiction does not reach them. 
 
 But it is useless to labour at this point. It 
 is very evident in itself, and it is admitted by 
 those of our opponents who have taken the 
 most pains with our question, by Mr. Peele 
 and Mr. Forster. Mr. Forster indeed violates 
 the principle he admits ; but Mr. Peele fairly 
 abides by it ; he goes further ; he not only 
 gives the Catholics credit for the religious opi- 
 nions which they disavow, but exonerates 
 them from any imputations by reaspn of those 
 which tliey acknowledge ; his words are these : 
 " I will not impute to the Roman Catholic 
 " church any doctrines which are not avowed. 
 " I will give to the professors of that faith the 
 ** full advantage of every disclaimer they have 
 " made. I will suppose the Roman Catholic to 
 " have the same feelings, to be influenced by 
 " the same motives, to act on the same princi- 
 ** pies as other men." He then proceeds to 
 state the evil which he apprehends : — 
 
 " Do you mean to give them that fair pro- 
 " portion of political power to which their 
 " numbers, wealth, talents and education will 
 " entitle them ? If you do, can you believe 
 ** they will remain contented with the share 
 " you assign them ? Do you think, when they 
 "become the body most controlling the go-
 
 15 
 
 " vernment of Ireland, as they must in process 
 " of time become, if they are constituted like 
 " other men, if they are sincere and zealous 
 " members of that religious persuasion which 
 " they profess ; if they believe your intrusive 
 " church has usurped the temporalities which 
 " she possesses, do you think that they will 
 " not aspire to the re-establishment of their 
 " own church in all its ancient splendour ? Is 
 *' it natural that they should ? If I argue 
 " from my own feeUngs, if I place myself in 
 " their situation, I answer that it is not." * 
 
 This, you perceive, is a distinct admission 
 that no designs upon the Established Church 
 can be imputed to the Roman Catholics, by 
 reason of any thing peculiar to their faith. — 
 Whereby the first enquiry must be answered 
 in the negative. 
 
 This brings us to the second enquiry I had 
 proposed, namely, whether it can be collected 
 from what history records of the conduct of 
 sects in general, that the Roman Catholics of 
 Ireland are desirous of " depriving the Estab- 
 " lished Church of their political supremacy, 
 " and of restoring their own to her ancient 
 " splendour." If we argue that any sectarian 
 feeling is an essential attribute of man, because 
 it happens to have prevailed among men at 
 
 * Mr. Peel«'« Speech, 1817, Parliamentary Register.
 
 16 
 
 some former period of the world, we reason 
 very badly. — Such an acknowledged change 
 has taken place in the character of man, in 
 every thing connected with the endowment 
 and propagation of his own religion, and the 
 toleration of that of others, as should preclude 
 every argument of this sort. You might as 
 well say, that such and such are the feelings 
 and opinions of a man, because they belonged 
 to him when a child. On every modification 
 of sectarianism man is as superior to what he 
 was, as manhood is to infancy. It is not de- 
 nied that he has divested himself of a whole 
 mass of erroneous notions and bad feelings, 
 which were once as generally and as strongly 
 felt, as the desire to obtain a political establish- 
 ment for his church, and which were conse- 
 quently as well entitled to be ranked among 
 the unalterable attributes of his nature. That 
 the idolator should die the death, was the uni- 
 versal cry from the Tiber to the Tweed ; from 
 the shores of the Oronoko, where the Chris- 
 tian hunted down the heathen, to the banks 
 of the Mississipi, where he was in his turn an 
 object of chase to another Christian. Is it on 
 that account to be regarded as a fixed principle 
 of human nature that man should put the ido- 
 lator to death ? However Knox, Pole, Cran- 
 mer, Calvin, JNIary, or Elizabeth, may have 
 differed on other points, in this they all con- 
 curred, that it was meritorious to exterminate
 
 17 
 
 by the sword the errors which reasoning could 
 not remove. This was the then fundamental 
 article of every religious belief, the only one 
 perhaps upon which Christians have been una- 
 nimous. Is it therefore to be classed among 
 the immutable dispositions of human nature ? 
 History has been sufficiently ransacked for to- 
 pics of mutual accusation. If searched Avith 
 a better spirit, we might find occasion for a 
 more charitable office, that of mutual congra- 
 tulation on the improvement we have all of us 
 undergone. But upon no subject does it ena- 
 ble us to felicitate ourselves with more heartfelt 
 pride, than on the alteration that has taken 
 place in that ambition for our sect, or zeal, or 
 whatever name is to be given to the false esti- 
 mate of the duty we owe to our religion, 
 which once universally prevailed. Some men, 
 from spleen to the living rather than veneration 
 for the dead, are fond of celebrating the supe- 
 rior wisdom and virtue of our fathers. With- 
 out wishing to depreciate their merit, I cannot 
 but think that we are wiser and better t^ian 
 they were ; in every thing that caa be resolved 
 into fanaticism, I am certain that we are. I 
 am certain that the toleration which is now, 
 (with the exception of England and Spain,) 
 universally established, did not even enter into 
 their imaginations. Robertson, in his History 
 of Charles V. furnishes a singular illustration 
 of this assertion. He tells us that in the year
 
 18 
 
 155.5, the princes of the German empire being 
 exhausted by the })rotracted wars, which had 
 originated in their differences of rehgion, en- 
 tered into a treaty called the Recess of Augs- 
 burgli, winch was to put an end to their dis- 
 sentions. And what do you think they mu- 
 tually conceded ? That no party in that treaty 
 should make war upon another " for his reli- 
 gion ; " and that every individual who did not 
 adopt the worship of the state to which he be- 
 longed, " might transfer him.self and his pro- 
 perty to another;" — that is to say, their fury 
 for the propagation and ascendancy of their 
 doctrines was such, that they could only wring 
 from each other by mutual necessity, that de- 
 gree of toleration which the conqueror in such 
 a contest would now blush to offer to his slave ; 
 • they could only purchase from each other that 
 degree of toleration which now passes for the 
 most atrocious persecution. They stipulated 
 precisely for that kind and degree of toleration 
 which, a century and a half afterwards, was 
 regarded as a most savage persecution, when 
 Lewis the Fourteenth, to his eternal infamy, 
 compelled his Protestant subjects to quit their 
 country or conform to his religion. And it is 
 further to be observed, that this, the utmost 
 toleration which the parties to that treaty could 
 purchase from each other, was limited to the 
 followers of the Confession of Augsburgh and 
 the Roman Catholics : all other sects were left
 
 19 
 
 at the mercy of their rulers, to hang, or burn, 
 or imprison, as might be deemed most profit- 
 able to their souls ! And yet there are persons 
 who grope into those ages for evidence of what 
 it is natural that man should feel towards those 
 who differ from or agree with him in religious 
 worship. Our own history, which is suffi- 
 ciently replete for all the purposes of instruc- 
 tion, with examples of what is to be imitated 
 and avoided, should teach them the injustice 
 of this proceeding. Have they forgotten that 
 it was consistent with the owinions and the 
 
 X. 
 
 feelings of those men, by whose notions of 
 what they owed to their religion it is attempt- 
 ed to judge us, that hundreds should be burned 
 in England for speculative opinions that are 
 now openly maintained ? Have they forgot- 
 ten, that with the general approbation of his 
 party. Archbishop Cranmer put to death a 
 Avoman of the name of Bocher, for an erro- 
 neous exposition of the incarnation, and that 
 he was afterwards burned for his o^vn faith ? 
 Have they forgotten that in the age by which 
 they would judge of us, to differ in our creed 
 by an unit fi-om the number of religious arti- 
 cles by law established, made all the difference 
 between life and death, and that the believer 
 of five mysteries put to the sword, with indis- 
 criminating detestation, the daring infidel who 
 limited his faith to four, and the credidous 
 fool who presumed to believe in six ? Even
 
 '20 
 
 the great iiiaxiuis whicli are considered as the 
 landmarks that guide a statesman in his fo- 
 reign pohtics, yielded to the fiery bigotry of 
 the age. Thus Hume, speaking of the reli- 
 gious wars which ravaged France in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, observes, that although accord- 
 ing to the rules of political prudence in ordi- 
 nary cases, it was her interest to support the 
 j)ower of France against the overwhelming 
 strength of Spain, and the interests of Spain 
 to distress France, yet " so much were the 
 " great maxims of policy over-ruled, during 
 " that age, by the disputes of theology, that 
 " Philip found an advantage in supporting 
 *' the established government and religion of 
 " France, and Elizabeth in protecting faction 
 " and innovation." 
 
 But such things only happened in the first 
 tumult of the Reformation. Let it be so ! that 
 is a sufficient reason for not considering the 
 notions then entertained, and the passions 
 which then raged, as fixed and immutable pro- 
 perties of human nature ; but in point of fact, 
 these thinffs are Hot confined to the first tumults 
 of the Reformation. After the Revolution 
 which placed the present family upon the 
 throne, the principles of active persecution 
 for conscience sake were carried into effect by 
 several statutes. They were put in force 
 against a class of men from whom no danger
 
 21 
 
 to the country could be apprehended, and un- 
 der circumstances which render it manifest, 
 that the good of souls was their only object ; 
 against Jews and Unitarians. In the 7th and 
 8th years of William's reign, the Unitarians 
 were subjected, by act of parliament, to se- 
 vere penalties for impugning the Church of 
 England exposition of the Trinity ; and not- 
 Withstanding that several attempts were made, 
 from time to time, to repeal these acts, they 
 continued in force until the year 1813. The 
 acts respecting the Jews were of the same cha- 
 racter. In the year 1752, an act was passed in 
 their behalf, which was immediately afterwards 
 repealed ; not because it was in opposition to 
 the rules of political economy, but because the 
 Jews were the enemies of Christ* 
 
 ♦Such was the spirit of the past ; and such was 
 
 * The line of argument pursued by the enemies of the 
 Jews is rather curious ; '' they would so multiply in num- 
 " bers, engross such wealth, and acquire such great power 
 '" and influence in Great Britain, that their persons would 
 " be revered, thoir customs imitated^ and Judaism become 
 " the fasltionable religion of the English ;" cited verbatim 
 from Smollet> account of the debate on this matter, in his 
 History of England, vol. iiu' page 348. I cannot but think 
 it very disingenuous of some gentlemen to have made use 
 of this argument against the Catholics, without confessing 
 where they got it. We have only to substitute tke word 
 Catholicity in lieu of Judaism, and Ave have, in this little 
 extract, an epitome of some long speeches.
 
 ti2 
 
 the cluiractcr of our lathers. A few men, 
 whose towering intcUeet was prominent above 
 the level of tlieir time, may have caught a few- 
 rays of the light, which was then approaching 
 the horizon, but which now shines upon us all, 
 though it has not yet climbed to the meridian. 
 Where are those principles now found, which 
 then so universally prevailed ? A few miserable 
 men here and there, may cherish them in secret, 
 but they no longer sway the destinies of thew^oild 
 — they are extinct in the councils of the rulers 
 of mankind, whether they are called emperors, 
 kings, parliaments, or congresses. They are no 
 longer the springs of great movements among 
 nations, or tlie objects of revolutions. South 
 America has proclaimed the most unlimited to- 
 leration. North America has long enjoyed it. 
 In all those countries, as well as modern France, 
 it was the offspring of the spirit of the age, not 
 of the accidental character of individuals. One 
 of the first acts of the French National As- 
 sembly, while yet it consisted of honest men, 
 and had honest purposes in view, was to abo- 
 lish every kind of religious disability. Jn 
 Eno-land all active persecution has long ceased. 
 Johanna Southcote published her ravings with- 
 out experiencing the fate of her predecessor 
 and namesake Johanna Eocher. In India we 
 suffer the Eramin to celebrate his rites unmo- 
 lested, and ^^•e concern ourselves very little 
 with wlud may bcfal his disciples in another
 
 23 
 
 world, if they comport tliemselve:^ as good 
 subjects in the present. Autos de Fe no 
 longer glare in Portugal and Spain. If the 
 degraded man who wields the sceptre in that 
 kingdom, still opposes the spirit of his age, 
 let it be recorded for the honor of tlie 
 country which groans under his tyranny, that 
 he acts against its opinion, as collected and 
 expressed in its national assemblies. Tlie 
 House of Orange rules with equal law over 
 Catholic and Protestant, and would find no 
 difficulty in incorporating with their Protes- 
 tant dominions another Catholic province, if 
 they had it. Even in Ireland the scene of the 
 severest and most protracted persecution with 
 which God ever permitted his creatures to be 
 visited, the spirit of fanaticism has at last grown 
 weary. The lower departments of the law, 
 the magistracy, the navy, the army, are open 
 to the talents and enterprise of the Catholic ; 
 and although his situation is still very remote 
 from the condition which awaits him, and 
 which it is reasonable he should attain, yet 
 compared with his former state of ignominy 
 and proscription, it is the most liberal toleration. 
 
 As far, then, as the apprehension that the 
 Roman Catholics will endeavour to subvert 
 the temporal establishments of the church in 
 favour of their sect is justified upon the evi- 
 dence of history, the question will stand thus :
 
 24 
 
 wc find that a tribe of opinions and feelings 
 concerning the pre-eminence of our own form 
 of worship, and the toleration of other sects, 
 have prevailed for many ages, in every coun- 
 try, among all religions ; but we also find 
 that they are now universally abandoned and 
 detested. The disposition imputed to the Ro- 
 man Catholics is a modification of those prin- 
 ciples that have thus confessedly been relin- 
 quished. It relates to the same object, and 
 where it exists it has naturally the same pur- 
 poses in view. I do not say it is always as 
 culpable or as pernicious as the confessedly ex- 
 ploded principles we speak of, though in the 
 case of the Roman Catholics of this country, 
 but it differs from them rather in degree than 
 in kind. Is it not then unreasonable to say 
 that the Roman Catholics must wish to have 
 tithes and titles for their pastors, because these 
 things were desired by men from whom they 
 are confessedly so dissimilar? If partial glimpses 
 of history were sufficient to enable us to judge 
 of what is natural to man, we might as rea- 
 sonably contend that Protestants and Catholics 
 shall always thirst for each other's blood, as 
 that they shall always desire to connect their 
 reliffion with the state : for viewed in detach- 
 
 o 
 
 ed portions, and uncorrected by modern ex- 
 perience, history would certainly prove both ; 
 but taking it as it should be, on the large 
 scale, which alone renders it instructive, it
 
 25 
 
 proves neither. The ujtmost which it esta- 
 bhghes is this, that all those malignant dispo- 
 sitions are accidental, but not essential pro- 
 perties of man ; that they are subject to in- 
 crease and diminution, according to circum- 
 stances — but that for many ages they have been 
 on the wane, and are now sinking into obscu- 
 rity : let us hope, for ever. 
 
 The truth is, that the arguments against the 
 Catholics and dissenters from the Established 
 Church which are founded upon history, rest up- 
 on an assumption which is falsified by history it- 
 self. They assume an immutability in the dispo- 
 sitions and passions of men, which history proves 
 to have no existence. It is proper to brutes to 
 transmit their instincts unchanged to successive 
 generations, but man is by his nature a progres- 
 sive creature, whose views enlarge, and whose 
 feelings are improved with the accumulation of 
 his knowledge ; his mind opens with his condi- 
 tion ; hit character, sympathies, and habits, ex- 
 perience the vissitudes of his fortune : like the 
 elementary particles of matter, which are sup- 
 posed by philosophers to be unaltered in the va- 
 rious combinations to which they can be mould- 
 ed by art or accident, the primary principles of 
 human action, our self-love, or pride, or what- 
 ever name is to be given to the original pas- 
 sions of our nature, may remain the same at 
 all times and under all circumstances : but the
 
 26 
 
 objects to whieli we are impelled by these pas- 
 sions, tlie things wliich we are to minister to 
 our self-love and pride, vary with every age. 
 It will always be the character of man to reach 
 at what he considers to be his interest, to aim 
 at the esteem or applause of his fellow crea- 
 tures, to be susceptible of great enthusiasm, 
 and to identify himself with great combinations 
 of the human race : but it is contrary to all 
 experience to suppose, that he shall always 
 form the same estimate of his interest, that 
 his enthusiasm shall always kindle for the same 
 causes, or that the combinations of his fellow- 
 men, with which he will confound his fortunes, 
 and to which he will transfer his sympathies, 
 for which he will bear to live and dare to die, 
 shall be always put and held together by the 
 same principles. Similarity of colour, of de- 
 scent, of language, of political feeling, of 
 religion, and of country, have each in their 
 turn been the connecting principle of these 
 combinations among men. A mulatto or a 
 white, a Greek or a barbarian, a Guelph or a 
 Ghibiline, a Papist or a heretic, a royalist or 
 democrat, have each at some time and place 
 been the distinguishing appellatives among 
 men, and the human race has been ranged upon 
 the principles which these terms denoted, into 
 associations offensive and defensive, to which 
 whatever existed of public sentiment for the 
 time was directed; accordingly, we find that less
 
 27 
 
 than a century ago the same statutes of the 
 Eiiglisli and Irish parliaments which deprived 
 natural born Roman Catholics of the privileges 
 of British subjects, conferred them upon alien 
 Protestants. At present 1 believe it would 
 be no recommendation to a foreigner, in pass- 
 ing the Alien Office, that he should be known to 
 have ever exercised the Lutheran right of judg- 
 ing for himself upon any subject whatsoever. 
 But of all the principles upon which men have 
 ever been formed into these confederations, 
 identity of country is the best, and identity 
 of religion is tlie worst ; for exclusive love of 
 our country only limits the sphere of our af- 
 fectionsj but does not change their nature : 
 within the boundaries by which it circumscribes 
 our sympathies, there is abundant scope for 
 all the charities of the human heart. But 
 classification according to religion not only 
 contracts the range of our good will, but sours 
 and corrodes its very essence ; it not merely 
 cuts the web of human society into distinct 
 pieces, but it shoots through its entire length 
 and in every direction, and defaces the tex- 
 ture of each part. Class the human race as 
 you please, some animosities and displea- 
 sures will grow from their division ; but the 
 national dislikes which spring from division 
 by country, are frecpiently akin to noble sen- 
 timent, and are meek and gentle in comparison 
 with those dark and sullen hatreds which are
 
 28 
 
 generated from divisions by religion ; for the 
 individuals whom diversity of country disso- 
 ciates in interest and in feeling, are for the 
 most part separated by space, and can only 
 contemplate each other in the abstract — where- 
 as, when the division is effected upon the prin- 
 ciple of religion, the dissociated individuals 
 meet and encounter in daily life. They hate 
 each other, not with the imbecility of public 
 sentiment, but with the force and individual- 
 ity of personal aversion. But although classi- 
 fication by country is unquestionably the sim- 
 plest, the best, and most permanent of all di- 
 visions wliich can be made of the human race ; 
 yet classification, even by country, is not an 
 immutable arrangement of our species — like all 
 other classes of mankind, nations change, not 
 only in extent of territory, but also, which is 
 decisive on the present question, in the extent 
 of the sacrifices they are able to exact from 
 the individuals who compose tliem ; there is 
 scarcely a state of Europe that does not consist 
 of parts which were once unconnected with, 
 and only knew each other for the purpose of 
 rivalry and detestation : and there is scarcely 
 an ajre of the world in which men have not 
 changed in their opinions of the duty they 
 owed their country. At one period, devotion 
 to our country is considered superior, and at 
 the next inferior to every other moral obliga- 
 tion ; at one time the natural affections which
 
 29 
 
 spring from blood and kindred are stud iou sly- 
 extinguished, that nothing may interfere with 
 our attachment to our country ; at anothei", 
 the duties imposed by the private relations are 
 alone valued, and all pretentions to others 
 mocked at as hypocrisy or folly. When all 
 other human combinations, not excepting tlie 
 firmest, are thus changing, and when the pas- 
 sions they excite are all susceptible of these 
 vicissitudes, why should we suppose, that 
 leagues founded upon identity of religion 
 should alone be permanent, or expect that the 
 notions of what it is our duty to do for them, 
 sliould continue for ever without change ? I 
 confess, I see no better reason why men should 
 be prevented from amalgating together, and 
 coalescing for the great purposes of life, by 
 differences in religion, than by the other dif- 
 ferences whose power to dissociate has long- 
 ceased ; and when I compare the scanty means 
 with which human genius had heretofore to 
 work for the union of mankind, with the 
 mighty instriunents, physical and moral, adap- 
 ted to this end, which it has of late acquired ; 
 when I reflect upon the causes of the separa- 
 tions and divisions in the human race which 
 have already been overcome by the good feel- 
 ing and intellect of man, and consider how 
 much more seemingly insuperable these causes 
 were than those which remain to be subdued ; 
 when I pass in thought over the difficulties of
 
 30 
 
 intercourse, -svliicli the arts liiivc vanquished, 
 the multitude of languages that have perished, 
 and the substitution in their place of two or 
 three almost universal tongues ; when 1 re- 
 member the local prejudices and the diversity 
 of creeds and customs which time and nuitual 
 interest have rendered inefficacious for the pur- 
 poses of alienation, I cannot but see, that there 
 is something better than mere benevolence in 
 the philosophy which teaches, that the causes 
 of division shall continue to diminish as they 
 have done heretofore, and the circle of the hu- 
 maii affections shall continue to enlarge until 
 it embraces in its wide expanse every former 
 class of the human race. 
 
