Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
An Historical Apology for the Irish Catholics (Author: William Parnell)

section 7

Charles I.

We now approach a period of Irish history, when increased civilization gave a more distinct order, and a clearer light to the transactions of the times.

The records of these days are copious, and may be relied on with certainty; and this copiousness and certainty are entirely in favour of our argument.

We shall still pursue the same arrangement, pointing out the causes which generated rebellion, and distinguishing the effects produced by the injurious treatment of the professors of the Catholic religion, from the influence of the religion itself, until that influence being roused and exasperated by persecution, acquired a force from its continual struggles, which swept before it every obstacle of prejudice and reason, of oppression and law.

Independent of this new influence of religion, which now rapidly encreased, we are to consider, that many previous causes of discontent continued to exist. We are not to omit, the unappeased

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hatred, which the Irish subjects bore to their English conquerors. The injuries done to individuals by confiscations and plantations, particularly those of Ulster. The regrets of the descendants of the Irish chieftains for the loss of their principalities, and the ever wakeful ambition of the house of O'Neil. The more effect these causes had in producing the succeeding rebellion, the less must be ascribed to the Catholic religion.

That these causes had a principal effect, and produced the rebellion of 1641, though they did not entirely supply its force, is very clear, from the following account of its commencement, extracted from Leland:
Roger Moor, was the head of that powerful family who had possessed the dynasty of Leix, now called the Queen's county. They were his ancestors, who in the reign of Mary, had been expelled from their princely possessions, by violence and fraud; the sept had been almost exterminated by military execution. Those that remained, were distinguished by an hereditary hatred of the English. In the progress of an obstinate contest, they had re-possessed themselves of a great part of the territories, and fought under the O'Moor, of Elizabeth's reign, with great resolution and perseverance, but were ultimately defeated, and again driven from their possessions.

Roger O'Moor possessed all the qualities of the heroic, character, talents, promptitude, courage, and love of his country; his person was remarkably

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graceful, his aspect dignified, his manners courteous. The old Irish beheld the gallant representative of one of their kings with an extravagance of rapture and affection, and stimulated his spirit by the expectations they attached to him. It was a proverbial expression ‘Our dependence is on God, our Lady and Roger O'Moor.’ He was tenderly attached to young O'Neil, the son of the great Hugh O'Neil; with him he dwelt on the calamities of their fathers, their brave efforts in the cause of their countrymen, and the hopes of still reviving the ancient splendor of their families. With such interests to nerve his purpose, with such passions to fire his imagination, is there any necessity to suppose, that religious bigotry was his inducement, to devote himself to one brave effort for the independence of his country.

It was upon the same feelings he relied, for gaining associates; he spoke to the Ulster Irish, of the severities inflicted on them by Elizabeth, and of the plunder of their property by James.

To Mac Guire, whose father was chieftain of Fermanagh, he represented the ancient power and splendor of his family, pathetically lamented his present difficulties, and pointed bis anger against the English, who had despoiled the old and rightful possessors of the island, and planted a race of aliens and foreigners on their property. With the same representation he wrought upon Mac Mahon, Reily,

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Byrne,14 Tyrlogh, and Phelim O'Neil, whose ancestors had, within a no very distant date, been possessed of sovereign power.

These were the men who planned, these the motives that urged and stimulated the country to rebellion; whatever access it afterwards received from different causes, these must be considered as the principal, from these, and these alone, it began; had these not existed, it is problematical, whether the rebellion itself would ever have existed.

Another material cause of the rebellion, which had no connection with religion, was Lord Stafford's resumption of the plan for confiscating the province of Connaught.

The unfortunate landed proprietors had already twice purchased their titles from the crown, yet Stafford did not hesitate to outrage every feeling of humanity, and every rule of justice, by subverting them a third time.