 But you may say that to suppose such in- 
 constancy in the disposition of our species 
 would take from history a great portion of her 
 utility and dignity. To what purpose, you 
 will perhaps ask, do we resort to the record of 
 the past, to learn how man should be governed 
 now or hereafter, if he be so variable, so un- 
 like himself, at different times and under dif- 
 ferent circumstances ? The answer is very ob- 
 vious. We resort to history to learn how the 
 variations in the human passions and affections 
 are produced. We read it that we may disco- 
 ver the causes and the course of discipline by 
 which the human mind is formed to good or 
 evil. But of all tlie great lessons whicli it
 
 31 
 
 teaches upon this point, that whicli it behoves 
 lis most to know, that which is exemplified by 
 the most terrible experience is, that whatever 
 is formidable in religious zeal can only be sub- 
 dued by lenity and neglect. That persecution 
 of every kind, whether it coerce the body or 
 the mind, whether it assume the form of a 
 gibbet or a disqualifying law, begets fanati- 
 cism exactly in proportion to its severity. That 
 if you diminish the persecution, the fanaticism 
 which it caused diminishes in the same propor- 
 tion ; and that if you put an end to the perse- 
 cution perfectly and entirely, the fanaticism 
 ceases as completely and as entirely. If we are 
 sincere in our desire to learn from history, it 
 teaches (to use words of Montesquieu) " that 
 " to overthrow any religion, we must assail it 
 " by the good things of the world, and by the 
 " hopes of fortune ; not by that which makes 
 ** men remember, but by that which causes 
 " them to forget it ; not by that which out- 
 " ragesmankind, but by every thing that soothes 
 " them, and facilitates the other passions of 
 " humanity in obtaining predominence over 
 " religion." Penal laws, says that great man, 
 have got their terrors ; but religion has her ter- 
 rors also, and men have pride. Between the 
 fears of religion and the dread of shame, the 
 human mind becomes capable of every thing. 
 " Les ames deviennejit atroces."
 
 This is the real lesson of experience : itteaches 
 to suffer religious zeal to waste itself away 
 by its natural ebullition — to permit it to spend 
 itself in the empty air freely and without 
 cheek : it is thi^s feeble and innocuous ; the 
 more intense its heat the sooner it is consumed : 
 but if you ventm-e to confine it, to restrain it 
 from the expansion for which it strives, you 
 render, by the reaction of your effort to com- 
 press the most formidable agent in the moral 
 world . 
 
 But it may be said, that it is npt upon the 
 authority of history alone that those hostile 
 dispositions arc imputed to the Catholics ; -i^- 
 those who make the imputation allege, that 
 every man must be conscious to himself, that in 
 their condition he would feel them : they desire 
 every one who doubts the truth of this asser- 
 tion, to make the experiment upon himself — 
 to imagine himself in their condition, and 
 examiiie his own heart whether it be not inevi- 
 table, that he shovdd endeavour to restore his 
 church to her former splendour. This brings 
 us to the third enquiry I had proposed. 
 
 The Catholics do not object to this mode 
 of ascertaining their future dispositions. To 
 ascertain how men will act and feel in a 
 given condition, by making it our own, is, 
 in general, no bad fornuda in calculations on
 
 3S 
 
 human nature ; but it requires to be used with 
 caution, for the slightest error in its application 
 will be enormously multiplied in the result; to 
 use it with advantacce, we must take care that 
 we place ourselves in the exact condition of 
 which we seek to find the influence on our 
 feelings and opinions, and not in any other. If 
 out of the many and counteracting circum- 
 stances of which every condition is composed, 
 we only contemplate a few, and those few of 
 the same tendency, it is clear, that in effect we 
 contemplate a situation different from the one 
 which was proposed to be examined ; and of 
 which, consequently, the influence on our dis- 
 positions must be different. A particular mode 
 of feeling may appear naturally and inseparably 
 connected with the one, which would be quite 
 mmatural in the other. If the condition of the 
 Catholics was that of a people forming a new 
 country, of which they were the majority, and 
 which had to select a State relioion for the first 
 time, without any motive to guide their pre- 
 ference but the partiality which men feel for 
 their own opinions, they would, unquestionably, 
 choose tiieir own; but this would not be the 
 condition of the Catholics— notliino- could be 
 more unlike it : the Catholics would find them- 
 selves in the midst of a mighty empire, whose 
 institutions were already formed and consoli- 
 dated by long standing, and tliey would con- 
 stitute but a small portion of that cm])ire ; they
 
 34 
 
 would find the* political establishment pre- 
 occupied by another church, which was secured 
 in the enjoyment of it by every thing that gives 
 strength and permanence to national institu- 
 tions : they would find her fortified by the 
 number, talent, and activity of those who were 
 more immediately in her service, by her pow- 
 erful alliances with every order of the state, 
 by the reasonable presumption of better right, 
 which long possession carries with it ; by the 
 religious veneration of which she was the object, 
 and by the general attachment to civil liberty, 
 with which her security is supposed to be 
 entwined, which she immediately preceded, 
 if she did not cause; with which she was 
 assailed, and with which she triumphed. They 
 would find her in strict alliance, offensive and 
 defensive, with the throne — presenting an 
 immeasurable range of patronage to the mo- 
 narch — ever ready to support those interests 
 which he especially represents, and receiving, 
 in return, the well-eai'ned meed of the most 
 strenuous protection. They would find her 
 in strict alliance with the whole order of the 
 nobles — raising the younger branches of their 
 houses into equality with their parent stem — 
 reviving the decayed s])lendour of ancient 
 families, or elevating to the jTatrician rank, by 
 the nnmificcncc of her rewards and her dimii- 
 
 o 
 
 ties, the piou^, the learned, and the fortunate. 
 Tliey would find, that she controlled no con-
 
 35 
 
 temptible part of the third legislative estate, 
 and that her prelates were an essential portion 
 of the second : they would find her subordinate 
 employments ready filled by thousands from 
 every order of the state, all men of education, 
 and, for the most part, of those habits which 
 give the possessors influence in society : they 
 would perceive as many thousands more waiting 
 and qualifying themselves with great labour 
 and expense, to be their successors. In a word, 
 they would scarcely find a respectable family 
 in the country of which a member does not 
 enjoy, Ih possession or expectation, some portion 
 of her princely revenues and titles. To all the 
 persons influenced by such direct and powerful 
 motives to uphold the church, there must be 
 added, to form a just estimate of her strength, 
 great portion of the empire who were educated 
 in her doctrines ; mostly under the immediate 
 direction of her ministry, and many of the most 
 efficient for attack, or for defence, at the vene- 
 rable seats of learning where she presides. 
 The Catholics would find all these men of all 
 these orders and conditions combined, and justly 
 combined against them, for the defence of the 
 Protestant Church establishment. Would they, 
 the Catholics, combine for the attack ? Could 
 they hope for, could they be so mad as to expect 
 success ? Could they ex})ect it without inter- 
 minable bloodshed and a civil war, which could 
 be no other than of externiiuation ? C*ould 
 
 ,■ 9
 
 3G 
 
 they think to triumph in that civil war ? 
 AVoiild they risk what tlicy enjoyed upon so 
 desperate an adventure ? 'J'ime must roll back 
 to the ages of the crusades, before men shall be 
 guilty of such frenzy. Let any honest Pro- 
 testant, then, place himself in the condition of 
 the Roman Catiiolics — let him consider the 
 impossibility of success — the signal and merited 
 vengeance that awaits failure — the ferocious 
 strife that must at any rate ensue, be the tri- 
 umph whose it may- — the expenditure of human 
 blood and happiness that must take place : let 
 hira consider that he had sworn to maintain the 
 church he was assailing, and that it was through 
 the liberality and generous confidence of her 
 followers that he found himself in a situation 
 to do injury. Let any Protestant put himself 
 fairly in this the true condition of the Catholic, 
 under these multitudinous motives to remain 
 quiet ; impelled by the single motive, religi- 
 ous zeal, to disturb the public peace, and ^ve 
 sliall abide by his report of what is natural to 
 that condition, I do not believe that there is 
 a man in the country but INIr. Peele, (and T 
 would not believe it of him but that he has 
 declared it) who, in such a condition, would 
 think of " restoring his church to her ancient 
 splendour." * 
 
 * Vide extract of Mr. Peele's Speech in 1817, ante.
 
 37 
 
 The errors into wliich we fall respecting the 
 operation and power of religious zeal, are much 
 aggravated by this : — ^ve form to ourselves some 
 notions of the force of that principle estimated 
 by itself, and we calculate its effects upon hu- 
 man conduct, without taking into considera- 
 tion the counteracting and modifying powers 
 under the joint impulse of which man acts. We 
 measure a single force in the moral system, and 
 we argue that man must move in its direction, 
 and with its momentum, without regarding 
 that his track is the combined result of many 
 powers, which counteract and impel him many 
 ways. Even if it were proved, that religious 
 zeal, as far as it had influence, would urge 
 the Catholic in Parliament to obtain a political 
 establishment for his church, it would not 
 in reason follow that he should be excluded, 
 if, according to the ordinary rules of human 
 conduct, he would resist the impulse ; and 
 most assuredly he would resist an impulse 
 which is in opposition to all the other pro])er- 
 ties and passions of human nature — whicli is 
 incompatible with common honesty, the love of 
 ease, the desire of happiness and of safety, and 
 with the slightest regard for the welfare of our 
 country. 
 
 It is a doctrine destructive of all confidence 
 in public affairs which would teach us that a 
 man, who belongs to an order in wliieh he ha^
 
 38 
 
 the slightest interest distinct from his fellow- 
 citizens, is never to be trusted with their con- 
 cerns. Tliere is not a man in the community 
 so circumstanced. If his share in tlie universal 
 weal prevail over his partial mterest, the State 
 is sufficiently secm-ed, though he were dishon- 
 est ; but it is monstrous to presume that every 
 man is a fanatic or a rascal.* 
 
 The proof tliat this principle of religious 
 fanaticism, or whatever it is to be called, is not 
 an essential part of the human character ; or if 
 it be, that it is over-ruled in the ordinary con- 
 dition of society by the ordinary motives of 
 human nature, does not rest upon theory alone. 
 It is demonstrated by the history of England and 
 of Ireland. From the time of the Revolution to 
 the present day, not one well attested, unequi- 
 vocal instance of an attempt having been made 
 on the Establislied Church, either in or out of 
 Parliament, under the injlue7ice of religious 
 %eal, is to be found : and yet such was the 
 constitution of tlie Parliaments of England and 
 Ireland during that period, that this principle, 
 which ui'ges us to obtain an ascendancy for our 
 
 * There j.re tew men who ai'c not desirous of enriching 
 themselves and their fiunilies ; but still we don't find that' 
 men steal and rob wherever they can — and wliy ? because 
 they are prevented by conscience, by the fear ofpunislunent, 
 and liy th<' Icrrors of di=;cTacc.
 
 39 
 
 church, must have been called into activity 
 among the dissenters, if it existed, or if it were 
 not suj)pressed by other and better feelings ; 
 for those Parliaments were composed of Pro- 
 testants who hated the kirk, and of Presbyte- 
 rians who hated the church with as much 
 Christian detestation as the Catholics ever felt 
 for either. If any man question the assertion, 
 let him look to the history of the last century; 
 let him look into the repeated and ineffectual 
 efforts that have been made in England to 
 repeal the test act ; let him read the debates 
 which took place upon these occasions, and let 
 him remember the outrages which they occa- 
 sioned in various parts of England ; let him 
 read any of the political pamphlets of the first 
 half of the last century, especially of the Tories, 
 and of Swift especially among the Tories : but 
 in despite of the animosity which these things 
 testify to have existed between the dissenters 
 and the Church of England, the Presbyterians 
 of England and Ireland were admitted into a 
 full participation of the power of the State 
 with the Protestants of the Establislied Church. 
 In Ireland, by a permanent legislative provi- 
 sion ; in England, by temporary expedients, 
 which conferred all the power which the 
 greatest confidence could have given, and 
 which, perpetuating the hatred wliich confi- 
 dence would have soothed, did every thing 
 that was possible to render power dangerous;
 
 40 
 
 but, in spite of these fears, and of this 
 hatred, the Presbyterians of Scotland have 
 shared the legislation of England since the 
 union. The realm of Scotland, with her kirk, 
 has been subjected to a Parliament in England, 
 of which the majority Mas Protestant. How 
 came it to pass, if it be a necessary principle 
 of human nature, that we should endeavour 
 to establish our respective churches wherever 
 we can, that the Protestants of the Church 
 of England did not endeayour to establish 
 the Episcopal Church in Scotland, and that 
 the Presbyterians of England and of Scotland 
 did not endeavour to abolish episcopacy in 
 England ? How came it to pass, that the 
 Presbyterians of Ireland, who were as numer- 
 ous as the Protestants of the Established 
 Church, did not endeavour to establish the 
 government of elders in this country?* If it 
 
 * Dean Swift wrote several tracts to prove that if the 
 sacramental test acts were repealed in Ireland, the Dissenters 
 would destroy tiie national church. His arguments are 
 almost word for word tlie same as those used by Mr. Forster 
 and Mr. Peele against tlie Catholics; but notwithstanding 
 the cogency of his reasoning, the test acts 7vcrc repealed, 
 and hi point of'J'acI, the Dissenters 7nade no atlempl upon the 
 Established Clnn-ch. 1 cannot refrain from transcribing a 
 few of the observations which, after being falsified by expe^ 
 rience, as applied to the Presbyterians, are now made to 
 bear upon tlie Uoriian Catholics: — " If we miglit," says 
 Swii\, " be allowed to jutlg(^ for ourselves^ we liad abun-
 
 41 
 
 be a principle of human nature that men must 
 endeavour to establish their own church in every 
 country, how does it happen that the Protestant 
 Parliament, Protestant King, and Protestant 
 
 " dance of benefit by the sacramental test, and foresee a 
 " number of mischiefs would be the consequence of repeal- 
 " ing it. But, if you please, I will tell you the great 
 " objection we have against the repeal of the sacramental 
 " test, it is — that we are verily persuaded the consequence 
 " will be, an entire change of religion amo?ig us in 7io great 
 " compass of years. And pray observe how we reason in 
 " Ireland upon this matter," &c. : and then he alleges, that 
 the Presbyterians of the north were superceding the Pro 
 testants, precisely in the way which Mr. Forster states the 
 Catholics are now overrunning them. He speaks of their 
 mutual adhereKcc, and their perpetual efforts to squeeze out 
 any detached Protestant, who has the misfortune to find 
 himself among them. In another part of the same letter : 
 " If the consequence of repealing this clause (the sacramen- 
 " tal test) should, at some time or other, enable the Presby- 
 " terians to work thcmsehcs up into the national church, instead 
 " of making Protestants unite, it would sow eternal divisions 
 "among them, &c. — Neither is it difficult to conjecture, 
 "from Sbme late proceedings, at what rate these fanatics 
 *' (meaning the Presbyterians) are likely to drive Avhenever 
 " they get the whip and seat. Thci/ have alreadi/ set up 
 " courts of judicature in open contempt of the laws. — They 
 *' send missionaries every where, in order to make converts, 
 " &c. — And what practices such principles as these (niih 
 " many others that might be invidious to mention) may spawn 
 " when laid out in the sun, you may determine at leisure." 
 A letter concei-ning the sacramental test, it is unnecessary 
 to point out the parallel passages in the modorn speeches. 
 These were the error:? of .Swift ; but lie has an excuse for his
 
 42 
 
 Ministers of Enpjland, do not at once abolish 
 the Catholic cstublishment of Canada ? Will 
 it be said, that the act of union with Scotland, 
 the acts of settlement in England and in Ireland, 
 and the treaty by which Canada was ceded to 
 us, have guarded against these things ? This 
 is precisely what I contend for : that this 
 dreaded zeal for the establishment of our reli- 
 gion, may be kept down by other means than 
 power ; that it may be, and has been, and is, 
 corrected by better feelings, more potent in 
 their influence, and more congenial to huma- 
 nity ; that it is effectually subdued by common 
 honesty, by the faith of treaties without sanc- 
 tion, and contracts with imaginary existences ; 
 and would there be wanting to the Catholic 
 motives equally powerful to bind him to his 
 duty ? Is he alone proof against the force of 
 pubhc opinion, deaf to the calls of gratitude, 
 and insensible to the reproach of broken faith ? 
 Would not the acts of union, of Scotland with 
 JEIno-land, and of Ireland with both — would not 
 the acts of settlement in these kingdoms be as 
 binding upon the Catholic as they have been 
 
 errors wliich those wlio now use his arguments, refuted as 
 tlie^' have been by timC;, cannot plead, ^vant of experience 
 cfmcertiiiig the eject <yf toleration. PoUtics is ci science of 
 experiment ; and Swift could not be blamed for being igno- 
 rant of what has only been found by experiment subsequent 
 to his time.
 