This transaction may not perhaps be the most infamous that ever occurred, but certainly the most infamous act of oppression, that was ever perpetrated by a plea of law, under the sanction of juries. It is uncomfortable to dwell on so abominable an outrage, it is sufficient to observe, that it was in part carried

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by violence, by fining the sheriffs, imprisoning jurors, and fining them to the amount of 4000l. each, by the terrors of Star Chamber, and the presence of the Lord Deputy; yet in the end, the haughty and intemperate spirit of Stafford was forced to bend to the tempest he himself had raised, and the apprehension of a rebellion put a stop to the project.

The king deduced his claim from an aera so distant as the reign of Henry the third, and when we consider that the attempt had now been thrice repeated, and that upon pretences equally antiquated, the property of the O'Byrnes in Wicklow had lately been confiscated; we must not be surprised, that none of the Irish, or old English, felt secure in their possessions.

Let us now consider, how far religion may be considered as a cause of the rebellion.

We have already seen that in James's reign the Catholic religion had assumed a very decided influence on men's minds; in Charles's reign, this continued to encrease; in both reigns it was adverse to the government. In James's reign, we proved, that this arose from the injuries sustained by the professors of that faith, not from the faith itself; let us see if there are any grounds to support the same conclusion during the reign of Charles.

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The first important injustice which tended to alienate the minds of the Roman Catholics, was the perfidy of Charles, with regard to the celebrated Graces. The Catholics15 had offered to pay one hundred and twenty thousand pounds for the enactment of certain laws, for the security of toleration, property, and equitable justice; the king accepted their offer, and gave his royal promise, that these laws should be passed. He took their money, and broke his word in the most cruel and insulting manner; and not one of these graces, though they were so reasonable and wise, that the monarch ought to have been obliged to the subject for suggesting them, was ever granted.

Thus, in addition to the indignation which the Catholics already felt, on account of the penal laws, was added, resentment for the loss of their money, and that bitter vexation, which is always felt by persons conscious of having been duped.

The Catholics felt this treatment more sensibly, because, from the supposed partiality of Charles, to the Popish religion, they had expected protection, countenance, and favour.

Charles, with that policy, at the same time ungenerous and fruitless, which is ever the resource of tottering power, sacrificed his friends, in hopes of

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appeasing his enemies. The new English and the Puritans in Ireland, were courted and advanced to every office of trust, while the old English, (mostly Catholics,) who had been in the habit of influencing every affair of moment, were driven from the court with every expression of contumely and contempt. The invidious fine on Catholics, for not frequenting Church on Sundays, was perpetually threatened to be imposed, and at length was made a source of revenue, and was commuted by Lord Stafford, for the sum of 20,000l. Still more unfortunately, Sir William Parsons was appointed Lord Chief Justice, and the Catholics could no longer entertain any doubt, but that the Puritans would acquire the same ascendancy in Ireland, which they had already done in England.

To calculate the impression which this conviction must have produced on the minds of Catholics, we ought to look back to the language held by the Puritans of those days, and the sentiments they avowed, when speaking of the Catholics; the insolence of political superiority intoxicated them, the pride of fanaticism hardened their hearts; their power was commensurate with their hate; with one hand they signed the law, with the other they raised the sword that was to exterminate the Papists, whom they called bloody.

All this time, while the English government prepared the ground, the court of Rome was industriously sowing the seeds of rebellion.

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Jesuits and priests were sent from Spain and Rome, who knew how to turn these preposterous mistakes of government, to the best account; they knew how to enflame men's passions by their pride, how to mould their opinions by their interests, and how to urge religion to fanaticism, by the sharp incentive of injuries and insults. Hence the Catholic religion, which in Ireland had till now been characterised by a native mildness, a spirit of toleration, and a composure peculiar to old establishments, acquired an illiberal, enthusiastic, and sanguinary spirit.

Yet, so difficult is it even for oppression to eradicate from men's minds, the habits of loyalty and submission to government, that the religious principle appears to have had little influence in originating the rebellion. Even when the stronger feelings of injured interest, and outraged pride, had urged the native Irish to take up arms, the Catholics of the pale advanced forward in support of government. They were received with a severe suspicion, by the puritan chief justice; and instead of being as of old, looked up to as the solid support of government, (which probably would have made them continue so) a very scanty supply of arms was delivered to them. At length, on the progress of the rebellion, they were entirely deprived of arms.