 43 
 
 found to be upon the other dissenters of the 
 nation, corroborated as these acts would be with 
 respect to the Roman Catholic, by the power 
 in the offended party to punish and retaliate, 
 by the certainty of failure in any attempt to 
 violate them, and by the terror of the inevitable ^^ 
 vengeance that must attend it? And the 
 truth of these principles is established in other 
 histories as well as ours. How many genera- 
 tions of Mahometan sovereigns have reigned 
 over Hindostan without interfering with its 
 religions. In Saxony the court is Catholic, and 
 almost absolute, and the religion of the country 
 is Lutheran. Does the king of Saxony endea- 
 vour to establish popery in its place? I 
 venture .to say that he is indifferent to the 
 matter, and that he would be better pleased to 
 recover his lost dominions from his cousin of 
 Prussia, than to restore the CathoUc religion in 
 his country "to all her former splendour." 
 And to what are we to attribute this absence 
 of ambition for their religion in the sovereigns 
 of India and Europe ? To the same feelings 
 which extinguish it in the Roman Catholics of 
 this country ; to common prudence — to a salu- 
 tary foresight of the evils to which it must 
 conduct them, and above all, to that wise indif- 
 ference which we soon learn to feci for any 
 object which clashes with our interests. For 
 it is not to be overlooked, that these common 
 motives of luunan life not only prevent the
 
 44 
 
 action of religious zeal, but extinguish it alto- 
 gether. Man so loathes the consciousness of 
 having neglected to perform his duty, that 
 Avhatever course of action his interests or neces- 
 sities have induced him to pursue for a length 
 of time, is ultimately regarded by him, lu^less 
 it be directly contrary to some great principle 
 of morality, as that which it is most fit and 
 lionourable to follow. He feels it so pleasant 
 to reflect that he has acted as he shoidd, and so 
 painful to think the contrary, that his con- 
 science makes prodigious efforts to approve of 
 whatever he has done ; and if his conduct be at 
 all capable of a favourable construction, it is 
 sure to receive it at the easy and good-natured 
 tribunal which tries it. 
 
 These are the principles and the conduct 
 that are natural to man, and not that destruc- 
 tive disposition which would tear asunder the 
 human race into as many hostile factions as 
 there are differences of opinion : it is natural 
 to man to love his country and his fellow-crea- 
 tures, to feel and to discharge the duties of 
 the multitudinous relations, natural and con- 
 stituted, in which he stands — to bear himself 
 with propriety as a brother, a son, a father, a 
 citizen, a magistrate, a member of a particu- 
 lar profession or class in the community to 
 which he belongs, as well as in his characte*' of 
 a follower of a particular sect. JMan has been
 
 45 
 
 so wonderfully adapted to his condition (wlial 
 is there in the universe which is not adapted 
 to its purpose ?) that the duties which spring 
 from that condition usually fortify each other ; 
 if ever they happen to clash, the stronger van- 
 quishes the feebler, or assuages it to good. If 
 his duty to his favoured sect urge hiui to an 
 enterprise dangerous to his country and hiai- 
 self, his attachment to that country, his af- 
 fection for his children, his anxiety for their 
 welfare, and all the other feelings incidental 
 to the different relations of social man, start 
 up to keep him quiet ; " they are hostages " 
 which nature has taken from hiui, to answer 
 for his peaceable demeanour. If beings can 
 be imagined without other feelings than rcli- 
 p-ious zeal, divested of all the other attributes 
 
 o 
 
 of men, we might expect the worst results 
 from their differing in religion. We might 
 pronounce that such a difference must for ever 
 keep them in estrangement from each other : 
 but such beings are mere creatures of the ima- 
 gination, that are not and have not been ; it 
 is only in highly distempered and transitory 
 conditions of society, that any thing at all 
 like them has been known. A mathematician 
 shall draw imaginary lines which approach, and 
 yet produced ad infinitum, shall never touch ; 
 but for this purpose he must deprive tliem of 
 all the quahties of really existing lines ; their 
 br©iidth, their thickness, their solidity must be
 
 46 
 
 rejected, or his theorem will be false ; but you 
 cannot strip man of his properties in this way : 
 it would be a very useless system of ethics 
 that rested upon postulates, which required 
 that you should consider man as he is not ; 
 the object of that science is man as he exists, 
 with all the qualities and attributes of real 
 life about him, with his virtues as well as his 
 crimes ; with all the dispositions that keep him 
 aloof from his fellow-creatures, but also with 
 those wants, interests, and habitudes by which 
 he is drawn into contact and cohesion with 
 them. 
 
 If we contemplate man upon these princi- 
 ples, we shall find him naturally averse from 
 revolutions, and from all great changes that 
 compromise his peace ; he has so much to lose 
 in a public commotion, so long to suffer, ge- 
 neral utility presents itself so indistinctly to 
 his eye, his individual interests are seen with 
 such clearness and precision, the confusion and 
 horror of civil strife are so appalling, that no 
 revolution has ever occurred to which men 
 were not driven by the most intolerable op- 
 pression ; wrongs accumulated until human 
 nature can no longer bear them, or the most des- 
 perate fanaticism, engendered by the bloodiest 
 persecutions are barely sufficient to produce 
 that phrenzy, that wrecklessness of conse- 
 quences, and enthusiasm of self-devotion.
 
 47 
 
 wliich must have strung our hearts to despe- 
 ration before we can think of effecting a great 
 national revohition. Let the calumniators of 
 mankind and their oppressors say what they 
 will, chains and bolts are not required to coerce 
 us into quiet ; let them tortvn-e histor}'- as they 
 please, they will find no instances of great 
 commotions in a state without the most irre- 
 sistible exasperation : civil wars may have been 
 waged by contending nobles, who led their 
 feudal vassals into the field, as contending 
 princes lead their armies : exiled princes have 
 endeavoured to regain the thrones they for- 
 feited, and some of their former subjects have 
 assisted them from hope, from gratitude, from 
 a sense of duty ; but a movement properly 
 called national, has never taken place without a 
 provocation commensurate with tlie magnitude 
 of the evil : without the grossest provocation, 
 no commotion has been witnessed like that of 
 the Jacqueries in England and in France ; the 
 revolution of 1688, the French revolution, the 
 American, the countless rebellions which form 
 the tissue of Irish story, or the more desperate 
 strife which an attem^^t on the part of the 
 Koman Catholics, to establish their religion, 
 must excite. 
 
 I have now enquired into three of the four 
 grounds upon which it seems to me possible 
 that the sole pretence of disfranchising the
 
 48 
 
 Catholics could be .supported. I now proceed 
 to the fourth enquiry I had proposed, namelj'', 
 "whether any tiling to justify it could be found 
 in the character which the lloman Catholics 
 have exhibited in the pursuit of their claims ? 
 
 It has frequently been said, that the insatia- 
 bility with which they have pressed from the ac- 
 quisition of one political privilege to the demand 
 of another, furnishes reason to apprehend that 
 when they have obtained their present object 
 they will look for something else. " Their 
 " demands, it is observed, have been uniform- 
 " ly progressive ; every concession has been 
 " made the occasion of a new claim ; first, 
 " they obtained the right of taking lands on 
 *' lease, and afterwards in fee ; then the elec- 
 " tive franchise, and the practice of the law; 
 " they now demand accession to the Bench, 
 " and Parliament : Yield to their demands, 
 " and (following the course they have hitherto 
 " pursued) they will require your Bishoprics 
 " and Church livings." 
 
 The least reflection will shew the unsound- 
 ness of this reasoning. The objects which the 
 Catholics have hitherto sought, and are now 
 overtly seeking, are essentially distinct in their 
 nature from the object which it is apprehend- 
 ed they tvill aim at when they have attained 
 their present ends. But all the privileges
 
 49 
 
 which they have hitherto successively olitaiiied, 
 and are no2V openly seeking for, are of one 
 nature and description, and belong to a single 
 class ; and are all so intimately connected with 
 each other, that the enjoyment of one begets 
 a desire for the others. The poAver to purchase 
 property and to transmit it to our successors, 
 to hold honourable and lucrative employments, 
 to push our fortunes in the army, and exercise 
 our talents at the bar, to possess the rights 
 of free citizens at elections, to sit in j)arlia- 
 ment when our property or our talents qualify 
 us for that honour, are privileges so obviously 
 of the same nature, that if you indulge a man 
 with one he immediately seeks another. Let 
 sophists distinguish between them as they 
 please, alleging* that the enjoyment of some 
 of these privileges is toleration, and of others 
 the possession of political power, they are all 
 of a common nature ; they have all a common 
 origin, and are directed to a common object, 
 the necessities and happiness of man : they are 
 without distinction, the artificial creatures of 
 society, from the seat in the legislature to the 
 right of holding property : they are all parcels 
 of the advantages w^hich a citizen of England 
 receives for the several immunities which 
 jurists say he would have possessed in what 
 they call a state of nature. From these ad- 
 vantages a multitude of citizens arc excluded 
 by reason of their religion : it is natural tliey
 
 50 
 
 should endeavour to recover them all, and 
 having obtained one, it is to be expected that 
 after a little time they shonld demand another ; 
 and accordingly they have done so. But it 
 does not follow that the man who has done 
 this nmst necessarily entertain any wish for the 
 aggrandisement of his form of worship; he 
 betrays his love of political power if you 
 please, but nothing like a desire to have a 
 national endowment for liis church. He may 
 be impatiently desirous of obtaining the poli- 
 tical privileges he has been deprived of, and 
 at the same time be perfectly indifferent to the 
 temporal or spiritual condition of his religion. 
 The desire of political privileges for ourselves, 
 and of sectarian aggrandisement for our 
 churches, are totally distinct passions, and the 
 existence of one does not imply the existence 
 of the other. They may co-exist in the same 
 person, or they may not : most frequently 
 they do not. This objection against the Ca- 
 tholics is founded upon an error in point of 
 fact. It supposes that it is for the advance- 
 ment of their religion that the Catholics are 
 seeking for the pivileges of citizens ; but that 
 is not the fact — the Roman Catholics have ne- 
 ver sought any thing from Parliament for the 
 promotion of their religion ; they have demand- 
 ed that they should 7iot on suffer on account of 
 their religion, but they have never asked any 
 thing in behalf of it, or required that it should
 
 51 
 
 entitle them to any thing. Tliey pray, that 
 they, a number of British subjects, should have 
 the privileges of that character, not in virtue 
 or by reason of their religion, but i?i spite of 
 it. They do not ask that their religion should 
 entitle any man, whether priest or layman, 
 to any advantage, but that it be not a bar to 
 any other title he may possess : they claim no 
 merit or privilege by reason of being Catho- 
 lics, but they require that their other merits 
 may not be prejudiced by that circumstance. 
 Their religion has no farther connexion with the 
 political privileges that they seek, than as far as 
 it has been made, and has become the instrument 
 and the name by which they are deprived of 
 them. If they were excluded from the state by 
 any other name or means, as descendants of 
 Milesius, for example, or believers in the mi- 
 racles of St. Patrick, they would be equally 
 importunate for redress. They would in that 
 case pray that their political merits might be 
 estimated without any reference to their des- 
 cent, or to th^ir belief in the power of the 
 saint, as they now desire that they may be 
 weighed without any regard to their religion. 
 Their request might be deemed reasonable or 
 unreasonable, but in no point of view would it 
 authorise an inference that they desired an esta- 
 bUshment for their religion. If they harbour 
 the ambitious projects for their church, which 
 are imputed to them, it must be praved by 
 d2
 
 5« 
 
 something more than their anxiety to acquire 
 the political privileges of British subjects. 
 Unless, indeed, it be said that to suffer po- 
 litical privations, which we might avoid by 
 relinquishing our religion, proves such a strong 
 attachment to it as necessarily implies a wish 
 to obtain for it a political establishment : but 
 a man who knows any thing of human nature 
 must be aware that to suffer on account of a 
 religion does not prove the sincerity of our 
 attachment to it, nor does the sincerity of our 
 attachment prove a desire to acquire for it a 
 legal incorporation and endowment. Any one 
 who knows the Roman Catholics of Ireland 
 can attest, that, generally speaking, they 
 would not wish that the Legislature should 
 give their clergy a public stipend of any kind. 
 There is nothing the great body of the Catho- 
 lics hold in greater abhorrence ; whether rea- 
 sonably or unreasonably is a matter of dispute, 
 but the fact itself cannot be questioned. They 
 behold their clergy in circumstances of unos- 
 tentatious mediocrity, equally remote from 
 the pomp of wealth and the squalidness of 
 poverty, subsisting on a revenue, which being 
 demanded as a right to which they are entitled 
 by their labours, is received without the hu- 
 miliation which attends an eleemosynary do- 
 nation ; but being founded upon a right which 
 the law will not enforce, is given without the 
 acrimony which accompanies the payment of
 
 what the law enables us to exact. They be- 
 hold their clergy zealous, pious, and efficient, 
 surpassing in all the christian virtues the Ca- 
 tholic clergy of those countries where the 
 Catholic religion is endowed. They make the 
 same observation among the sectaries whose 
 clergy are dependants on the esteem and good 
 will of their flocks. They attribute a great 
 deal of this superior virtue in their pastors to 
 the nature and the quality of their revenues, 
 and they are, therefore, averse to alter them. 
 What connexion is there between their obtain- 
 ing the common privileges of citizens, and their 
 changing their opinions on this subject ? Why, 
 because they shall be no longer oppressed, must 
 they wish to corrupt their clergy by excessive 
 wealth? Why, because they are no longer 
 oppressed themselves, must they think of op- 
 pressing others? And by what name less 
 odious than oppression, could we stigmatize 
 the offence the Catholics would be guilty of if 
 they attempted to deprive the established 
 clergy of the temporalities which they have 
 purchased by most valuable considerations, by 
 laborious studies — by the exercise of valuable 
 interest — by the surrender of other pursuits, 
 and the abandonment of the means of earn- 
 ing bread in other walks ? Or supposing 
 that these deprivations could be effected in a 
 way that would not amount to robbery, why 
 should this desire of an alteration in the State
 
 54 
 
 follow upon an endeavour to obtain the common 
 privileges of citizens ? 
 
 I am aware that you may think, that although 
 these considerations may satisfy us, that there is 
 not sufficient reason to apprehend that the Ro- 
 man Catholics ivill assail the established church ; 
 yet, that it cannot be pretended they have the 
 same motives to uphold it by which the Pro- 
 testants are actuated. To which I answer, that 
 they have the same motives to uphold it as other 
 dissenters, and the same as sway no small por- 
 tion of the Protestants by whom it is preserved, 
 namely, the same motives of public policy : 
 they, as well as Protestants or dissenters, may 
 feel a strong conviction that an established 
 church is necessary to the monarchy, and that 
 the establishment in being answers that purpose 
 as well as, and has possession to plead in pre- 
 ference to, any other. Let people write as they 
 please of religious zeal, it is by agency of secular 
 motives, and of early habits, that men rally 
 round the church. Whenever these motives 
 cease to operate, the religious zeal that still 
 continues in the country will not maintain the 
 church a single day. If the country shall ever 
 be of opinion, that her ecclesiastical establish- 
 ments are political evils — that they are not 
 necessary to the monarchy, or that the monar- 
 chy is not necessary to the public good, '' the 
 church will fall." I do not mean that her
 
 55 
 
 doctrines shall no longer be believed, but her 
 earthly honours will be shorn — her temporali- 
 ties will be prostrated with the throne which 
 she defends. The temporal establishment of 
 the Church of England is one of the bulwarks 
 of the present form of government ; though 
 dedicated to religion, it serves the temporal 
 exigencies of the State ; like the temple of the 
 Jews, is a fortress and a temple. It is one of 
 the great lines of circumvallation that encompass 
 the throne ; an order of hereditary nobility is 
 the other. No, no ; they are not the Catholics 
 or the sectaries who will destroy the church : 
 if doomed to fall, it will be assailed by a dif- 
 ferent class of men, who will overthrow the 
 throne and its appendages together ; it need not 
 fear the disciplined strength of the papal 
 hierarchy, the impetuosity of the Methodists, 
 the steady hatred of the Calvinists, or, what a 
 learned doctor was wont to call the " irregular 
 and cossack warfare which is waged against it 
 by newer sects from old walls and ditches." 
 All these attacks it may defy ; but let it tremble 
 when it is assailed by what men, according to 
 the diversity of their temperament, sagacity, 
 or circumstances, call the spirit of philosophy, 
 or of innovation. It is not from the men 
 who teach the real presence, or justification by 
 mere faith, or the doctrine of election, that the 
 solid fabric of the national cluu'ch will be 
 shaken ; these disputes have lost their interest ;
 
 56 
 
 tliey have become, in the estimation of mankind, 
 stale and unprofitable ; it is not from these 
 people it has to fear, but from the men who 
 would persuade us that every monarchy is 
 founded upon principles essentially inimical to 
 the welfare of mankind ; who argue that in 
 the monarchial form of government the interest 
 of the ruler is frequently adverse to the interest 
 of the subject — and that another form is prac- 
 ticable which shall avoid all that is noxious in 
 a monarchy, and preserve all that is good ; 
 which shall combine the stability, the vigour, 
 the tranquillity, the capability of extension and 
 duration which have been hitherto thought to 
 belong exclusively to monarchy, with estab- 
 lishments that shall render impossible a diversity 
 between the interests of the ruling power and 
 the nation ; which shall establish an identity 
 of interests between them more complete than 
 was ever attained in any republic of antiquity ; 
 it is from the men who teach these things, and 
 point to the wealth and the freedom of America, 
 as the proof that they do not rave, that any 
 thing is to be feared. If ever they succeed in 
 convincing the people of England that they 
 have reached the period of sober and discreet 
 manhood, when it is no longer fit that their 
 persons and properties should be given in ward 
 to kings and aristocracies; that they can manage 
 their own concerns without the expensive and 
 wasteful guardianship to which they have been
 
 57 
 
 so long coiiiiuitted, the throne of England will 
 be pulled down, and the church will tumble 
 with it : when the throne shall be cut down 
 into an armed chair for a president of a house of 
 congress ; when, as Paine expresses it, it shall 
 be found that all the functions of a king can be 
 performed by a respectable gentleman for eight 
 hundred pounds a year, the bishops and arch- 
 bishops will not be left in possession of their 
 honours and their pomp: at such a period of 
 close investigation and minute economy, the 
 tenth part not only of the land, but of human 
 industry exercised upon it, may be thought too 
 much for the established clergy. It may be 
 considered wise, in that moment of innovation, 
 to leave them, like us of the temporal profes- 
 sions, to adjust the terms of their renumeration 
 with the persons who think proper to employ 
 them. The Spenceans will be disappointed in 
 their expectation of an equal partition of the 
 soil. But the division of the property of the 
 clergy, by giving to every man the tithes of his 
 own land, is most invitingly practicable, and 
 may seem very desirable to the owners of that 
 land. If it ever come to pass that by the diffu- 
 sion of useful knowledge, by the increased 
 facility of communication, by the freedom of 
 discussion, by the multiplication of that class of 
 the human race who can live without labour, 
 and have leisure to examine, to think, to write, 
 and by the consequent encrease of informed
 
 58 
 
 talent that will start up in all directions for the 
 service of the State — if by the operation of 
 those causes, and the greater efficacy they will 
 impart to public opinion as a moral restraint, 
 moderation and public justice shall become so 
 powerful amongst us, that the cumbrous and 
 expensive establishment of a royal government 
 shall be no longer necessary to sustain order in 
 these countries, the throne and the church will 
 fall together. Until this change in the moral 
 condition of the country happen, they will 
 stand. Before such an amelioration of the 
 public mind, no good man would wish to see 
 either shaken, and no wise man will expect it. 
 