This was the full measure of folly, and completed that series of insults and injuries, which

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broke the strong bands of habitual loyalty which had hitherto attached the Catholics of the pale to the English government, with a fidelity that had never been suspected through five successive reigns.

The Catholic lords and gentlemen of the pale, when their loyalty was made incompatible with their honour, reluctantly had recourse to resistance, and sooner than surrender their arms, turned them against the government.16

The Catholics of the pale hitherto the most determined enemies of the native Irish, now joined in their rebellion.

This is the event with which the train of our argument closes.

Before this it is impossible to call the rebellions of the Irish, Catholic rebellions, when they were in fact principally opposed by Catholics; but after this it would be idle to deny that Catholic bigotry had a very large share in exciting and prolonging the rebellions

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in Ireland. That writer would be an injudicious defender of the Catholics, who should deny the fact; when perhaps there is not a more lamentable instance of the weakness of the human mind, when subservient to religious bigotry, than the absurdity and intemperance with which the Catholics acted when they surrendered their interests to the influence of the Nuncio Ranuncini, and in fact sold their country to the Pope.

But if it is certain that the Catholics became bigots and rebels, it is no less certain that their bigotry and rebellions arose entirely from the injuries and insults inflicted on them; and if we have made this clear so far, it is unnecessary to carry the argument further, as this persecution was encreased to a degree which future ages will scarcely believe, or believing, will wonder how it could be born.

To the Protestants these arguments are addressed, and if they have no other effect than to make them re-consider the policy of maintaining the present political inferiority of the Catholics, they will not have been urged in vain.

In our anxiety to produce conviction, we have already been guilty of too much repetition. Instead, therefore, of recapitulating our arguments, we will take a short view of the impolicy of continuing the present restrictions, and briefly state their practical effect.

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We will not argue the question of right. In this age of mere mercantile feelings, to speak from the heart, is not to speak to the head; we must prove the Catholic restrictions to be a losing speculation, or we prove nothing.

At this present moment, the whole soul of England is bent on reducing the power of the French within reasonable bounds. For this they are profuse of their blood, and their very means of subsistence; yet to this they will not sacrifice their bigotry. If England had possessed any day these last three months, a disposable army of 60,000 men, to act on the continent; she might have struck a decisive blow; she might have destroyed Boulogne, she might easily have become mistress of Italy; or she might have hung upon the whole line of French dominion, and held those armies in suspense, which now pour into Poland with such uninterrupted celerity. Yet double this force might have been raised in Ireland, if the minds of its inhabitants had been conciliated by a constitutional grant of civil and religious freedom.

At present, the Roman Catholic peasantry enlist with the greatest reluctance, because government sets their religious faith, and their military duty, at variance, and the circumstance of there being no Catholic officers in the army, destroys that inclination

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to enlist, which always arises from serving under officers of the same sect as themselves. The same injudicious intolerance makes the peasantry disaffected; what follows: you cannot trust in the militia, for they are Catholics. The yeomanry are too few in numbers; and as they, from the same infection of intolerance, are partisans, in calling in their aid, you run the risk of exciting a civil war.

You are forced then, in order to prevent the bad effects of your system of government, to bring an army from England. Then comes the fear of invasion, and your difficulties multiply an hundred fold. You want an additional army to keep down the peasantry, you want an army to awe the militia, you want an army to restrain the intemperate zeal of the yeomanry, you want an army to oppose the enemy. This is no very inaccurate statement of the military necessities of the English government in Ireland, which arise entirely from the want of wisdom in their political measures. An army without any facility of recruiting; a people for your enemy; a militia that you place no confidence in; a yeomanry whose very assistance is accompanied with the risk of injuring you; and a foreign enemy, ready to take the first opportunity of turning your mistakes to his own profit.

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But for a moment reverse your measures; treat the Protestants and Catholics without any discrimination, assuage the wounded pride of the country, by some modification of the union, and the hearts of the Irish, naturally loyal and affectionate, will yield with delight to the sentiments of zeal and duty towards the government.