 These topics are not so foreign to the subject 
 as they may seem. To those who think that 
 these speculations upon the progress of the 
 public mind are founded upon truth, and that 
 the great changes of which they treat will be 
 beneficial to mankind, and ultimately come to 
 pass, all collateral enquiries like that concerning 
 the claims of the Roman Catholics, which draw 
 aside the public mind from the grand objects of 
 its pursuits, must present themselves in the 
 shape of a great evil ; they must regard them 
 as impediments to that advancement of the 
 human mind which they expedl : on the other 
 hand, to those who see nothing in these princi- 
 ples, and the consequences which may be anti- 
 cipated from their diffusion, but the dreams of
 
 59 
 
 folly, or the inachiiiations of the artful — to 
 those that think that these expectations and 
 prophesies originate in discontent, in disap- 
 pointment, in envy, in malignity, and establish 
 themselves only among those who are com- 
 pelled by their circumstances to wish for change 
 and to adventure upon perils — to such persons 
 as these it must be evident, that any thing which 
 alienates the mind of people from the govern- 
 ment — which causes them to view with rancour 
 and displeasure all its movements, and misre- 
 present its motives, must be favourable to the 
 diffusion of the principles which they deprecate. 
 It is amongst those whom 1 have injured, or 
 who imagine that I have injured them, (in both 
 cases they will act alike) that a conspirator 
 against my peace will look for partizans, and 
 find them ; but of this more hereafter. 
 
 So far for the inclination of the Catholics to 
 restore their church to its former splendour, 
 and the necessity of coercion to restrain it. It 
 was not my intention when I began, to have 
 said any thing as to the power they would 
 acquire by emancipation to gratify this inclina- 
 tion ; but I cannot refrain from drawing your 
 attention to it for a few moments. 
 
 The power of a party (their spirit and cohe- 
 sion being supposed the same) consists in their 
 numbers and political influence.
 
 60 
 
 As to the increase in point of numbers, I 
 believe the stock of Catholics in Ireland, must 
 be kept up principally by breeding, which will 
 go on in the old way, whatever becomes of 
 emancipation: that body may gain a few de- 
 tached deserters here and there, but they will 
 also lose a few. A religion never makes rapid 
 strides in a country where it has been long 
 known; long acquaintance deprives it of its 
 power on the imagination, and the imagination 
 is its conductor. It is tolerably clear, that the 
 persons who have passed in great numbers from 
 one religion to another, never investigate very 
 deeply the merits of the faith which they aban- 
 don, or which they adopt : as it is obvious from 
 their capacity and occupations, that logic had 
 no share in their conversion, we must attribute 
 it to the operation of divine grace, or to the 
 dazzling influence of new doctrines on their 
 imaginations. The Protestants cannot appre- 
 hend that the first shall ever work against 
 them, and as far as the Catholic religion is 
 concerned, he is secure from the latter ; fbr the 
 Catholic religion is too familiar to the people of 
 these countries to surprize or to amaze — to fill 
 with new fears, or to excite new hopes. A 
 religion that can pretend to nothing of this 
 kind, that can proclaim no n^w discovery, and 
 can only repeat threats and promises, which are 
 now familiar, is an ordinary object which causes 
 no species of sensation ; its merits and demerits
 
 61 
 
 pass by iincanvassed and unheeded; a more 
 effectual mode of stopping its progress than 
 refutation. In addition to which we are to 
 notice, that we are specially instructed in child- 
 hood against every religion but our own, that 
 was then preached. If a religion, therefore, of 
 any standing, happens to awake investigation, 
 which it seldom does, it has to encounter the 
 prejudices of infancy, and arguments prepared 
 of old puiposely to meet it. Therefore we find 
 that no religious sect has ever made much 
 progress in a country after the first forty or 
 fifty years of its introduction ; it rushes in a 
 torrent while it is hot, but fortunately it cools 
 at no great distance from its crater, and becomes 
 fixed immoveably. 
 
 Now as to the increase of wealth amono; the 
 Catholics, that also will go on nearly in the 
 same way, whether they are emancipated or 
 not. Notwithstanding several drawbacks upon 
 their industry, the Catholics will continue to 
 increase in wealth, until the gross wealth of the 
 country be divided between them and the 
 Protestants, in the proportion in which they 
 constitute of the population. This is the 
 natural course of things. But let not the Pro- 
 testants imagine, that as the Catholic grows 
 rich they will become poor. The wealth of a 
 country is a perpetual course of consumption 
 and renovation : when a man grows ricli, he
 
 62 
 
 does not necessarily impoverish any other — he 
 creates a new fund of riches for himself; so 
 that the Protestant is not necessarily wealthier 
 for the poverty of the Catholic, or poorer for 
 his wealth ; the contrary is true. If, therefore, 
 the wealth of the Catholic body would be 
 increased by emancipation, the gross wealth of 
 the country would be increased. But is that 
 an evil ? Is it an evil in the contemplation of 
 those who can see no cause for the disturbances 
 of the country, but the want of capital and 
 employment ? Is it an evil in the contempla- 
 tion of those men who say, that the great body 
 of Catholics suffer nothing by the condition 
 they are placed in — that to change it could only 
 serve a dozen individuals, and leave the rest as 
 they are ? Let them take their choice ; either 
 the penal code keeps the Catholics poor, or it 
 does not. If it does, it is an evil to the country, 
 which nothing can justify us in incurring — if 
 it does not, its repeal will not materially increase 
 their power to do mischief. 
 
 As to the political influence of the Catholics, 
 suppose that since the Catholics are one-fifth of 
 the population of the empire, that they consti- 
 tuted one-fifth of the House of Commons — 
 (this is a very violent supposition, which cannot 
 be realized for a long time to come, but it must 
 be avowed that it mmj ultimately ariive ; let us, 
 therefore, suppose it to have happened) — let us
 
 63 
 
 transport ourselves a century or two forwards, 
 and let us suppose one hundred and thirty 
 Catholic members in the House of Commons — 
 let us suppose every one of them to be a fanatic, 
 and above the reach of the manifold temptations 
 which beset the members of that house — let us 
 imagine that they all felt and thought alike, 
 and that they were all of that desparate class, 
 whose only hopes are founded on the chances 
 of revolution. Such men, it must be confessed, 
 usually abound among the needy. Let us, 
 however, imagine that the Catholics were an 
 exception to this rule — let us suppose that the 
 Catholic knights of shires and borough-mongers 
 yet to be, were as eager for change as the hungry 
 followers of Cataline. What could they do ? 
 Fight ! They might as w^ell do that without 
 being in Parliament; but perhaps by being 
 there they could persuade the Parliament to 
 come into their views. Perhaps they could 
 persuade the House of Commons, the Lords, 
 and the King, to abolish the church establish- 
 ment. But could they also persuade the people 
 of England, who are more powerful than the 
 King, the Lords, and the House of Commons ? 
 But as we are making extraordinary supposi- 
 tions, let us imagine that they had also effected 
 this — Avhat then ? The nation desires a change, 
 and they effect it. 
 
 This, the only way in which the established
 
 64 
 
 Church can be disturbed by CathoUc emancipa- 
 tion, is certainly entitled to a place among the 
 possibilities which the womb of time occasionally 
 matures into reality. It is possible that by 
 totally extinguishing religious animosities and 
 sectarian feeling, and by introducing other 
 notions of what is beneficial to the country, 
 it might lead to a general consent from the 
 whole empire to modify the church estab- 
 lishment of Ireland. This is the only way in 
 which it can, by any possibility, interfere with 
 the Establislied Church— will it do so ? Will 
 such a change ever take place in the public 
 feeling of Great Britain as to allow it ? If it 
 does, it will be a season of great change ; and 
 though the Protestant establishment be pulled 
 down, the Catholic hierarchy will not take its 
 place. But these things must be left to time ; 
 it must be a remote time that shall witness such 
 a change — so remote that it would be absurd 
 to think of legislating for it. A legislator may 
 and ought to make his laws with a prospect to 
 futurity — with a view to the formation of the 
 character of posterity — to the increase of na- 
 tional wealth — to the perpetuity of commerce 
 
 to the foundation of new colonies, and 
 
 soforth. These, and such like, are our only 
 means of serving our descendants. As to taking- 
 measures to prevent them, in the third and 
 fourth generation, from voluntarily adopting a 
 particular measure, such as an alteration in the
 
 ecclesiastical establishment of the country, tlierc 
 can be nothing more absurd ; they will be better 
 able than we are to decide upon the wisdom of 
 such a change. The world will not retrogade 
 in intelligence ; it is our vanity that makes us 
 think it will. We need, therefore, be under no 
 uneasiness for the uncoerced decisions of those 
 who will come after us. Let us confine our- 
 selves to our own part — let us promote order, 
 friendship, industry, wholesome emulation, and 
 public spirit. Let us leave to our successors 
 the best legacy a father can give to his sons — 
 the example of his virtues and a good name : 
 above all, let us take care that they may never 
 blush for our barbarity and ignorance. If we 
 can effect these things, we shall have discharged 
 our part in our generation, and may retire with 
 an assurance that posterity will do theirs ; they 
 will, at least, do justice to our memorj^ 
 
 I have now examined how far it is probable 
 that the only evil which is apprehended from 
 emancipating the Catholics will occur : I shall 
 now proceed to the second part of my subject — 
 the evils to be expected of leaving the Catholics 
 as they now are. 
 
 The Catholics are condemned for calling them- 
 selves slaves ; there is no honour in the appel- 
 lation, and the assumption of an ignominious 
 name proves how much their pride has suffered ;
 
 G6 
 
 if it be exag<>eratioii, it is of that ordinary 
 destriptioii in vvliicli tlie injured find some 
 alleviation of their wrongs ; but the persons 
 Avho revile the Catholics for thus giving way 
 to the bitterness of their spirit, forget that there 
 are various kinds of slavery with various degrees 
 of dependence on the master : in some his au- 
 thority extends to life or limb — in others it is 
 limited to imprisonment or stripes ; in more 
 mitigated forms it does not reach beyond the 
 labom* of the slave, and the right to the produce 
 of his industry. Now, certainly, the condition 
 of the Catholic is not slavery in any of these 
 senses of the word — he cannot be hano-ed 
 without a trial, though Mr. Burke thought he 
 ran a greater risk of the gallows than other 
 men ;* neither is he deprived of the fruit of his 
 
 * " The exclusion from the law, from grand juries, from 
 " slierifl'ships and under-sheriftships, as well as from the 
 " freedom of the corporations, may subject them to severe 
 " hardships — as it may exclude tliera wholly from all that 
 " IS beneficial, and expose them to all tliat is mischievous in 
 " a trial by jury. This was manifestly within my own 
 " observation; for I was three times in Ireland, from ITOO 
 " to 17(^7;, when I hud sufficient means of information 
 " concerning the inhuman proceedings ; among which were 
 " m.any cruel murilers, besides an infinity of outrages and 
 " oppressions (unknown before in a civilized age) which 
 " prevailed during that period, in consequence of a pre- 
 " tended conspiracy among the Roman Catholics against 
 '' the king's government." A letter to a peer of Ireland on 
 the penal laws against the Roman Catholics, 1782. Since
 
 67 . 
 
 own industry, except so far as it is taken away 
 by a Parliament from which he is excluded, 
 and forced into channels from which it never 
 can return to him, which JNIr. Burke also con- 
 siders a great hardship;* but there is such a 
 
 that time it is to be observed, that the exclusion fi-om grand 
 juries and corporations has ceased to exist in law ; though 
 in practice the Roman Catholics are with difficulty admitted 
 to any corporations — to none in due proportions ; and to the 
 principal, that of the city of Dublin, not at ail. The other 
 and more important exclusions still exist. The judge, the 
 sheriff, and king's counsel, must still be Protestants. God 
 forbid that I should insinuate that in ordinai-y cases, either 
 between man and man, or in the prosecution for ordinary 
 outrages, these exclusions prevent the law from being fairly 
 administered to a Roman Catholic. 
 
 • His words are, " I know there is a cant language current 
 " about the difference between exclusion from employment, 
 " even to the most rigorous extent and exclusion from the 
 " natural benefit arising from a man's own industry. When 
 " a great portion of the labour of individuals goes to the 
 " State, and is by the State again returned to the individual 
 "through tlie medium of offices; and in the circuitous 
 " progress from the jirivate to the public, and from the 
 " public to tlie private fund, the families from whom the 
 '' revenue is taken are indemnified, and an equitable balance 
 " between the government and the subject is established ; 
 " but if a great body of tlie people who contribute to tlii^ 
 " State lottery, are excluded from all the prizes, the stopping 
 " the circulation, with regard to them, may be a most cruel 
 " hardship — amounting, in effect, to being doubly and 
 " trebly taxc-.l ; and it v. ill be felt as such to the very ([uick 
 
 Ha /V
 
 68 
 
 thing as political servitude as well as domestic, 
 which our ancestors have always regarded as a 
 great calamity ; as an occasion of scorn or com- 
 misseration for those whose lot it was, according 
 as it befel them through their misfortune or 
 their baseness. It was once customary in 
 England to taunt the Frenchman with the 
 name of slave, until the fury into which he 
 kindled at his shame set the world on fire. The 
 Spaniard is regarded as a slave, and there is not 
 a generous nature but glows with indignation 
 at his wrongs. The Italian also, and the Ger- 
 man, are called slaves, and no undegenerate 
 Englishman contrasts their condition with his 
 own, without returning thanks that he is not 
 like them : but be their condition as it may, 
 an object of compassion or contempt — an occa- 
 sion of indignation at the worthlessness of the 
 oppressor, or at the cowardice of the oppressed, 
 I do not hesitate to say, that for the gratification 
 of all the political desires, and for all the honest 
 purposes of ambition and public pride, the 
 condition of the Frenchman, the Spaniard, or 
 the German, is infinitely better than that of 
 the Catholics of Ireland. Let a man content 
 himself with his meat, and drink, and sleep — 
 
 " by all the families, high and low, of those hundreds of 
 " thousands who are denied their chance in the returned 
 " fruit of their own industry."— From the letter before 
 quoted.
 
 69 
 
 let him aspire to nothing better tlian the safe 
 recurrence of his daily pleasures, and devote 
 himself exclusively to what gratifies his senses 
 and his selfishness, unmindful of his country and 
 his dignity, and not heeding that nature gave 
 him an erect front, and bad him to look up ; 
 let him subdue himself to this, and he shall live 
 as commodiously in Madrid or Berlin, and 
 perhaps more so than in London or in Dublin. 
 In this respect the Spaniard is on, at least, as 
 good a footing as the Catholic ; for all the more 
 generous objects of mankind, for all those by 
 which he is distinguished from the lower ranks 
 of the creation, for celebrity, for honour, com- 
 mand, respect, he is infinitely his superior. And 
 let it not be thought that the desire of these 
 things is artificial — let it not be thought a 
 superfluous appetite which gorged and pam- 
 pered man has unnaturally excited to relieve 
 him from satiety. It is as real as the love of 
 rest or food. Nature has given to all animals 
 appetites calculated for their preservation in the 
 condition she intended for them : but the 
 natural state of man is to live in great commu- 
 nities with his fellow-creatures ; he has been, 
 accordingly, endowed with appetites and incli- 
 nations that are necessary for the formation and 
 preservation of human fellowship — appetites 
 that are as true to nature, as genuine, and as 
 craving, as those which are employed for his 
 individual support. The desire of friendship.
 
 70 
 
 of respect, of honour, of celebrity, of attaining 
 those conditions tliat invest us with awe and 
 veneration, and secure our memory when we 
 are no more, are as real and as necessary to the 
 preservation of that condition for which nature 
 framed the human race, as the more ignoble 
 passions which minister exclusively to the 
 safety and gratification of the individual. 1 
 would not defraud of their just praise, the 
 virtues which aim at the good will and happiness 
 of those with whom we converse in private life; 
 but they have always been postponed in the 
 estimation of mankind, to those higher passions 
 which urge us to seek the approbation, and 
 labour for the good of great bodies of our spe- 
 cies. The virtues and attachments of private 
 life are necessary to form the domestic groupes 
 which are the materials of society ; but these 
 groupes would have no adhesion with each other 
 were it not for the wider sympathies which 
 encircle the entire mass, and bind us all into 
 one paramount fraternity. Those loftier aspi- 
 rations and passions Avhich are the foundation 
 of the public virtues, are not so generally felt 
 as the sentiments which constitute domestic 
 worth, because it is not necessary for the well- 
 being of society that they should ; but Avherever 
 they do exist, they are not less powerful or less 
 importunate; nay, they are more powerful — 
 they never clash in noble natures with the 
 others without subduing them. They may not
 
 71 
 
 always confer happiness when gratified; but 
 which of our inclinations and instincts will ? 
 From these political propensities the Catholic 
 is no more exempt than other men ; but from 
 all those things to which they urge he is ex- 
 eluded. To watch for the public safety in the 
 senate — to distribute justice — to punish the 
 guilty — to protect the innocent — to enforce the 
 law against offenders on behalf of the commu- 
 nity — to represent his country in foreign nations 
 —every station of dignity and grandeur is re- 
 fused to him. It is true, that at present he 
 is qualified by la^v for the highest military 
 honours ; but it is only by an act of the last 
 year this has been effected. He is still pre- 
 cluded from all tliose chances of attaining to 
 those honours which are enjoyed by the persons 
 whose kindred or friends are admitted to the 
 civil distinctions of tlie State. He is destitute 
 of all those helps in the steep ascent, which can 
 so easily be given by those who have reached, 
 or are climbing into eminence by other paths. 
 W^hat career is o}>en, then, to the enterprise of 
 t he iloman Catholic ? He may run through all 
 the sordid departments of the State — I do not 
 mean to s})eak disrespectfully of any mode in 
 which industry is exercised; but certainly those 
 occupations are sordid where meie gold is to be 
 won, in comparison with those where command 
 and dignity remunerate success. The Cathohc is 
 ^dlowed to gather money in the counting-house;
 
 73 
 
 he may cultivate the land, and he may go 
 through the drudgery of the law ; but it is the 
 drudgery alone of the law that he can have. 
 There is no profession that requires a greater 
 combination of excellent moral and intellectual 
 qualities, more unremitting self-denial, more 
 perseverance, rapidity, and clearness of com- 
 prehension, and more general decorum in beha- 
 viour than the law ; and (were it not for the 
 honours to which it occasionally conducts) 
 there is no walk in life where these qualities 
 might not be more profitably employed : were 
 it not for the chances of the distinctions which 
 it occasionally confers, no man who could earn 
 honourable bread in any other way, would 
 knowingly submit himself to the labour and 
 difficulties which tlie bar imposes : but the 
 chances of these distinctions compensate for 
 every thing ; there is no member of that pro- 
 fession so constitutionally diffident of his desti- 
 nies, so humble in his estimate of himself, but 
 occasionally cheers his spirit, and confirms his 
 courage by the contemplation of what it is 
 possible Fortune may do for him. It is our 
 nature to calculate the magnitude of the prize 
 rather than our chance of winning it : some de- 
 gree of hope almost always mixes with our wishes, 
 and we can judge how tardily and reluctantly 
 it deserts us, from those secret suspirations to 
 be foremost in the race, which we are not alto- 
 gether able to repress when every reasonable
 
 73 
 
 expectation is extinct, and when the utmost we 
 dare openly to pray for is, that we may not be 
 the last upon the course. But these possibili- 
 ties which sustain so many, confer no strength 
 or consolation upon the Catholic. He must 
 never lift his heart beyond the subordinate 
 departments, where his emolument, be what it 
 may, can never recompense his labours ; hope, 
 which comes to all, can never visit him, and on 
 he plods through life beyond the range of the 
 contingencies which give dignity to the toil of 
 others, and assuage it. 
 
 These are by the positive enactments of the 
 legislature ; but this is not all. In the perpe- 
 tual strife which the Catholics are making, and 
 necessarily will make for emancipation from the 
 severities they suffer, they unavoidably commit 
 acts which are displeasing to the persons who 
 possess power ; their claims have advanced so 
 far, that without the most strenuous opposition 
 from a very influential portion of the cabinet, 
 they can no longer be withheld. The conse- 
 quence is, that until these claims are conceded, 
 a very hostile feeling must subsist between the 
 Roman Catholics and a considerable portion of 
 the government. The Catholics cannot but 
 regard with dislike the minister, through whose 
 exertions their efforts to obtain equality are 
 defeated, and the minister who resists those 
 efforts, cannot entertain mucli kindness for men
 
 74 
 
 by whom lie knows he is disliked, and whom 
 he accounts bad citizens ; especially when they 
 are making continued, and, as he must think 
 them, indecently pertinacious efforts to obtain 
 what he believes would be destructive to the 
 State. Whatever shall be the motives of his 
 opposition to the Catholics, whether it be con- 
 scientious belief of their unworthiness to partake 
 of the Constitution, or that he has pledged 
 himself to act with those who entertain such a 
 belief, the result must be the same : (I do not 
 say it as a matter of reproach, but as a necessary 
 consequence of their relation to their opponents) 
 the result will be a strong aversion to every 
 tiling that is Catholic. But wherever a great 
 part of the cabinet is anti-Catholic, a great many 
 of the high and inferior offices of the State, not 
 in the cabinet, must be so too ; for it would be 
 criminal of a minister voluntarily to give power 
 to those who differ from him on such an im- 
 portant subject of public policy. The result 
 must be, that generally speaking, any friendly 
 intercourse between those persons who have 
 obtained official situations through influence 
 with the anti-Catholic portion of the adminis- 
 tration and the Roman Catholics, will be 
 impossible. As to the other officers of the 
 State, who are indebted for their promotion to 
 that part of the executive which is friendly to 
 the Catholics, the most that can be expected 
 of them is neutrality ; they must associt^te ou
 
 75 
 
 terms of intimacy with their colleagues in 
 power, and they can scarcely do so and maintain 
 much friendly communion with people of whom 
 their colleagues entertain, or affect to entertain, 
 so much suspicion ; the consequence of which 
 is, that the Catholic is shut out from all kindly 
 interchange of hospitality with the persons who 
 are in power, and from the circle in which they 
 move. But this circle comprehends all that has 
 any pretence to rank in the capital of Ireland ; 
 t]ie few n(5l)lemcn who reside in Dublin, the 
 officers of the viceroy, the dignitaries of the 
 clnuTh and of the law, a few wealthy merchants 
 and landed proprictcM-s, the commanders of the 
 garrison and their families, are barely sufficient 
 to form what may be called one good set. A 
 further consequence of which is, that the 
 Catholic, expelled from the circle to which he 
 properly belongs by his fortune and accomplish- 
 ments, must form a distinct society for himself; 
 and thus there exists in Dublin two societies, 
 one Protestant and one Catholic, as distinct 
 from each other as if the first was in Pekinand 
 the other in INladrid — the individuals of the 
 one know those of the other very little; for 
 domestic intercourse, and the interchange of 
 those civilities which humanize mankind, they 
 are almost totally imacquainted. AA^hatever 
 mutual intercourse subsists between them, 
 arises from their jnceting in the pursuit of their 
 common avocations, and there it ends. Some
 
 76 
 
 individuals may be free of both these commu- 
 nities, but it is a freedom enjoyed by exceed- 
 ingly few Catholics — it is a privilege which 
 they cannot obtain without the greatest diffi- 
 culty ; it must be by some manifest superiority 
 of rank and fortune over the bulk of those by 
 whom they are admitted ; and even then they 
 must consider it a condescension to be received 
 by persons to whom their presence would be an 
 honour if they professed any religion but the 
 Catholic. Without this superiority of rank, a 
 Catholic has scarcely a chance of access to that 
 class of Protestants, which is composed of his 
 political opponents, of their colleagues in office, 
 and of the respectable Protestants whom they 
 inevitably draw into one society with them- 
 selves ; unless perchance he entitle himself to 
 their regard, by a constant profession of indif- 
 ference to his political condition — by joining 
 in decrying those whose only fault is their 
 excessive zeal in his behalf — by cringing upon 
 men who hate and despise his class, and by 
 swallowing bumpers to toasts which a man of 
 spirit would resent as an insult. As for those 
 Catholics who take an active part in the pubHc 
 proceedings of their body, they are shunned as 
 if they were infected with the plague. If their 
 vanity were all that suffered by the exclusion, 
 their loss would scarcely deserve notice : the 
 Catholic who could descend to the consideration 
 of such paltry interests when his liberties are at
 
 ryiy 
 
 stake, cannot be too deeply mortified. But 
 graver interests than those of vanity are 
 wounded by the unjust exclusion ; he is pre- 
 cluded from fortifying, by the honourable 
 assiduities of private life, whatever interest he 
 possesses, and is deprived of all the legitimate 
 advantages which spring from social commu- 
 nion with the wealthy and the powerfvd. Many 
 of these advantages are, perhaps, too minute to 
 bear a several examination ; but taken together, 
 they form a mass that adds not a little to the 
 weight of the positive enactments that afflict 
 him.* 
 
 This is the condition of the Roman Catholics : 
 whether you choose to call it a condition of 
 slavery or of liberty, it is a state of great humi- 
 liation and privation : it is such a condition, 
 that rather than submit to it, there is not an 
 
 * Independent of these considerations, party feeling is so 
 strong in Dublin, (and must continue so till the Catholic 
 question is finally adjusted,) that perhaps it is better to 
 separate the Catholics and Protestants entirely, than to 
 encounter the risk of bringing together in society persons so 
 likely to quarrel as a Roman Catholic of any sensibility, 
 and a political opponent ; -who regards him as a natural 
 enemy at least, and probably as a man destitute of probity 
 in the bargain : this must be the feeling of the opponents 
 of the Catholic question towards the individuals of that 
 body.
 
 78 
 
 Englishman for whose degeneracy liis ancestors 
 would not blush, but would gladly lose his 
 life : but it is time to examine how the interests 
 of the nation at large are affected by it. 
 
 If the statement of the consequences that seem 
 to me likely to result from continuing the 
 Catholics in the condition they are now placed 
 appear alarming, let it not be mistaken for a 
 threat ; every man wiio has the least claim to 
 candour will acknowledge, that there is nothing 
 of the spirit of a menace in a fair exposition of 
 necessary consequences, however likely to excite 
 our fears these consequences may be — he will, 
 in such an exposition, recognize the office of a 
 friend, exercising a well-intended foresight on 
 our behalf, and warning us of an evil which he 
 is sincerely anxious to avert ; an office not only 
 compatible with, but necessarily implying a 
 kindly feehng towards the persons whom it is 
 designed to place upon their guard. A menace 
 is tlie denunciation of an evil to be inflicted by 
 ourselves, of our free will ; it is made for selfish 
 piu'poses, implies hostile dispositions, and con- 
 sequently disentitles liim who uses it to the 
 favour of those to whom it is addressed. This 
 feeling 1 totally disclaim. T do not speak of 
 the evil to which I allude of a thing to be done 
 by me, or perhaps by any Catholic now living, 
 but as sometliing which must, sooner or later.
 
 79 
 
 I'esult from the continuance of the present 
 system, be the dispositions of the generation 
 which now suffers under it what they may. 
 
 We must remember, that the arguments 
 which are now uro-ed against the CathoUcs are 
 not founded upon temporary circumstances, 
 made use of with a view to the postponement 
 of their emancipation to a more favourable time, 
 for example, until the expiration of ten or 
 twenty years. If their relief were only delayed 
 for such a period, it is not likely that any par- 
 ticular consequence would result. Hope would 
 still sustain the Catholics, and they could go on 
 petitioning' for the twenty years to come, as 
 they have done for the twenty just passed ; but 
 the arguments now used against them are of a 
 nature which, if valid, must exclude them from 
 what they seek for ever. It Is- of the conse- 
 quences of perpetual exclusion that I proceed to 
 treats 
 
 Have the men \\\\o advise tlie perpetuation 
 of the present system, ever pondered u])on the 
 consequences that must result from the adop- 
 tion of their counsel ? Do they regard the 
 Catholics as stocks or stones ? Is it possible 
 tliey can tiiink, that if tlie Catholics lose all 
 hope of being redressed by Parliament, they 
 would not redress themselves if they had power? 
 Surely the men who tliink that, under every
 
 80 
 
 circumstance to soothe, in spite of every motive 
 to demean himself as a good citizen, in spite of 
 interest, in spite of affection, in spite of all the 
 motives that bind man to his country, and 
 maintain the social league, the Catholic would 
 meditate the destruction of the State : surely 
 these men cannot expect that he shall be its 
 friend, when he is divested of the privileges of 
 a citizen, when he is rejected from all honour- 
 able offices in his country, when he is stigma- 
 tized as its enemy. All this may be necessary 
 in the opinion of some, but in the opinion of 
 no reasonable man can it be other than the 
 occasion of the most inevitable animosities ; it 
 is enough that they consider the Catholic so 
 dissimilar from other men, as to be insensible 
 to kindness ; they cannot imagine him to be so 
 totally unlike the species of which he wears the 
 form, as to be also insensible to injury ; if he 
 cannot love when others love, he cannot be 
 attached when others hate ; it would be mon- 
 strous to expect it — it would be the grossest 
 hypocrisy in a Catholic to pretend it. It is idle 
 to disguise the truth; if the Catholics ever cease 
 to hope for relief from the legislature of their 
 country, (which they as yet have never done,) 
 they will seek it wherever they are likely to 
 find it. They will avail themselves of the first 
 opportunity, if opportunity should ever come, 
 of taking, without asking what they asked, 
 and were refused. It is contrary to nature.
 
 81 
 
 tliat when the Catholic once despairs, he should 
 continue a faithful citizen. "But Avho cares 
 " for his fidelity;" cries the advocate of violence, 
 " his neck is under our foot, and he stirs but to 
 " be crushed." This is very valiant to be sure! 
 but is it wisdom ? Is it probity ? Is it the 
 mode in which mankind is to be governed ? 
 Is it the treatment due to our fellow-creature, 
 to our fellow-citizen, to our brother-Christian ? 
 — to a man whose crime it is, that lie strives to 
 embrace his countrymen in friendship, and to 
 be allowed to prove that he is not undeserving 
 of their regard ? And is there nothing to be 
 deprecated in provoking gloomy and deep 
 resentments — hatreds that are treasured up in 
 the dark recesses of the human heart, because 
 you can set those resentments at defiance ? But 
 can you set them at defiance ? Yes, for the 
 present you can ; but are the circumstances 
 immutable which now enable you to do so ? Is 
 your prosperity as everlasting as your hatred ? 
 Js your supremacy over the ocean and the land — 
 is your tranquillity at home — are those splendid 
 alliances abroad, that have raised you above the 
 vulgar policy of conciliating your fellow- 
 citizens, to endure for ever without the possi- 
 bility of vicissitude ? Is war forever banished 
 from the world ? Are your valiant legions who 
 won a triumj)!! in every battle as innnortal ai> 
 their renown ? AVliere is the nation over whose 
 head twenty years had rolled Avithout being 
 
 F
 
 obliged to struggle with the collected might of 
 all her citizens, for her very life ? The history 
 of every country is the record of a perpetual 
 strife to maintain existence: like the beings 
 who compose it, the structure of a nation is 
 wonderful and fearful : it is obnoxious to a 
 tliousand modes of violence from without — a 
 thousand causes of decay within : it is folly to 
 dose our eyes against the fact ; depend upon it 
 the time must come, and at no distant period, 
 when the strength, though uncombined and 
 scattered, of six millions of people in this 
 empire, however contemptible it be now deem- 
 ed, will be a great instrument of good or of 
 evil. How many rebellions have ravaged Eng- 
 land, Ireland, and Scotland, within one centuiy ? 
 Within the momory of the young, how often 
 has the legislature proclaimed the existence of 
 deep and broad conspiracies against the state ? 
 How often, in our generation, has the act of 
 Habeas Corpus been, in consequence, suspend- 
 ed ? Suppose one of the conspiracies was so 
 far successful as to make it doubtful who should 
 be the traitors — those who assailed, or those 
 who defended existing institutions : suppose 
 that at such a fearful moment the Catholics 
 should be plunged into irremediable despair by 
 the long continued predominance of their ad-, 
 versaries : suppose that the leaders of the body 
 which was arrayed against the Constitution as 
 it now is, by whatever name they are to be
 
 83 ' 
 
 called, oftered religious liberty to all modifica- 
 tions of Christianity ; would the Catholic be as 
 much an object of contempt then as he is now^ 
 Would an hasty act, passed when it could no 
 longer be withheld, appease the accumulated 
 resentments of, perhaps, half a century of suf- 
 fering ? " Let us beware," says the prophetic 
 Bacon, " how we suffer the matter of troubles 
 " to be prepared, for no man can forbid the 
 '* sparks that may set all on fire." Are men at 
 a loss to imagine whence the spark may come 
 that shall set fire to the country ? Is there no 
 latent heat in Europe which may hereafter blaze 
 into conflagration ? A re Prussia, Spain, or Italy, 
 satisfied with their lot ? Is there a man who 
 thinks that the world will continue as it is for 
 half a century to come ? Are revolutions at an 
 end, or have men ceased to be susceptible of 
 the emotions with which the spectacle of great 
 changes was wont to agitate them, heretofore ? 
 Is there nothing appalling in the dilating gran- 
 deur of North America, spreading her giant 
 form from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 
 making it doubtful, by the unprecedented 
 prosperity she enjoys, whether her enmity is 
 doomed to be more formidable to these coun- 
 tries than her example ? But these are mere 
 contingencies : These events, that may raise 
 our oppressed citizens to the respectability of 
 being able to do injury, may never happen; 
 and if they do, not until such a lapse of time,
 
 84 
 
 tliat it wc^iild bo foolish to trouble ourselves 
 about thcni. To be sure they may never hap- 
 pen, and if at all, probably not for a long time. 
 But are they impossible or improbable? Are 
 tliey so visionary that a \vise man will disdain 
 to guard himself against them ? Are they, at 
 any rate, so remote as the evils that are appre- 
 hended from emancipating the Catholics, and 
 which are urged to caution us against that 
 measure ? Is it apprehended, that the attack 
 ■Nvluch the emancipated Roman Catholics are to 
 make on the Established Church, shall be im- 
 mediate ? Is that accumulation of Catholic 
 force, which is so dreaded, and which is to 
 overwhelm the State, to take place at once ? Is 
 it to be caused by the act of their emancipa- 
 tion, as if by magic ? That is not pretended — 
 it is not pretended that the evils anticipated 
 by their opponents from their emancipation 
 M'ill occur in the present generation, but in a 
 future ; and even then not certainly, but pos- 
 sibly. But if the Catholics were never to be 
 ejnancipated, that they would avail themselves 
 of any occasion that would enable them to 
 liberate themselves — that such occasion would, 
 from some quarter or another, at last present 
 itself, whetlier from the bosom of England, or 
 from Europe or America, before half a century, 
 is not merely probable or possible, but certain 
 and inevitable. The longer 1 live the more 1 
 learn to be sur})Fised at nothing ; but I confess
 
 85 
 
 it does amaze me, that men should be so keen 
 sighted into the most remote futurity, to descry 
 something that may justify division and dis- 
 franchisement, iuid not be able to see a single 
 one of the thousand things so much nearer and 
 so much larger, that recommend conciliation 
 and benevolence. 
 
 There is one fact from which it might chance 
 to be collected that the pressure of the penal 
 code upon the Roman Catholics would, under 
 no circumstances, be sufficient to urge them to 
 revolt — namely, that hitherto it has not had 
 that effect. But it must b& remembered that, 
 from the Revolution, up I may say to the year 
 1793, they were utterly destitute of power. 
 It was not until the commencement of this 
 reign that they were relieved from the most 
 deplorable condition to w^hich a people w^as 
 sunk .;* until they drevv a little breath it is 
 
 * Swift describes tlieir condition in these words — " wc 
 " look upon tlie Catholics to be altogether as inconsiderable 
 " as the women and the chikh'en ; their lands are entirely 
 *' taken IVom them, and thejare rendered incapable of ever 
 '•' purchasing any more ; and for the little that remains, 
 *' provisions is made by the late act against Popery, that 
 " it Avill daily crund)le away : to prevent wjiich, some of 
 " tlie most considerable among them liave already turned 
 " I'rotestants, and so in all probability will many more. 
 " Then the Popish priests are all registered, and without 
 " perniissLon, (which I hope will not be granted.) they can
 
 86 
 
 not wonderful that they should and could do 
 nothing ; scattered, weakened, and vigilantly 
 watched as they always were. In 1793, they 
 obtained substantial benefits, benefits which 
 placed that generation of Catholics in a con- 
 dition for which, at the commencement of 
 their lives, they had not dared to hope. From 
 that day to tliis they have always been sus- 
 tained by one expectation or another, and they 
 are at this moment more confident of suc- 
 cess than ever they were before. They see all 
 that is great and noble in the land arrayed in 
 their behalf ; they see the men w^ho have borne 
 the weiffht of the mightiest monarchies decline 
 the glorious burden rather than desert their 
 cause. They see toleration and philosophy dif- 
 fusing itself on every side ; therefore they have 
 not despaired, and therefore the consequence 
 of despair did not take place ; but even so, I 
 am quite sure that fewer Catholics would have 
 been concerned in the late rebellion if they had 
 been subject to no religiovis disabilities ; indeed 
 I question if that rebellion could have taken 
 
 " have no successoi's ; so that the Protestant clergy will 
 " find it perhaps no difficult matter to bring great numbers 
 " over to the church ; and in the mean time the common 
 " people, without leaders, without discipline or natural 
 " courage, being little better than the hewers of Avood and 
 " drawers of water, are out of all capability to do any mischief 
 " if they were ever so well inclined." — Swift's Works, Letter 
 (Oncenmig the Sacramental Teal.
 