Who, that sympathised in the expansion of honest gratulation which broke forth on the Duke of Bedford's arrival in Ireland, can doubt it!

What would be the effect, the yeomanry strengthened by the accession of all the wealthy, and more respectable Catholics, and without any apprehension of internal insurrection, would be quite sufficient to defend the country from any sudden invasion, on a small scale. The militia might be sent on foreign service, together with the English army, at present locked up in Ireland, or kept in England from the apprehension of danger in Ireland.

The recruiting service, assisted with the influence of Catholic officers, would go on with rapidity, and produce an annual supply, far beyond what is imagined. By these means, an army of at least 60,000 men might be made disposable, and be brought to act against the most vulnerable parts of the French empire, let its losses be ever so great, the means of recruiting it would be nearly inexhaustible; and it is no great presumption, after what we have seen

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done by a combined army of Irish and English at Egypt, and at Maida, to say, that it would consist of the bravest, and most formidable troops in, Europe.

To this desirable and decisive increase in national strength, there is but the one obstacle, a kind of nursery terror of the Pope, which still clings to our maturer reason.

It is by the extreme of this terror that our opponents are blinded, or they would perceive that we have the same object in view with them, only that we pursue it by very different means.

They wish to secure the forfeited properties to their present owners; so do we. They wish to put an end to Catholic rebellions; so do we. They wish to curb the bigotry and intolerance of the Catholic religion; so do we. What means have they adopted to effect this purpose, and have they succeeded? No. Why then should you be so averse to try an opposite mode of proceeding?

You were possessed of every instrument of influence, of restriction, of terror, and you made ample use of them; yet the Roman Catholics, like the Israelites of old, multiplied under the oppression of their task-masters. If interest has failed to gain one single convert from the most corrupt of the Roman Catholics, the desire of political importance from the most ambitious, fear from the most timid, certainly

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the severe and disqualifying system is radically wrong. On the contrary, it has become a received axiom in modern policy, that sects gain force and numbers by being stigmatized and oppressed, but by being assimilated and adopted by government, their union is relaxed, and their numbers diminished. Voltaire was a deist, his testimony must, therefore, be considered as impartial; Mrs. Barbauld is a dissenter, her evidence is the confession of an enemy.17 Both agree that sects only flourish from the distinctive marks and disqualifications which governments attach to them, because no honourable man would quit a discountenanced sect, as his desertion would not be supposed to arise from a change of opinion, but from motives of fear or mean interestedness. But when nothing is lost by remaining attached to a sect, and nothing gained by quitting it, its adherents will listen to persuasion, or will yield to fashion, and will naturally adopt that form of religion which is most consonant to truth, or most suitable to the manners of the world.

In this age when scepticism is affected as a mark of talents, and religious policy enters very little into the usual intercourse of the world, even the Protestant religion, divested of many aukward articles of faith, and of all the rigour of church discipline, is lamentably on the decline. We cannot suppose that the doctrines and ceremonies of the Catholic religion

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are more consonant with reason, or more agreeable to the strong impulse of manners; surely, then, its flourishing state must be the effect of the political causes to which it is subjected; of that irritation which prevents indifference; of those distinctions which make adherence amenable to public opinion; of those privations which make apostacy base.

The present union and formidable dimension of the Catholic body, arise from the injudicious repulsion of government; as a political party, they could never hold together merely by their own weak attraction.

What can be a stronger proof of the truth of this reasoning, than the fluctuation of religious zeal in France. The Roman Catholic religion had there been long established under the monarchy, and had gradually dwindled into a mere state ceremonial. Persecuted, during the violence of the revolution, it recovered the enthusiasm of primitive Christianity; tolerated under the consulate, its zeal abated. Once more established under the imperial house, it has ceased to be an object of interest, and the churches are once more abandoned.18

It is not from the efforts of the established church, from its charter-schools, and the aid of penal laws, that the Catholics have any reason to apprehend a diminution of numbers, but from a sect, and that