 87 
 
 place. * I am quite certain that the chiefs of 
 that enterprise calculated not a little on the 
 antipathy to the government and the republi- 
 can spirit, which the penal code had diffused 
 among the Catholics : nor was their calculation 
 entirely erroneous ; since that period, indepen- 
 dent of the well-founded hopes the Catliolics 
 have been entertained of relief from parliament, 
 they have been kept down by a great military 
 establishment, by the terror with which sup- 
 pressed revolt always fills the minds of men, 
 and by the living memory of the burnings and 
 hangings which they witnessed. But the ge- 
 neration that saw these things with their own 
 eyes is passing rapidly away, to be succeeded 
 by another who can only learn them from the 
 unimpressive and unconsulted testimony of 
 history. 
 
 But suppose that the penal code were insuf- 
 ficient to excite a civil war, or to render it more 
 formidable if excited by other causes ; suppose 
 that England, exempt from the hazards and 
 vicissitudes to which nature has subjected man 
 and all his works, shall always enjoy, without 
 diminution, the strength she now possesses : is 
 civil war the only evil that is to be apprehend- 
 ed from the dissatisfaction of the people towards 
 
 * This appears from the examination of Dr. M'Nevin, 
 before the Committees of the Irish Parliament.
 
 88 
 
 tl^eir troveriiiiiciit ? Ijt the tranquillity of Ire- 
 land sufticicntly secured because rebellion can- 
 not tear down the union flag from the ramparts 
 of the castle, or insult the garrisons of our 
 cities? Do you account as nothing the de- 
 sultory outrages of political animosity which 
 have for years given to a part of Ireland the 
 appearance of a settlement on the confines of 
 confines of an Indian tribe, where no man is 
 secure, when he retires to rest, that he will not 
 be awaked by the whoop and the tomahawk of 
 savages? Do you account as nothing the 
 blood of peaceful citizens shed upon their own 
 hearths, and the fires that kindle the midnight 
 sky from their burning habitations ? Do you 
 account as nothing what Mr. Peele calls the 
 conjuration of a people against the law, and 
 against every thing that dares to appeal to it 
 for protection or ved^-ess ? 
 
 1 know it will be said, but these things have 
 nothing to do with the Catholic penal code : 
 the perpetrators of these outrages do not care 
 a straw whether Lord Fingal be in parliament 
 or not ; these enormities spring from other 
 causes, which might operate when not a ves- 
 tige of the penal co^e were left. 
 
 In contradiction I assert, that the penal code 
 is the immediately cause of a great portion of 
 these outrjiges, and must continue to be so as
 
 89 
 
 long as it exists, and that it contributes to the 
 production of the others largely, though not 
 immediately ; but as this position is too im- 
 portant to be decided by mere assertion, it 
 will be proper to enquire further into the 
 matter. 
 
 ^Ir. Peele has fully explained the nature of 
 these disturbances in his official expos^ of the 
 condition of Ireland, made on the 23d June, 
 1814, in the House of Commons, when he 
 moved for leave to brinjj in a bill for the better 
 execution of the law in that country. His 
 speech is given at full length in Hansard's 
 Parliamentary Register, vol. 28, page 163 ; if 
 you take the trouble to look into that work, 
 you will see that the following extracts are 
 made fairly : — 
 
 " These disturbances," he said, " originated in 
 ** different causes ; the first that he would 
 *' mention were the result of political combina- 
 " tions ; these combinations," he said, '■ were 
 " confined to infatuated people, who were the 
 " dupes of others." The second class of combi- 
 nation were, " Those which were formed under 
 ** pretence of redressing what was represented 
 " as a local grievance'' The objects of these 
 combinations were *' various, though the mode 
 *' of carrying them into effect was in most 
 ^* cases the same, to inflict punishment upon
 
 90 
 
 " those who disobeyed their orders ; who gave 
 *' more than the prices they thought fit to fix 
 " upon land, to prevent new tenants from taking 
 " land, and for other similar purposes." 
 
 " There was also a third species of disturbance 
 " of the public peace, to which he alluded with 
 " unfeigned regret — he meant that which arose 
 " from religious animosity. He would not now 
 " enter into the history of those unfortunate 
 " disputes, but he had the satisfaction to state, 
 " that notwithstanding the pains that had been 
 " taken in Ireland^ by means of the press and of 
 " inflammatory speeches, to induce the Roman 
 " Catholics to believe that the Irish Government 
 " was not disposed to administer impartial justice 
 " to them, as well as to their Protestant fellow- 
 " subjects, that these efforts had, in a great 
 " degree, failed of success.^ There existed in 
 
 * No man ever said that the government or the judges 
 were guilty of partiality in administering justice between 
 the Catholics and Protestants; but they did say (and it is 
 obviously true) that juries animated bi/ party spirit would 
 not, and could not be impartial 07i parly questions ; that a 
 jury of Orangemen vmiformly screen the Orangemen for 
 offences against their adversaries ; and that whenever the 
 sheriff happened to be a Ribbonman, and his pannel Ribbon- 
 men, the Orangeman had not justice ; this is all that was 
 ever pretended upon this point : nor was such an obvious 
 proposition asserted in inflammatory speeches and a libelous 
 press, as Mr. Peele alleged, but in grave debates in the House
 
 91 
 
 *' Ireland many obstacles to the great adminis- 
 " tration of the law, and one of the greatest 
 " was the difficulty of procuring persons to give 
 " information to government, and evidence 
 " against the violators of the peace." 
 
 Such was the information respecting the 
 disturbances in Ireland, which her minister 
 furnished to the Parliament. I think you must 
 perceive that they have their root in the penal 
 code, and must endure whilst it lasts. 
 
 In the first instance, I entreat your attention 
 to those interruptions of the public tranquillity 
 which arise from religious difference. They 
 constitute Mr. Peele's third class of disturbances, 
 but I shall examine them before the others. 
 
 of Commons^ by the lights and ornaments of their country, 
 Mr. Ponsonby and Sir John Newport : the latter went so 
 far as to say, in his place in the House of Commons, 25th 
 November, 1814, (vide Hansard, vol. 29, page 522) speaking 
 of the Insurrection Act, that, " to his own knowledge, the 
 " powers given by that act to the magistrate had, in many 
 " instances, been perverted to gratify personal resentments 
 " and private viewe, merely from rancorous feeling, arising 
 "from a difference of religions belief." Would the magistrate 
 who was guilty of this offence, be a fit man to return or sit 
 upon a jury to investigate an affray between Orangemen 
 and Catholics ? And is a man to be called an incendiary for 
 saying that he would not ? And would his bchig placed 
 there diminish the general distrust and hatred of the law • 
 that Mr. Peele complains of?
 
 92 
 
 because they are the more immediate conse- 
 quence of their common cause, and operate not 
 a little in aggravating the rest. 
 
 It cannot surely be expected that the ignorant 
 people of this country should be wiser than the 
 legislature — or that they should love each 
 other, when they are told by the law that they 
 are proper objects for mutual hatred : the law 
 tells the Protestant that the Catholics are irre- 
 concilably his enemies, and that they cannot be 
 trusted with his concerns ; she tells the Catholic 
 that his interest is incompatible with the safety 
 of the Protestant establishment. Can we 
 wonder that thus instructed by such authority, 
 the people of the North, consisting in equal 
 numbers of Protestants and Catholics, should 
 split in hostile factions ? Were the penal code 
 to perform its work in silence, if it produced 
 no complaints, no entreaties for relief, no remon- 
 strance, no retorts, this separation of the mixed 
 population of the North of Ireland into two well 
 defined and hostile factions, would be inevitable. 
 Superiority is too pleasmg to the weakness of 
 human nature not to be enjoyed, and the most 
 obvious mode of enjoying it is, to make it felt 
 by our inferiors ; it matters not whetlicr the 
 inequality has been produced by the depression 
 of others, or by our own elevation; the ignorant 
 and narrow-minded will equally exult in the 
 disparity. But the operation of the penal code
 
 93 
 
 never can be peaceable and silent ; it must 
 henceforth, as long as it exists, be the sul)ject 
 of incessant invective and of defence; this is 
 the law of its future being, to which those who 
 wish to continue it must make up their minds. 
 Until it be destroyed, radically and totally 
 destroyed, or until the privilege of discussion 
 be utterly suppressed, the passions of the peojile 
 of Ireland must be kept inflamed by perpetual 
 arguments to prove the rights of Catholic citizens 
 to freedom, and by opposing arguments to show 
 that they have forfeited their rights by their 
 crimes or bad propensities. In a nation where 
 so much is done by popular opinion, the men 
 who think it their duty or their interest to keep 
 the Catholics as they are, will natin-ally endea- 
 vour to gain the public opinion to their side : 
 they will cultivate its alliance by the most 
 exaggerated accounts of Catholic €norniitie.s, 
 and the grossest misrepresentation of their 
 religious principles : the press will teem with 
 the most exasperating reproaches and justifica- 
 tions ; it might, perhaps, suffice for that part of 
 the press which supports the Catholics, to rea- 
 son, to expostulate, to soothe, to state in cold 
 and abstract reasoning, the policy and justice of 
 giving equal liberty to all ; but ixietaphysical 
 reasoning will not satisiy an angry and disap- 
 pointed multitude — the press nuist kindle with 
 the kindling passions of the party to which it 
 is devoted; it will find itself best supported
 
 94 
 
 when it becomes the vehicle of all that can gall 
 and exasperate its opponents. This applies to 
 the press, both Catholic and anti-Catholic, but 
 more especially to the latter, for it must recur 
 to vituperation, not to divert the tedium of 
 abstract dissertation, or to enliven the dullness 
 of mere logic, but to supply the total want of 
 both. Invective is its only argument, for its 
 object is, to prove that the Roman Catholics are 
 unworthy, by reason of their religion, of sharing 
 the Constitution with their brother Protestants. 
 Now this can only be done by convicting them 
 of some turpitude or unsocial principle ; accord- 
 ingly it will teem with the grossest misrepre- 
 sentations of Catholic principles and conduct ; 
 their dogmas will be laughed at, their moral 
 principles reviled, and every thing which they 
 hold dear, assailed by the obscenest ribaldry. 
 
 From this state of things there must ensue 
 frequent personal altercations and private enmi- 
 ties, which will again mingle with the public 
 contest, and re-animate it when it droops ; 
 general hate will lead to private wrongs, and 
 private wrongs again conduct to general ani- 
 mosity ; personal friendships and dislikes will 
 draw into the contest individuals who were 
 indifferent to the original subject of dispute, 
 and they again will draw their friends into the 
 feud, and thus the contest will spread in every 
 direction until it include the entire nation.
 
 95 
 
 This wovild be bad enough, and tend, in no 
 slight degree, to excite the religious animosities 
 of which we are investigating the cause, if the 
 entire government were quite neutral in the 
 conflict; but the entire government will not, 
 and cannot remain neutral. As I have before 
 observed, the Catholic question has so far 
 advanced, that if the influential members of a 
 great family, whose opinions have so much 
 weight in the decisions of the Legislature — if 
 the ministry, in all its departments, were formed 
 of men who were perfectly indifferent to the 
 defeat or success of the Catholics, they would 
 obviously succeed in a very short time. If the 
 leading members of the government, therefore, 
 shall take a part (as some of them cannot but 
 do) against the demands of the Catholics, the 
 effect must be, that the religious feud will be 
 again further exasperated in its malignity, 
 and enlarged and elevated in its sphere. The 
 pulpit will resound with sentiments very alien 
 from Christian charity; and every man in every 
 station who seeks to raise himself by the favour 
 of an anti-Catholic minister, will find it his 
 interest to strain every faculty he possesses, 
 not only to shew that he himself dislikes or 
 fears the Catholics, but to convince others that 
 they should do the same ; which is synonymous 
 with saying that it will be his interest to excite 
 religious hatred. Every man who signs a peti- 
 tion against the Catholics, or attends a meeting
 
 96 
 
 to frustrate their designs, necessarily foments 
 religious hatred ; it may not be the object, but 
 it is the inevitable consequence of his act. I 
 am not at present enquiring whether in doing 
 these things he deserves praise or blame — 
 whether it is not reasonable that he should 
 express his opinions as well as a Catholic. All 
 I contend for is, that in point of fact, by so 
 doing, he contributes to keep alive the religious 
 dissensions which have caused such misery in 
 this country ; he makes the Catliolic dislike 
 him, and he persuades others to distrust the 
 Catholic. Is not this fomenting religious 
 hatred ? And is it not clear, that the man who 
 can do this most effectually is (ca;ter'ni paribusj 
 the man whom an anti-Catholic minister will 
 consider most worthy of his favours ? Notliing 
 can be more certain than that to a minister who 
 is sincere in his opposition to the Catholics, will 
 consider it to be a strong objection to any man, 
 that he supports a great measure which the 
 minister holds to be pernicious. Nothing can 
 be more clear, than that to such a minister it 
 Avill appear not a small addition to tlie merit of 
 any man, that he is sufficiently enlightened to 
 think on one of the most important subjects of 
 national policy like himself. Has this prefer- 
 ence no effect in alienating tlie Catholics from 
 the government ? Has it no effect in affixing 
 upon the government the odium of every insult 
 that is offered to the Catholic by its adherents,
 
 97 
 
 and of every outrage that is committed by tlie 
 Orangemen of the North ?* Has the natural 
 
 • This was written during the administration of Mr. Peele, 
 as Secretary for Ireland. Since the accession of the Marquis 
 Wellesley to the office of Lord Lieutenant, a great alteration 
 for the better has taken place in the demeanour of the lower 
 class of Orangemen in the North. For the first time they 
 have been made to feel the determination of the Irish 
 government to enforce equal law against offenders of all 
 orders, and in favour of the peaceful and orderly of all 
 persuasions : that this has been the determination of the 
 government, both the Orangemen and Roman Catholics are 
 satisfied. With regard to the latter, this conviction has 
 tended strongly to produce that general submission to the 
 law, and disposition to rely upon the government for redress, 
 rather than seek it by illegal means, which now pervade the 
 country to a degree which is unexampled in its history. 
 With regard to the orangemen, the resolution of the govern- 
 ment to administer the law justly and impartially, has done 
 much to diminish their licentiousness, and to render the 
 violations of the law, of which they are still guilty, less 
 outrageous than they were. 
 
 Two circumstances have prevented the government of 
 Lord Wellesley from completely subduing the spirit of 
 insubordination among the Orangemen. The first is, that 
 they frequently calculate upon impunity, through the medium 
 of an Orange jury ; and their expectation is not always 
 wrong. The second is, that they look forward to the time 
 when the acts which are now accounted as infractions of 
 the law, shall again be looked upon as proofs of loyalty. 
 They anticipate a counter-revolution, and a restoration of 
 the legitimate government ; and in the hopes of being 
 indemnified, as suffering loyalists, for their losses under
 
 98 
 
 preference of the minister for the persons who 
 think with him, no influence in increasing the 
 numbers and the respectability of these associ- 
 ations, and consequently in adding to their 
 audacity and expectation of impunity? And 
 how is it expected, that comprising in their 
 numbers almost all who think with the anti- 
 Catholic portion of the ministry, or wish to 
 recommend themselves to its patronage, and 
 consequently deerning themselves protected by 
 tlie executive, how is it expected that they will 
 
 the usurpation of Lord Wellesley, they are contented to bear 
 the immediate privations which they occasionally incur from 
 the displeasure of the present government. But, if the 
 government of Lord Wellesley was established in Ireland 
 upon the basis of such an arrangement of the Catholic 
 question, as would for ever preclude the restoration of the 
 Orange power, that faction Avould crumble into dust in 
 one twelvemonth. 
 
 Even as things stand, it is remarkable how much has been 
 done within the last few years to crush and humble the orange 
 party. Some years ago Mr. Forster (whom I name with 
 great respect) stated, in vindication of Orange processions 
 and confederations, that their body, or the individuals 
 composing it, were the sure stay of British power in Ireland, 
 in the course of the last Session of Parliament, something 
 having fallen from Mr. Brownlo^v, respecting his connexion 
 ■with the Orangemen, Mr. Plunket, in the very presence of 
 the Speaker, told the member that he would indict him for 
 the misdemeanour, if furnished with evidence of the f;5^ct : 
 this evinces a great change in public sentiment.
 
 99 
 
 conduct themselves towards the defenceless 
 and notoriously detested Catholics ? Is it 
 matter of wonder, that in their di'unken orgies, 
 in their insulting commemoration of ancient 
 defeats, in their triumphant display of orange 
 flags, the passions of both parties should be s© 
 inflamed as to provoke, or to give insult ? Is it 
 to be wondered at that these insults should lead 
 to murder and to massacre ? Is it wonderful 
 that in this fever of men's blood, the verdict of 
 a jury should only satisfy one party ? What 
 is the result ? That tlie party which conceives 
 itself to have been wronged will consider the 
 verdict as the sentence of faction, not the voice 
 of law ; and that they shall thenceforward 
 think it necessary to look elsewhere for justice 
 and protection. And where do you think an 
 exasperated, ignorant, deluded people will look 
 for justice under these circumstances ? Where 
 but to themselves — where but to revenge, 
 converting the fear of their opponents into their 
 own defence ! Thus counter associations will 
 be formed which will arrogate the function of 
 inflicting vengeance for all injuries ; the regular 
 tribunals of the country will fall thus into 
 disrepute and odium ; and all who furnish it 
 with information, or who, in any wise, contri- 
 bute to its proceeduigs, will, by a great body 
 of the people, be looked upon as enemies. 
 Hence the frequent murders of witnesses and 
 of jurors — hence the difficulty in obtaining
 
 1(X> 
 
 information, wliich Mr. Peele complains of — 
 henc^ " the confederacy in guilt, and the war- 
 •' fare against the regular institutions of the 
 " country," which he feels so deeply, though he 
 will not remove their cause. 
 
 These things must exist as long as the penal 
 code is suffered to remain : would they cease if 
 it were destroyed ? There is every probability 
 they would. Whatever exasperation is pro- 
 duced by the Parliamentary debates, touching 
 the Catholics or the Orangemen, by aggregate 
 meetings, by committees, by Catholic speeches 
 and resolutions, and newspaper discussions, 
 would cease immediately ; the sympathy which 
 both Catholics and their opponents imagine to 
 exist between the Orange lodges and a portion 
 of the government would cease. The adminis- 
 tration could no longer be an anti-Catholic 
 administration ; its preponderating members 
 must have been friendly to the measure or it 
 would not have passed, and its success would 
 prove that the prejudices against it in all high 
 quarters had subsided. It would cease to be 
 the duty or the interest of any minister to 
 depreciate the estimation in which the Catholics 
 should be held, (it is at present both the one 
 and the other) and consequently the activity 
 and zeal in exciting hostility to that body 
 would cease to be a recommendation. This 
 would inevitably produce a revolution in the
 
 101 
 
 demeanour of all the persons who look for 
 places ; a class of people very numerous in 
 Ireland, for like vermin they abound in diseased 
 and emaciated habits : cut off the government 
 expectants from the Orange lodges — cut off the 
 underlings of those expectants, who mimic the 
 conduct of their principal — cut off the mayors 
 of corporations, and petty officers, and aldermen, 
 and common-council men, who seek in some 
 paltry place, a refuge from impending bank- 
 ruptcy. Do this and you cut off the efficient 
 strength of the Orange lodges ; and you will 
 effectually do it by repealing the penal code. 
 If it were once believed throughout Ireland, 
 that the Orangemen* and Orange principles 
 WTre discountenanced at the castle — if the 
 nation could be once convinced that an Orange- 
 man would be in as bad repute with government 
 as a Ribbonman is now, every thing that has 
 the least claim to respectability of condition in 
 
 • Orangemen and Orange principles are now discounte- 
 nanced at the Castle ; and if they have not been eflectually 
 suppressed, it is because, as was before observed, they do 
 not regard the present government as likely to be permaneitt 
 — if they thought it were, the results stated in the text 
 would immediately take place ; how ardently they wish for 
 such a change, may be seen from the indecency with which 
 they have expressed their sentiments on the subject at public 
 dinners.
 
 102 
 
 the Orange lodges would immediately withdraw. 
 Their arms woidd be taken from the miserable 
 remnant of that party — they would perceive 
 themselves abandoned to the law for their 
 transgressions — and they would never dare to 
 repeat the outrage of Ivilkeel, the massacre of 
 Corinsliiega, or that perfidious assassination 
 which was more recently perpetrated at Augh- 
 nacloy. Convinced, at length, that they were 
 not ei>couraged by authority — seeing them- 
 selves deserted by the respectable gentry of the 
 coiuitry, and having nothing to protect them 
 but their good conduct, they w'ould be more 
 cautious how tkey gave offence, and they -would 
 lose the power o{ provoking it. If at all conti- 
 nued, those CO nnn em orations, and party tunes, 
 and orange lilies, that are now heard and seen 
 with such poignant indignation by the humili- 
 ated Catholics, w^ould lose their force ; they 
 would be no longer the symbols of domination 
 and superiority ; tliat superiority by supposition 
 would be no more. ** The Battle of the Boy ne," 
 and " Croppies lie down," and " Protestant 
 Boys," and such like things, would pass into a 
 signification quite different from that they at 
 present bear: if played at all they would be 
 associated with feelings of civil liberty, in which 
 Catholic and Protestant would share. Tliey 
 are now a conventional language to express joy 
 at the humiliation of the Catholics, and a deter-
 
 miiiation to continue it. " The Glorious 
 Memory," and such toasts, mean nothing else;* 
 >vhen the humiliation was no more the signs 
 which now express it would be useless, or be 
 made to signify something else. They might, 
 by a natural association, become the memorials 
 of the dethronement of a king — they might be 
 employed with the same meaning as Major 
 Cartwright attaches to his toasts, when he 
 drinks " The Barons who extorted Magna 
 Charta from King John," or " The Revolution 
 which cashiered the Stuarts." But the Orange- 
 men are not remarkable for their attachments 
 to the principles of democracy, and would, 
 probably, drop these toasts and emblems toge- 
 ther, when they ceased to annoy the Papists, 
 and could only mark their own love of civil 
 liberty. 
 
 So far for the connexion which exists between 
 the Catholic penal code and those disturbances 
 of the public peace arising from religious dis- 
 
 • It has often surprised nie, that men could be so sillj' as 
 to express wonder at the Roman Catholics being displeased 
 at these toasts and emblems ; thei/ are meant as an insul/, 
 — they can be meant as nothing else when they are known 
 to be taken as such. Insults are measured by the intention 
 of him who gives, not by the pain of him who suffers. If 
 a man lays his finger upon my slioulder, with the intent that 
 it should be considered a blow, tlie inniilt is as great as if he 
 knocked me down.
 
 104 
 
 tinctions : as to the others, though they leave 
 no outward mark of religious hatred, yet they 
 are also either caused, or greatly encreased by 
 the same circumstances : it is impossible not to 
 see that they spring from disaffection to the 
 British government : — the first class into which 
 Mr.Peele has divided them is, according to him- 
 self, political ; the second class he does not con- 
 sider to have political purposes in view, but 
 merely local regulations, such as the price of 
 wages, rent, tithes, &c. but in truth they are 
 both bottomed upon an assumption of the sove- 
 reign power ; they both assume legislative func- 
 tions ; they do not aim at objects personal to 
 the conspirators, but at the establishment of 
 general laws which are to bind the country ; 
 they carry on an open war as far as they have 
 the means, against the government, and every 
 thing connected with it : they look iipon that 
 government as an usurpation, as a dominion of 
 force which it is meritorious to elude, to sub- 
 vert : and in pursuit of what they consider an 
 act of patriotism, they put to death without re- 
 morse all whom they consider enemies or trait- 
 ors. They have not arms, or intelligence, or 
 leaders, or money, sufficient to draw out a regu- 
 lar army into the field ; if they had we should 
 have a campaign in Ireland before Easter.* 
 
 *At present the country enjoys profound repose— but if 
 the present system of government be not continued an^
 
 105 
 
 They suit their mode of warfare to their means ; 
 they carry on a desperate guerilla war with go- 
 vernment, in which they give and expect no 
 quarter. Every straggling soldier whom they 
 catch, every gauger, every tithe-proctor, every 
 active magistrate, who has distinguished him- 
 self against them, and whom they rank among 
 their enemies, is put to the sword. This is a 
 dreadful state of things, and the more so because 
 it sucks into its vortex of guilt men who would 
 shudder at the very thought of participating 
 in such enormities, from the ordinary motives 
 which impel to crime. It is the first step which 
 costs, and when we once stain ourselves with 
 blood for any object, we shall be more likely to 
 
 followed up by material changes in the law, we shall inevi- 
 tably relapse into that state of anarchy in which Lord Wel- 
 lesley found us, and from which we have been, for a time at 
 least, retrieved. I have observed that the whiteboy dis- 
 turbances break out at intervals of five or six years ; at 
 that distance of time from an insurrection, which has been 
 quelled by martial or other summary proceedings, a new 
 class of conscripts, who were too young to take a part in 
 former inroads upon the peace, arrive at manhood, and are 
 immediately enrolled into new bands against the laws and 
 social order. These new recruits were too young to receive 
 an impression from what they saiv of the sufferings of their 
 predecessors sufficiently strong to deter them from pursu- 
 ing the same career, and what they heard of them in the 
 tales of their winter evenings, is rather calculated to inflame 
 tlieir mistaken enthusiasm, than to control up or dirept it 
 to proper objects.
 
 106 
 
 spill it for another. It is notorious that in Ireland 
 m€n, whom no gold could liire to commit ordi- 
 nary assassinations, sucli as take place in France 
 and England, and every country of tlie world, 
 have, in the maintenance of their system, for 
 the enforcement of their orders, or for the 
 punishment of their opponents, committed the 
 most horrible barbarities ; men, women, chil- 
 dren ; decrepid age, in which the bad passions 
 might be supposed to have burned out ; in- 
 fancy, in whicli it is impossible they coidd have 
 kindled, have been known to commit acts with- 
 out compimction to forward the objects of these 
 associations, at which humanity revolts. By 
 Avhat sophistry do they reconcile their con- 
 science to these enormities ? Simply this, theij 
 regard them as acts of warfare against the go- 
 verument or its supjmrters, and they hate the go- 
 vernment. ^Ir. Teele tells us that tlnce entire 
 parishes in the most populous district of Ire- 
 land, conspired to commit a murder on one 
 Council, an informer. Can it be believed that 
 all the inhabitants of three parislics had under- 
 cone that degree of demoralization to which 
 the perpetrators of private murders must have 
 been reduced ? These parishes arc chosen by 
 jNIr. Peele, not to show their peculiar malignity 
 in crime, but as instances of wliat was tlien to 
 be considered tl»c condition of the south of Ire- 
 hind : could society endure if all the inhabitants 
 of tlie soutli were common ass.assins? — impos-
 
 107 
 
 sible — three parishes, containing from twenty 
 to thirty thousand people of all ages and sexes, 
 would never combine to put a man to death, 
 unless they thought it a praise-worthy act ; 
 our nature is not so bad. But how could they 
 consider such an abomination an act of merit ? 
 they considered themselves in a state of hosti- 
 lity with the government, and Connell was an 
 abetter of the goyernment. 
 
 Now what can be the cause of this hostility 
 to the government ? I do not ask what was 
 the original root from which it might spring. 
 But what is the cause that acts CGnthiually in 
 in perpetuation of this hatred, from which it 
 draws perpetual renovation and activity ? it 
 must have some. Like other national discon- 
 tents that we have heard of, it would starve 
 and perish if not regidarly fed and nourished. 
 It is unprecedented that national discontent 
 could remain so unimpaired, so munitigate<l 
 through such a lapse of time, if not pcrj)etuiit€d 
 by some perpetually operating clause. Look to 
 history. The Scots hated the English ; tliey 
 all hated them for tlieir religion, many for the 
 Union, and not a few for tlie substitution on the 
 throne of England of a new family for the old 
 line of Scottish kings. The Scots several times 
 rebelled, and for nearly half a century were 
 always ready to rebel. At present they are
 
 108 
 
 the most orderly nation in the world ; the na- 
 tion to whose institutions the world now turns 
 for lessons in the great truths and examples of 
 political wisdom. Two generations passed away, 
 and in their course^obliterated the very name 
 of Stuart. Their memory continues perhaps a 
 theme of mournful contemplation to the inno- 
 cuous enthusiast who loves to dwell upon the 
 glories of the bold Bruce and of Wallace Wight. 
 But it has ceased to kindle the living passions 
 that drive the armed rebel to the field. Again, 
 in France : the provinces in the South of France 
 were as hostile to the revolutionary government, 
 as it was possible for the people of Ireland to 
 be to that of England. For many years they 
 carried on a desultory war against it, not very 
 dissimilar from that which is waged in the dis- 
 turbed districts against our own. Nevertheless 
 tranquillity was restored some years before the 
 fall of Bonaparte, and in one generation more 
 imder his sway, the Bourbons would have ex- 
 perienced the oblivion to which time has con- 
 signed the memory of the Stuarts. It must 
 be confessed that Bonaparte's was a military 
 government, and the Vendeans were put to 
 death in thousands by fire and sword. But I 
 should be glad to know if the same expedient 
 has not been resorted to in Ireland. I should 
 be glad to know what form of death remains to 
 be tried in Ireland by which nature can be 
 overcome. Tl^e hish, the gibbet, the bayonet.
 
 109 
 
 the damp of solitary dungeons, the pestilence 
 of jails crammed to suffocation, the silent hor- 
 ror of secret execution, the ignominy of the 
 public scaffold, have been all at one time or 
 other resorted to in Ireland, and humanity 
 shudders to relate, have been resorted to in 
 vain. The law has been disencumbered of every 
 form that could impede it ; it has been stripped 
 of every thing but the sword. Insurrection 
 acts for summary trials, for confinement after 
 sunset; every thing that could be done short 
 of decimation, to inspire terror into the timid, 
 or to disconcert the machinations of the guilty, 
 have been put into requisition by the legisla- 
 ture; but all in vain. Crime has triumphed 
 over the law ; the law, for whose strength 
 nothing should be too powerful, too humble for 
 its protection, or too wily for its vigilance, has 
 been eluded, trampled upon and despised. Its in- 
 telligence has been cut off — its giant might has 
 been exhausted in ineffectual efforts to appre- 
 hend the guilty, and it now gropes for its vic- 
 tims through the island, like what the poets 
 feign of the ancient Cyclop, furious, blind and 
 baffled. 
 
 There is some cause for this peculiar vivaci- 
 ousness of Irish discontent ; all men of reason 
 must admit it. The penal code is adequate to 
 this effect, and no other cause can be assigned 
 which is.
 
 110 
 
 I am aware that many persons attribute this 
 condition of the police of Ireland to the ab- 
 sence of her landed proprietors, which I cannot 
 but consider quite inadequate to the effect. It 
 is possible that the presence of a kindly and 
 active gentry might check the consequences 
 which result from the hostility of the people to 
 the government, hut their absence could not 
 cause this hostility : it must have some other 
 source. As to the poverty of our people, the 
 same remark applies ; and even if the poverty 
 of the country had a share in producing these 
 discontents, the poverty itself is continued * in 
 
 * This occurs to a much greater extent than is generally 
 supposed. The constant agitation in which the people^ of 
 Ireland are kept, and must continue to be kept, by petitions, 
 by public meetings, by associations, counter associations, 
 state prosecutions, orange outrages, prosecutions for party 
 libels, and the innumerable disquieting events that present 
 themselves everyjday, operates to impoverish the country in 
 two ways: it tends to divert the public mind from the 
 tranquil occupations by which wealth is created ; and it 
 prevents the introduction of foreign wealth into the country. 
 Few men will send their riches into a country where one 
 set of newspapers procUiim that the orangemen are but- 
 chering the Catholics, and another that the Papi&ts are but- 
 chering the Protestants. The very fact of barricading the 
 metropolis four or five years ago against an attack, was 
 enough to frighten any Englishman who might have designed 
 to form a manufacturing establishment in Ireland. An 
 eminent solicitor had showed me a letter from a correspon- 
 dent in Scotland, countermanding the inves'ting upon loan
 
 Ill 
 
 some measure by tlie penal code, and so like- 
 wise is the absence of our landholders. But be 
 this as it may, it is beyond the reach, and cannot 
 be cured by an act of Parliament ; but the 
 penal code, and all its consequences, are within 
 its grasp. 
 
 1 am not ignorant that some shallow politi- 
 cians think that the operation of the Catholic 
 penal code, being confined to persons in the 
 better stations of life, can have no effect in pro- 
 ducinii' discontent amon«>; the lower classes — I 
 answer, that it 'produces an order of things 
 which inevitahltj causes discontent. They know 
 very little of human nature if they suppose 
 tluit Ave concern ourselves in nothina: which 
 does not affect our own immediate interests : 
 whatever these men may deem, there are such 
 principles in nature as public spirit, as national 
 pride, as sensibility to disrespect, as indignation 
 at oppression, though it is only directed at that 
 class to which we belong, and does not touch 
 us individually : at least so think the best writers 
 on legislation; at least so thinks Mr. Bentham — 
 his opinion is, " that the injury done to one 
 " individual in such a case becomes an injury 
 
 of a large sum of money, expressly on the grounds of the 
 proceedings of tlie Catholic Association : it is not the Ca- 
 tholic Association which must be blamed for this, but the 
 absurd laws which render the association necessary.
 
 112 
 
 " to all — from which feeling there springs acrowd 
 " of evils — antipathy against the particular law 
 ** that shocks the prejudice ; antipathy against 
 " the body of the laws, of which the obnoxious 
 ** law constitutes a part — antipathy against the 
 " government which executes the laws — a dis- 
 " position not to aid their execution ; a dispo- 
 " sition to resist them clandestinely ; a disposi- 
 " tion to resist them openly and by force ; a 
 " disposition to take away the government from 
 ** those who harden against the public will — 
 *' evils which carry in their train the crimes 
 " which constitute those combinations of ca- 
 " lamities called rebellion and civil war, evils 
 ^* which again bring on others in the form of 
 " punishments, to which recourse is had to put 
 *' them down. Such is the disastrous conca- 
 " tenation of consequences that follow from 
 " thwarting the most fantastical prejudice of a 
 " people." This is the opinion of Mr. Bentham. 
 I could scarcely have expected to find, in a ge- 
 neral treatise on legislation, so minute a de- 
 scription of the condition of this country. 
 
 But as Mr. Bentham's opinions are not au- 
 thority with every body, 1 shall appeal to that 
 of our late Secretary himself, to show that the 
 humblest peasant in Ireland is not insensible 
 to the condition of the body with which the 
 law has classed him.
 
 US 
 
 In the speech on the police of Ireland, be- 
 fore quoted, Mr. Peele said, " that the efforts 
 " made to convince the people of Ireland that 
 "' the law was not fairly administered to them, 
 " had, in a great degree, failed." Now this 
 passage contains, first, a direct allegation that 
 such efforts were made, and it would be foolish 
 to affect not to know that he meant that they 
 were made by the Catholic leaders ; secondly, 
 it contains an implied allegation that these 
 efforts were not entirely unsuccessful. Again, on 
 the 30th May, 1815, in a debate on a motion 
 respecting the Catholic committee, he expressly 
 accuses that assembly of having mainly con- 
 tributed to the disturbances which then pre- 
 vailed ; and he makes the charge not from his 
 own observation merely, but upon the alleged 
 authority of all the Irish grand juries of that 
 year. He even appeals to the fact as quite 
 notorious : " every one," he says, " acquainted 
 " with the state of Ireland must know the 
 " effect which these bodies have produced." 
 Describing the constitution of the Catholic 
 committee, he also said " how far was the peace 
 " and honour of the United Kingdom likely 
 " to be supported by such a body ? That 
 " question might be answered by every member 
 " of the grand juries, who had almost unani- 
 " mously attributed to that body the disturbed 
 " state of these countries." And the year be- 
 fore that, on the 8th of June, 1814, in answer
 
 114 
 
 toa qiR'stioii from Sir John Hippesley, he said, 
 " that the lower orders, and a great proportion 
 •' cff tlie })opulation were misled by f/ie profes^ 
 " .stuns of the Catholic Board, and were not 
 " aware of the miscJi'ieuous tendency of their 
 '• ])iocecdings." Xow these passages clearly prove 
 that the proeeedings and condition of the upper 
 classes of Catholics do, in Mr. Peele's opinion, 
 materially affect the minds of the lower orders. 
 It may indeed I^ said that he spoke of the Ca- 
 tholic committee, and not of the penal code ; 
 but let me ask, was not the Catholic committee 
 the offspring of the penal code? There will 
 always i)e a Catholic conmiittee as long as the 
 perral code shall last ; * thai is, as long as it 
 lasts there will always be found men of ardent 
 minds among the Catholics of Ireland who will 
 think themselves aggrieved, and who will not 
 smother their complaints ; who will diffuse as 
 far as they can by their writings, and by their 
 speeches in aggregate assemblies, in commit- 
 tees, and in newspapers, that spirit of indigna- 
 tion at their condition, which (whether right 
 or wrojig) they consider it base to be without. 
 For these purposes they must hold frequent 
 popular assemblies, where of necessity the most 
 
 * This has been verified by the event — the Catholic As- 
 sociation has succeeded the Catholic Conimittee sind the 
 Board, and if it be put down by GovcrnuuMit, the spirit 
 out of which it ^rew will combine its individual members 
 into another form at no distant period.
 