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sect the methodists. A very obvious fact will sometimes remain unnoticed, and yet when once pointed out, will be generally acknowledged. This we imagine to be the case with the hitherto unnoticed progress the Methodists are making in Ireland against the Roman Catholic religion. Their eloquence, their zeal, and astonishing industry in employing the most minute means to propagate their tenets; above all the judicious use they make of the power of the press, has produced an impression which has evidently alarmed the Catholic priesthood. We are very doubtful whether it is an event to be wished: whether the Catholic religion is not better adapted to the cheerful temper of the Irish peasantry, than the proud and sullen spirit of methodism; yet we have not the least doubt, that if the Catholic clergy were paid by government, and if the practice and principle of religious restrictions were abandoned, in the course of a few years, a very large portion of the Irish peasantry would be converted to methodism.

At present, the methodists only succeed in cutting off supplies from the established church, and have reduced it to an insignificance, which, compared with its revenues, is quite ridiculous.

What then, in the name of consistency, can make the enemies of popery so violent in their opposition to the only measures which can check the influence of the Catholic religion? That which will ever make the opinion of the multitude an absurd one,

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on abstruse subjects; the want of capacity and inclination to examine farther than the apparent effects of circumstances; which makes them believe, that scarcity is the effect of regrators and monopolists; that protecting duties bring home-manufactories to perfection; that the sun revolves round the earth, or any error which it requires a chain of reasoning to refute.

But whence can arise the Opposition of government to the emancipation of the Catholics? are we seriously to be referred to his Majesty's coronation oath, to his Majesty's scruples of conscience!

There is at least as much truth in the maxim that the King never dies, as that the King can do no wrong; and if the former means any thing, it is that the constitution solely regards the King in a political, never in a personal light: his life is a political life, and knows no dissolution; his acts are considered only as acts of state, for which, not the King, but ministers are responsible; his oath is not his own personally, he is not responsible even for its violation, but his ministers are; it is an act of state, it is a pledge given to the legislature; the performance of which they only can exact, they only can remit, and which an act of theirs clearly can remit.

There has been of late years, a great, an alarming, and a treasonable inroad made upon the constitution, by a set of men, who perpetually introduce

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the idea of the King's personality; of which the wisdom of our constitution has foreseen the danger, and has guarded against it with the most anxious care. For, if that fatal hour shall ever come when the King of England shall be the leader of a party —when he shall be nominally King, and virtually minister—when to the prerogative of the veto, he shall add the power of the initiative—that sacred fiction, that the King can do no wrong, will gradually disappear before the force of imperious circumstances, and responsibility will gradually attach itself to the idea and the person of the King.

This revolution we believe to be far, very far distant; nor are we of that class of alarmists who instantly believe the existence of whatever they apprehend. But foreseeing the calamities that would flow from such a change, we cannot think ourselves too anxious in protesting against the too frequent introduction of the idea of the King's private feelings and interference on great political questions.

We shall, therefore, with more decency and more in the spirit of the constitution, consider only the scruples of conscience which may arise in the breasts of his Majesty's ministers, or the two houses of Parliament, from any inconsistency between the coronation oath, and the repeal of the restrictions on the Roman Catholics.

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There appears nothing in the literal sense of the oath hostile to the removal of any religious disqualifications imposed upon any sect, when they are found to be detrimental to the empire. But as words may be construed into almost any meaning, we will not stand upon these grounds; but suppose that Catholic emancipation is inconsistent with the tenor of the coronation oath.

We will now ask, can any obligation, any oath be valid in the eye of religion and morality, which is grounded on a violation of an engagement more solemn and sacred? There can be no doubt of the reply: Certainly not.

Then we ask, how can the government plead the coronation oath to perpetuate measures that were enacted in violation of the solemn treaty of Limerick?

That treaty remains a monument of the most flagrant perfidy that ever disgraced a nation; upon the faith of it, the Irish Catholics gave up that power and influence, which you neither will, nor can restore to them. And till that treaty is fulfilled in its most liberal sense, no ingenuity can remove the stain of deliberate perjury from the character of the English nation.