 115 
 
 inflammatory subjects will be discussed ; the 
 original principles of society, tbe end of all its 
 institutions, the original rights of man, the 
 boundaries of allegiance, the usurpations of so- 
 vereigns over indefeasible privileges of the sub- 
 ject, and every other topic which can agitate 
 society, will be the obvious theme of their de- 
 clamation, mingled with invectives against 
 their enemies, and retorts upon the vile at- 
 tacks of which they are themselves the objects. 
 Does any man imagine that this state will cease 
 before the penal code ? No man but a fool can 
 think it. You may call the people who do 
 these things by what names you please, agita- 
 tors, demagogues, incendiaries — they are no- 
 thing more or less than ordinary men, with 
 those passions which nature gives to at least 
 one man out of eveiy hundred that she cre- 
 ates ; they will be found in the next genera- 
 tion as well as this. If the law place men in a 
 condition in which, according to the known 
 properties of human nature, they will do things 
 injurious to the public weal, the law is respon- 
 sible for those things : whether the men whom 
 it drives into the commission of these acts are 
 to be considered culpable in a moral jwiiit of 
 view, is a question that has nothing to do with 
 the Avisdom or folly of the law : the only ques- 
 tion for the legislature is this — is their conduct 
 tlie natural consequence of the law ? If it be, 
 ji 2
 
 116 
 
 place the censure where you will, tlie calamity 
 itself must fall upon the nation. 
 
 I have now gone through the greatest part 
 of the task which I had undertaken ; I have 
 examined the evils to be expected from emanci- 
 pating the Catholics, and from leaving them in 
 their present state. It has been shewn that the 
 only evil that can rationally be feared from that 
 emancipation is, that they would employ the 
 power conferred by that measure to subvert the 
 established chvirch, and obtain a national endow- 
 ment for their own religion. We have seen that 
 no reason for charging them with any inclina- 
 tion to acquire an endowment for themselves, 
 or to molest that of others, is to be found, in 
 the general spirit of Christianity, in the Catholic 
 religion, in history, in the fair results of self- 
 examination, in the demeanour of the Catholics 
 themselves. We have examined how far the 
 power to gratify this inclination, if they felt it, 
 would be increased by their emancipation. We 
 have seen it would not increase their numbers, 
 their spirit, or cohesion ; that their wealth must 
 continue increasing without emancipation, and 
 that every check to its accumulation was a 
 national calamity. As to the political power 
 they w^ould acquire, we have seen that it would 
 be still inadequate to enable them to carry their 
 supposed object by coercion, and that nothing 
 could be more foolish than to feel any appre-
 
 117 
 
 hensions for what tliey may carry by persuasion, 
 inasmuch as posterity will be better able to 
 decide for themselves than we are. As to the 
 evils of leaving the Catholics in their present 
 state, we have found them to be not remote or 
 contingent, but immediate and inevitiible. We 
 have found them to be, (to speak the words of 
 Mr. Bentham) *' antipathy against the law, an- 
 ** tipathy against the government, a disposition 
 *' to resist it, rebellion and civil war ;" — or if the 
 language of Mr. Peele is to be preferred, " per- 
 *' petual disturbances without precise and defi- 
 " nite objects, a general confederacy in crime, 
 ^* a comprehensive conspiracy in guilt, a system- 
 " atic opposition to all laws and municipal insti- 
 *' tutions." 
 
 These effects of the Catholic penal code are 
 of that palpable and glaring character which 
 force themselves on the notice of the most 
 unthinking ; but it also produces other results 
 which carry on their work of devastation in 
 silence and in secresy, like a pestilence, which 
 follows at the heels of war to consummate the 
 havoc of the sword ; results of which the malig- 
 nant influence is not directed against our fields, 
 our homes, our limbs, but against the noblest 
 qualities of the human soul ; against public 
 generosity, devotion for the public service, dis- 
 interestedness, in fine, against every grand or 
 useful quality which holds a place in the cata- 
 logue of the civic virtues. Should any man
 
 lis 
 
 eiKiuiie for tlic traces of tliese effects, let him 
 seek in Ireland for that universal indignation 
 at individual oppression, that sympathetic spirit 
 ivhicli binds together the whole nation in a 
 common cause with the meanest individual, 
 when a general principle is violated in his 
 person — that enlightened vigilance over the 
 conduct of their rulers, and that devotion to 
 tlie public service which have rendered England 
 what she is, and which at all times secure for 
 her that splendid mass of integrity and talent, 
 which radiating its light and heat above, 
 beneath, and all round, spreads wider and wider 
 every day the sphere of her happiness and 
 renown. I do not say that generous public 
 sentiments are unknown in Ireland, but in 
 comparison with the spirit of England, they 
 more resemble the cold light of a reflected flame 
 tlian the kindling energy of a native fire. What- 
 ever we have of them seems borrowed from the 
 example, exhortation, and intermixture witli 
 our neighbours ; look, for instance, to the insti- 
 tutions for the diffusion of knowledge and 
 useful habits in both countries ; in one they 
 immediately strike their roots into the soil and 
 flourish, while in the other, like exotics in an 
 uncongenial climate, they pine away, or if they 
 grow at all, only yield a sickly and scanty fruit. 
 L.et any man compare the various philanthropic 
 associations, such as I>.ancasteriau schools, ISIe- 
 chanics' institutions, and Savings' banks in both 
 countries, and lie will see with wljat a different
 
 119 
 
 spirit they are conducted. There is wantiikg in 
 this country the disposition, both to aid and to 
 be aided, by this sort of tilings : proceeding from 
 the upper classes of society, often from the 
 immediate members of the executive, they are 
 regarded by our people as the creatures of the 
 government, which they cannot be persuaded 
 has their interest at heart ; they thus share the 
 prejudices which are entertained against the 
 government ; hence the difficulty of persuading 
 the people that public schools are designed for 
 their benefit, and have no sinister object, such as 
 proselytism, in riew ; hence the difficulty of 
 making the respectable classes of the different 
 parties into which Ireland is divided, unite for 
 tVieir establishment on any, even the most 
 unexceptionable principles ; hence the repeated 
 effi)rts which the persons who patronize them 
 are obliged to make to convince the public that 
 tliey have no other objects than those which 
 they profess. The comparative progress of the 
 Savings' banks in both countries, equally illus- 
 trates the difterent spirit of the two countries. 
 T\^or is the disposition to give assistance less 
 affi?cted than the disposition to receive it : tliL' 
 want of confidence amonjj: the lower orders in 
 the proferred beneficence of the wealthy, is 
 insensibly confounded with ingratitude ; the 
 lukewarm do not fail to convert it into an 
 excuse to their conscience for want of zeal. Tiie 
 habit of regarding the bulk of a country as
 
 120 
 
 proper to be sacrificed to their interest and 
 security, imperceptibly, but necessarily con- 
 tracts the sphere of their benevolence : the 
 consequence of teaching them that the interests 
 of the few to which they belong are to be 
 preferred to the good of the many; — carried 
 one gradation further, is to teach them to prefer 
 their own interest to every other. The lessons 
 of selfishness are not wanting to human nature ; 
 we are sufficiently prone to limit our affections 
 to ourselves, and to those objects which even 
 the brutes identify with themselves, without 
 being disciplined into selfishness by the law ; 
 but this is the lesson of the law as it now stands: 
 hence, in no small degree, the notorious venality 
 of the upper classes of the Irish, and hence not 
 a few in every class mock at the very idea of 
 public spirit. I do in my heart believe that 
 there is not as much love of liberty among the 
 influential classes of Ireland, as would be suf- 
 ficient to maintain a free government for one 
 year, without the aid of our English neigh- 
 bours. * 
 
 But let me make a supposition : suppose that 
 
 * I on]y speak of the general tendency of the penal code ; 
 of course there are men in Ireland who have escaped its 
 influence ; there are noblemen and gentlemen in this country 
 ■who would have been an ornament to any counti-y in the 
 world.
 
 121 
 
 1 am wrong in thinking that injury begets 
 resentment — wrong in thinking unappeased 
 resentments ma}'^ break out into rebellions — in 
 thinking that England is exposed, like other 
 nations, to vicissitudes which may render rebel- 
 lions formidable — in thinking a fixed hostility 
 between the people and the government, may 
 be injurious to the public quiet, though it 
 should not break out into organized rebellion — 
 in thinking that this hostiUty produces a bad 
 effect upon the tone of the public mind politi- 
 cally considered; — in a word, let me suppose 
 that the Catholics were to become, to a man, 
 contented with their state, and destitute of all 
 desire for the valuable privileges which are 
 enjoyed by other citizens ; this is surely tlie 
 condition of that body most to be desired, 
 tho7(gh impossible to he expected, by the advo- 
 cates for the perpetuity of the penal code. I 
 ask it of every honest man, is that condition 
 not a great evil ? JNIust it not be considered 
 so by every one avIio is worthy of the freedom 
 he enjoys ? Is it nothing to deprive a class of 
 citizens which comprehends a full fifth of the 
 population of this great empire, and which is 
 mord numerous than the entire population of 
 many kingdoms which have acted no inglorious 
 part on the theatre of modern Europe ; is it no 
 evil to deprive this great portion of the empire 
 of privileges, in defence of which our fathers 
 were proud to shed their blood ? Is liberty but
 
 U2 
 
 a name — a mere theme of declamation among 
 fools and cheats ? Is it a mere imaginary good 
 of which tiie value depends upon the capricious 
 estimation of the man to whom it is imparted, 
 or from whom it is withheld ? No ; it is a 
 tiling of intrinsic worth : it is not a mere theme 
 for declamation amidst fools and knaves, but an 
 inexhaustible source of noble thoughts and 
 manly actions, which cannot otherwise be sup- 
 plied. Security from "foreign levy and domes- 
 tic broil," is a small part of the office of good 
 government ; the formation of the huii^an 
 character — the developement of the great qua- 
 lities of which nature has only given us the 
 germs, are among its ends, not less than tran- 
 quillity at home and security from abroad. It 
 is on their adaptation to this end that free 
 governments found their claim to superiority : 
 by making the high functions of the State the 
 reward of estimation among the men with 
 whom we live, they inspire us with great 
 motives for atchieving the good and the great 
 things by which estimation must be won. They 
 add force to public opinion, both as a stimulant 
 and a check — they increase the value of private 
 character, and thus foster all the virtues of which 
 it is composed : they spread the sovereignty 
 through the body of the nation, and thus diffuse 
 into the public mind not a little of the sustain- 
 ing dignity and pride whicli appertain to sov- 
 reignty. They impart fearlessness to the weak,
 
 123 
 
 and moderation to tlie strong, and to all they 
 communicate that self-respect, that perpetual 
 observance of decorum and decent gravity of 
 demeanour to which the Roman character of 
 old was indebted for its port and stature, and 
 wliich at this day distinguish the " proud 
 Englishman" from all the obsequious and 
 cringing vassals of the rest of Europe. It may 
 happen from the nature of man, and the neces- 
 sities of liis condition, that a few individuals 
 only of a nation sludl be directly susceptible of 
 the higher influence of freedom ; but the ex- 
 ample and exhortation of these few pervade 
 and leaven the entire mass of the community. 
 Is it then no evil to shut out from this elevating 
 influence, four* millions of a kingdom whose 
 population is not six ? Will the morals of 
 the npper classes of the people, so excluded, 
 suffer nothing ? Will they impart nothing of 
 their cliaracter to the corresponding ranks of 
 tlieir more favoured countrymen ; and will 
 nothing gravitate from the higher to the lower 
 orders ? To what pursuit will you direct the 
 energies of the affluent, against whom, by the 
 supposition, the range of public life is to be 
 closed ? To what can they betake tliemselves 
 but to pleasure, to vanity, to the gratification 
 
 * By a recent census it appears that the population of 
 Irelantl is at least seven millions, of which five, at the lowest 
 computation, are Roman Catholics.
 
 124 
 
 of sensual appetite? Will the inheritors of 
 wealth submit to solitude, to study, to self- 
 denial, to days of abstinence and nights of vigil, 
 without a motive to impel, a hope to sustain or 
 cheer them ? Among a people where genius 
 has no honour, where eloquence has no field, 
 where public spirit would be a crime, what 
 could you expect from the nobles and the 
 wealthy ? Would the English universities be 
 thronged with the high-born and affluent, but 
 for the functions to which they are called by 
 the Constitution of the country, and the general 
 value which it has stamped upon intellectual 
 acquirements ? Withdraw these rewards from 
 the exertions of the English and they will 
 subside into the state of apathy, sensuality, and 
 ignorance, in which so large a portion of the 
 rest of Europe is now sunk. The least noxious 
 consequence that it is possible to expect from 
 the Catholic penal code is, that the spirit of the 
 Catholic nobility and gentry should quietly 
 subside into this state — that they should sur- 
 render themselves, without reserve, to the 
 vilifying effects of wealth uncorrected by the 
 ambition which it inspires, and by the high 
 labours for which it encourages and enables us 
 to prepare. Nature has made perpetual occu- 
 pation, of one kind or another, requisite to the 
 moral worth of man. When the restraint which 
 the necessity of earning bread imposes on the 
 passions is removed, we must provide another.
 
 V^6 
 
 A participation in the cares and duties of a 
 free government furnishes this restraint — it is 
 effectual ; no other is. Therefore we find that 
 England has not degenerated in morals,* though 
 she has so much advanced in wealth ; and that 
 the subjects of a despotic government are always 
 immoral unless they are poor. 
 
 I should now conclude, but I cannot refrain 
 from making an observation upon a most extra- 
 ordinary argument with which Mi. Peele winds 
 up his reasoning on the other side of the ques- 
 tion. He conjures the House of Commons, if 
 they entertain a doubt upon this subject, to give 
 the benefit of that doubt to the existing order 
 of things, and to weigh " the substantial bless- 
 ings" which it has conferred upon the country, 
 against the precarious advantages that are pro- 
 mised from a change. On the contrary, I 
 should have thought that if a doubt existed, it 
 should operate on the side of mercy. If a jury 
 were impanneled to enquire whether the prin- 
 ciples which were held by any single individual 
 were such as rendered him unworthy of the 
 privileges of other citizens, the learned judge 
 would tell them, it was the benignant spirit of 
 our laws, that the accused should have the 
 
 * The contrary has sometimes been said, hut \u\ position 
 is, I think, true.
 
 126 
 
 advantage of every doubt wliicli existed of his 
 guilt. 
 
 I do not see why the same wise and benevo- 
 lent maxim should not prevail when the 
 destinies of multitudes are at issue, as well as 
 when we are deciding upon the fate of a single 
 man. Nor do 1 understand why the Legislature 
 should depart in the enactment of a law from 
 the rule which it prescribes to the judge who is 
 to execute it. Neither do I perc^cive why, in 
 investigating the wisdom or justice of an old 
 law, they are to be guided by any other princi- 
 ples tiian those by which they should be directed 
 if they were establishing a new one. It seems 
 to me that there is something j^eculiarly to be 
 lamented in the moral conditition of the man 
 to whom every thing, however ancient, that 
 deals in punishment — every thing which afflicts 
 great bodies of his species — Avhich represses 
 human genius, and dissociates mankind, does 
 not present itself as an evil which is only to be 
 endured upon the most manifest proof of its 
 necessity ; it may be permitted to old age, so 
 often disappointed in search of amelioration, 
 constitutionally timorous, and almost confound- 
 ing with the works of nature, the institutions 
 which it has been familiar with from chiUlhood, 
 to lean towards every thing that can plead time 
 for its continuance, and to presume that what- 
 ever is, (however harsh) is for the best ; but the
 
 H7 
 
 bent of well-constituted youth is quite the other 
 way ; for confidence in human virtue, and pity 
 and benevolence are its attributes, its ornament, 
 and flower, and seem to have been given to it 
 by superior wisdom, that the errors of inexpe- 
 rience might always be in favor of humanity. 
 But what could Mr. Peele mean by talking of 
 the substantial blessings of the country ? Does 
 he mean " the substiintial blessings" of England 
 or of Ireland ? Does he mean that the miseries 
 of fkif country are to be held of no account in 
 the decision of this question, because of the 
 '* substantial blessings " which Fjiigland has 
 enjoyed ? Does he mean that tlie prosperity 
 of England is the only end of Imperial Legis- 
 lation, and when this end is once attained, 
 that it would be rash and presumptuous to 
 expose it to a possibility of hazard by aiming 
 at the prosperity of Ireland ? Does he mean 
 that the happiness of England should console 
 the Irish for their misery ? I should liave 
 tliouglit that when they were united, they 
 contracted "for better and for worse — for pros- 
 perity and adversity," — for participation in 
 the good and evil of their present and futui^ 
 fortunes. I should have considered it a gross 
 violation of their contract that one sliould be 
 made to suffer tlie most intolerable evils to 
 protect the over-abundant happiness of tlie 
 other from the least and remotest hazard. If 
 uninstructed by Mr. Teele, I never should have
 
 128 
 
 thought that it would be honest or manly in 
 the English Parliament, to which, as to the 
 stronger vessel, the happiness of Ireland has 
 been entrusted, to say to her when she com- 
 plains of her condition, "the evils that you 
 endure do not affect me ; / am happy, and / 
 do not wish for change ; although what you 
 propose is necessary for your well being, it will 
 be of no benefit to me. As it can do me no 
 good, and may, by possibility, do me hurt, 1 
 oppose it, be the consequences as they may to 
 you. I value too much the " substantial bless- 
 ings" which I enjoy, to expose them to any 
 risk by endeavouring to communicate them to 
 you. I am determined to abide by " the 
 government which is, for the government that 
 you propose would not add to my prosperity." 
 If the most unprincipled selfishness be wisdom, 
 this argument is profoundly wise ; but sure I 
 am it shocks every vulgar notion of generosity, 
 of decency, of honesty. 
 
 But perhaps I have misunderstood Mr, Peele; 
 perhaps he did not mean that the " substantial 
 blessings" enjoyed by England, should prevent 
 any change for the benefit of Ireland. Perhaps 
 when he spoke of the " substantial blessings" 
 which should induce us to leave Ireland in her 
 present stale, he really meant to say that her 
 condition was very good; "good" is relative, 
 and the treatment which is indifferent for a
 
 human being, may be excellent for a beast. 
 In this sense the condition of Ireland may be 
 very good : considered as mere dogs, as crea- 
 tures below the level of humanity, the treat- 
 ment of the Irish may be esteemed a " sub- 
 stantial blessing;" but if they be regarded as 
 human beings endowed with rational souls — 
 with the same origin and destination as other 
 men — with the same " feelings, passions, and 
 appetites" as the rest of the human race, with 
 virtues to develope and intellect to cultivate, 
 no nation of the world has been, or is in a more 
 miserable condition. There is not at this 
 moment on the face of Europe, not excepting 
 Spain, Italy, or the wildest tracts of Russia, a 
 race of people worse clothed, worse housed, 
 worsed fed than the Irish peasantry — not a 
 race of people who are subject to more contu- 
 mely from the upper orders of society, or thrown 
 into a relation to the government which is more 
 destructive to the human character. This is so 
 notorious in point of fact, however we may 
 differ about the cause, that a foreign writer 
 speaking of our history has said, that " neither 
 the wars of the Barbarians, the descent of the 
 Normans, or the persecutions of Dioclesian, 
 present any thing similar or second." But Mr. 
 Peele calls this state of tilings a " substantial 
 blessing," and makes it an argument for not ad- 
 venturing upon a change. 
 
 I am your very sincere friend, 6cc. 
 Dublin, Feb. 23, 1819. 
 I
 
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