Surely it is a conscience which will strain at gnats and yet swallow camels, which stickles for an oath of ceremony, doubtful even in the meaning, of the

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animus imponentis; and yet will be content to violate a compact so important as the treaty of Limerick, for which you have received your consideration, and on which millions rested their confidence and their interests.

Surely, the conscience of ministers might be affected by the violation of those pledges given to the Catholics at the time of the Union, (it signifies not whether expressed or implied) surely they might feel compunction at betraying a nation to dishonour, and then with-holding from her the paltry recompense that bribed her to her disgrace.

The men who perpetuate a crime, commit it; and as long as the present or any ministry continue the restrictions on the Irish Roman Catholics, they are deeply responsible for a gross and dishonoraole breach of common faith and honesty. It is in vain they attempt to shelter themselves under the plea of the King's personal feelings. It will not be readily supposed that his Majesty, whose principal glory will hereafter rest on the repeal he has made of the severer penal statutes in Ireland, who has seen the happiest effects, in promoting wealth, and the security of property, flow from that repeal, it will not be readily supposed that he can be actuated by the illiberal spirit which his self-named friends, but real enemies, charge to his account.19

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Though we are not inclined in general to violent measures, yet we think that impeachment and imprisonment in the Tower, would be too gentle a punishment for those secret advisers who have not only unhinged the most delicate springs of the constitution to serve their private views, but have done their best to cast obloquy and contempt on the name of the King—a name which ought never to be compromised on any topic whatever—ought never to be exposed to the common handling of public disquisition.

With what flagrant and impudent misrepresentations must these men have poisoned the King's ear, if they have succeeded in making him perversely hostile to the Irish Roman Catholics—a body of men who (let Protestant bigots say what they will) have the strongest devotion and attachment not only to his Majesty's political, but to his personal character, and who would set a value on his Majesty's countenance and favour, only inferior to that which they would attach to the benignity of their God.20

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We are anxious before we conclude, to give the public the means to form a just estimate of the hardship of the privations which the Irish Catholics experience, the extent of which is not generally understood, and from the supposed insignificance of which, an argument is sometimes drawn against their repeal.

The Catholics, by being excluded from all offices of trust and emolument, lose all political consequence in the country; so that a Protestant of seven hundred a year is more looked up to than a Catholic of seven thousand a year.

By being excluded from sitting in Parliament, they are deprived of the most precious and most effective guarantee of civil liberty.

This disqualification, in fact, shuts them out from the subordinate offices which the law permits them to hold; for all these are placed more or less at the disposal of the Irish members of Parliament, in order to secure their attachment to ministers.

Thus Catholics, through the greater part of Ireland, are still virtually excluded from the offices of Justice of Peace, and Grand Juror; and where they are admitted, it is because they have a sufficient

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number of votes to be an object to the county member.

A gentleman's consequence in Ireland consists very much at present in being a Justice of the Peace, a Grand Juror, and a Captain of a yeoman corps. From these situations the Catholics are, for the most part, in fact excluded, and in consequence exist in a very painful degree of insignificance.

From the same cause the middling class of Roman Catholics are excluded from the very desirable employments of the revenue, the excise, and all petty municipal offices. So complete is the monopoly of civil employments in Ireland, that to be a Protestant is almost sufficient to be secure of a competence.

But the Catholics may have recourse to trade. It is true; but under great comparative disadvantages. They are excluded from all corporations, and are debarred by law from being Directors of the Bank.

It is very plain that this oppressive restriction, subversive of the freedom of trade as well as of civil liberty, must have a very pernicious effect on the industry of the Catholics; and if Catholic tradesmen and artizans should be found more addicted to idle and irregular habits than the Protestants, it may fairly be ascribed to this very intelligible cause, rather than to the nature of their religion.

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Another immediate injury, which the present penal statutes inflict on the Catholics, is a great insecurity of property and person, and extreme uncertainty of redress from the laws of their country.

Catholics cannot be Sheriffs, or Sub-sheriffs; Juries are of course Protestant, and on any trial, where party feelings can interfere, a Catholic is generally judged unfairly.

It is grown into a proverb among the common people in Ireland, that there is no law for a Catholic.

But a still more vexatious train of injuries flow from the influence which these penal statutes have in forming habits and opinions inimical to the Catholics.

Government in fact, is the great leader of the ton, and its caprices and absurdities are adopted by the public, with all the rage and servility of fashion.

The English government manifest by their tenaciousness of the penal laws, that they mistrust and dislike the Catholics.

First come the Bank Directors of Ireland, who, not having the good sense to feel, that as their profession is naturally sordid and selfish, it ought to be counteracted by liberality of sentiment, pass a law,

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that no Catholic shall be employed in any office belonging to the Bank, the number of which is very considerable.

Protestant families will not in general take Catholic servants, every news-paper contains advertisements for servants; signifying, that they must not be Catholics.

In yeoman corps, with very few exceptions, no Catholics are admitted.

Upon the last rebellion, the principal Roman Catholics in Dublin, were anxious to enrol themselves in yeoman corps; they were black-beaned to a man, by the merchant's corps, and in general by all others, and were only admitted into the lawyer's corps.

In the country corps of yeomanry, the bigotry of the captains generally excludes Catholics, and even when the captains would wish, for the appearance of their corps, to mix a few stout comely Catholics in it, the bigotry of the privates interferes to prevent it; as in most instances, they would resign to a man, if such a measure was persisted in.

In many towns of Ireland, there are convivial societies, among whom it is a rule to exclude all Catholics.

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In many counties, Protestants will not visit a Catholic, and it is the fashion to speak of them in the most injurious and degrading terms.

Yet the Irish Protestants are not so much to be blamed for these ridiculous and disgraceful habits of domestic dissention; they suffered in fact much by a rebellion which they imagined sprung from Catholic bigotry. They suffered still more in apprehension.

They were too much under the influence of alarm to enquire calmly into the causes of the insurrection, or to consider that a popular commotion, excited by contumely, could not be appeased by a continuance of injurious usage.

But the British cabinet, safe and at a distance, cannot reasonably urge the danger of the present moment, as an excuse for continuing a system of insult towards the Catholics, blind to all its future consequences.

We may disapprove, yet we may still view with some scruples of allowance, the institution of Orange Lodges, those great political blunders of the Protestant gentry. But the government cannot be excused for countenancing the public celebration of the 1st, and 12th of July, and the 4th of November; which every year give rise to the most fatal outrages on the part of the Protestants; which are notoriously

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intended by the one party, and felt by the other, as a parade of insulting domination.

It requires no great spirit of prophecy to foretel, that if the English cabinet go on preparing every year, more materials for a civil war in Ireland, the public celebration of one of those days, will afford the trifling cause, the little spark, which is ever wanting to make the train of mischief explode.21

Will the English cabinet never perceive the important circumstances on which all political events are now turning?

Will they not open their eyes to that incalculable encrease of personal pride, which has taken place in the British islands?

Can they not see that every effort of modern habits, is directed to the gratification of pride and vanity; and to secure, under some shape or other, the esteem and regard of society?

Will they never abandon those Scotch principles of policy, which only regard the vulgar interests of men, and neglect the feelings of the human mind, to which the strongest interest is after all entirely subservient?

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Of what value is wealth, and all the principles of economy on which it is supported, but as it assists the gratification of personal pride.

What kind of policy then is this, which would scruple to plunder the Roman Catholics of their wealth, which is of no value, but as a means to gratify their personal pride, and yet will not hesitate to make a direct attack on that personal pride in its most delicate and most irritable organs?

If there is a political maxim established by experience, it is, that it is safer to injure men in their interests, than to wound their pride.

The most disagreeable circumstances which the Catholics are exposed to, are these testimonies of contempt inflicted on them by their fellow-countrymen, which would not take place, did not the government of the country declare the Catholics to have forfeited its sympathy, and to be unworthy of its confidence.

You may say, that this want of confidence is merely nominal, that government in fact, places as much confidence in Catholic soldiers and sailors, as in Protestants.

Allow, (which is not the case,) that this want of confidence is merely nominal, still when a government calls names, whether good or bad, they become in fact, very grave realities.

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Government calls a man a lord. This is only a name; but do not the most substantial effects of consequence and superiority flow from it?

But the reverse of any proposition that is true, is true also in the reverse; and if government, by attaching nominal honours to men, really invests them with superiority and grandeur; so by attaching nominal dishonours to men, it stamps upon them inferiority and disgrace.

It is not, therefore, for the sake of political emoluments alone, (though these are fair objects of honorable ambition) it is not merely to represent the insignificance of their country in parliament, that the Catholics look for an equality with the Protestants; this is not the emancipation which informs them with one soul, one interest, one purpose; what they may not, what they will not resign, is an emancipation from national contempt, from public ignominy, from domestic depredation.

A Catholic suffers the three most poignant feelings, that can touch the human heart.

The government of his country passes a vote of censure on him.

His fellow-citizen expresses his contempt for him, and expresses it with impunity.

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The child of his affection blushes for him, and mourns for himself, when he learns that he necessarily inherits from his father a blot and a reproach, which no private virtues, or mental endowments, can obliterate or conceal.

How can we torture with this refined barbarity?

Do not we shrink back at the sight of a limb being cut off, and feel it in our own marrow Can we not feel, because the sufferer is a Catholic?

O hearts of barbarians, of zealots, of Protestants! the flames which made the name of Bonner accursed: the hideous night of St. Bartholomew are not so great a disgrace to the character of man, as your cold contriving bigotry.

They at least had the excuse, the varnish of religious feeling; they sprung not from selfishness, but from a visitation of fanaticism, as inscrutible as physical insanity. These men merely made a mistake; they worshipped a demon, and thought him God.

But you, with perfect possession of your faculties, with a calm pulse, and minds unaffected by the slightest emotion, perpetuate statutes, to gall the best and most honourable feelings of many millions of men, whose sensations of pleasure and pain are exactly of the same nature with those from which your own happiness or misery is derived.

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The Catholics can feel; and do suffer.

The very peasantry acutely feel the stigma cast by government upon their sect and their religion. The lowest order even suffer most. The wealthy Catholics acquire a degree of consideration and legal security from their property, but the peasantry are left naked to the pelting of the storm, to all the jibes and jobs of Protestant ascendancy.

Not only a Protestant lord looks down upon a Catholic lord, and a Protestant gentleman on a Catholic gentleman, but a Protestant peasant on a Catholic peasant; and in proportion as the degrading scale descends, the expression of contempt becomes more marked and gross.

Now, let any man say, can such disqualifications be perpetuated with justice or humanity; or can they be born with patience?

Can we then find too strong terms to expose to Europe, every where else enlightened and liberal, the dull and malignant conduct of the Irish and English Protestants.

Can we find words to express our astonishment, that the English cabinet should become an echo, not to ravings of Bedlam, but to a cento of every thing that is gross, vulgar, and perverse; Dublin guilds, common council-men, aldermen, corporations; fat fools, that have been hitherto non-descripts

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in the classes of science, literature, and good sense.

Can we too warmly deprecate the disingenuousness with which every variety of rebellion in Ireland is attributed to the Catholic religion, without ever taking into consideration, the injustice with which the professors of that religion have been treated?

The Protestants, in their terror of persecution, have become persecutors; their alarm at Catholic atrocities, has made them atrocious; to hear them speak, one would imagine that they had been the patient and uncomplaining sufferers, from the reign of William till George the Third; that they had born this long and cruel test of loyal resignation; that they had been deprived of property, of arms, of every legal and honourable right.

No, it is not suffering, but it is power, it is the pride of artificial ascendancy, it is the jealousy of exclusive privilege, that corrupts the understanding, and hardens the heart.

The ridicule of this outcry, which the Protestants make against the Catholics, at the very time they oppress them; and indeed our whole train of argument, cannot be better illustrated, than by an old fable and moral, which we make no apology for delivering in the very words of Sir R. L'Estrange.

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