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HOUSE OF LORDS.

May 24. The Duke of Norfolk moved that certain papers be laid upon the table, regarding the residence of the Irish clergy for a series of years, and which had been moved for and agreed to in the other house of parliament. Agreed to.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

CATHOLIC PETITIONS.

May 25. Mr. Sheridan presented a petition from the Roman Catholics of the county of Wexford, praying relief from the civil disabilities to which they are at present exposed, which was ordered to lie on the table. Similar petitions were then presented from the Roman Catholics of Waterford, of the county and city of Kilkenny, of the county of Kerry, by Sir John Newport, Mr. Butler, and Mr. M. Fitzgerald, which were severally ordered to lie on the table.

Mr. Shaw (of Dublin) presented a petition from the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council of the city of Dublin, against the Catholic petition and claims, which was also ordered to lie on the table.

Mr. Grattan then rose and moved, that the petition which he had presented from the Roman Catholics of Ireland be read, which having been read,

Mr. Grattan again rose, and adverting to the petition which

was confirmed by the statute 2d George I. and several subsequent acts, from the defective valuation, is no more than 350!. It was conceived, that, by a fair and regular valuation, which, it is to be observed, the crown was empowered, by law, to make from time to time, as it might deem expedient, this revenue would yield an annual income of above 20,000l. after exonerating from all payment every benefice, with cure of souls annexed, which did not yield to the incumbent an income of at least one hundred and fifty pounds. If thus carried into effect, it would place at the disposal of the trustees (consisting of Archbishops, Bishops, the Lord Chancellor, and other great officers) an annual income so considerable as to place in a few years the church of Ireland in the most respectable state, by the augmentation of the smaller benefices, and with the provisions intended to make part of the bill, could not have pressed with the least severity on any individual -it was to be payable by instalments within four or six years, at the discretion of the trustees-it would not affect the present possessor of any dignity or benefice, and had only a prospective object, of signal advantage to the church establishment, nor would it have affected any incumbent who had a payment to make on account of the erection of any glebe-house. Lane,

had just been read, the number of signatures affixed to it, and to the several other petitions which had been that day laid upon the table upon the same subject, was confident that the house must feel that the petitions contained the sense of the catholics of Ireland. In what he had to say, therefore, on this occasion, he should assume that they spoke the sense of the catholics of Ireland. The petitioners formed a considerable portion of the electors of that house; they possessed political powers; they applied to the constitutional organ for a legitimate object. The prayer of their petition, said the Hon. Gentleman, I will recommend to the spirit of concord, that nothing may be said in the debate, which may sharpen the feelings of the public mind, and that, whatever may be the decision, though the result be not according to that prayer, yet nothing ought to occur in the discussion which may add irritation to disappointment. Those gentlemen who are indisposed to the case of the petitioners, I would recommend not to go back to former times---not to go back to the battle of the Boyne--not to go back to the year 1745---nor to those periods when both parties were engaged in the heat of contests and divisions. If gentlemen will go back to these periods, the catholics will go back also. If you make out your case against them, they will make out their case against you. Then it will be history against history, the man of blood against the man of blood: both parties will remain unreconciled and irreconcileable, whilst the victory will belong to the common enemy of both. You should not now look back to those periods, when oppression and violence were produced by the fury of bigotry, intoxicated with victory. The two nations, in settling their accounts, would have something to admire in each, and much to forget. The course of events render the ceasing of religious animosity fundamentally and absolutely necessary for the very existence of the empire. Whatever difference of opinion there may be, as to the laws which keep up these distinctions, there exists none as to disposition. The good sense of both nations have produced an effect on the spirit of the country, friendly to a more liberal and enlightened system of policy. It was therefore with regret that I had on a late occasion seen written on the walls, about the city, the words, "No Popery." It was

with regret that I saw petitions presented to this house against the claims of the catholics, as if emanating from a fanatical people, devoted to the rancourous bigotry, anxious to proscribe a great portion of their fellow subjects. It is, therefore, with more satisfaction I observed that, on the present occasion, only one petition of that description, (that presented this day by Mr. Shaw) had been produced against the petitions of the catholics. This was a demonstration of the favourable disposition of the public mind. And it would indeed be strange, if the contrary were to have been the case, whilst the government of the country had given such an example of the liberality of its feelings to the catholics. The government has taken catholics into the service of the state-it has established the catholic religion in Canada-it has maintained a close alliance with the catholic power Austria---it has restored the Pope---it has in a recent instance wisely and generously protected the catholic royal family of Portugal in its emigration to the Brazils. In all these, government has acted most wisely. Whilst it planted popery in North America, and South America, government acted upon the soundest policy, and at the same time its conduct shewed the innocence of popery. None of the former connections of this country now remain on the continent --we have now no allies there--it only remained, therefore, for the legislature to provide for the security of the empire, by uniting in closer connection all classes of our own people. The petitioners pray that they may be admitted to all the offices of state, to all the departments of the public service, and to seats in parliament. The act of the 33d of the king, gave to the catholics political power, when it gave them the elective franchise: it gave them admission to all offices, civil, naval, and military, saving some exceptions, about forty in number, and the petitioners now prayed against these exceptions, and applied for admission to all. But before I proceed to consider the prayer of these petitions, I shall first examine some objections which are ordinarily urged against the catholics. It has been objected against them that they acknowledge the temporal power of a foreign potentate, and that they are not bound by the obligation of an oath.

What is this but to say, that those men who constitute a

great portion of the army and navy of this country, are destitute of those principles that are necessary for the preservation of the social compact, and the maintenance of all civil government; that the religion is execrable, and all who profess it unworthy of any rights or privileges whatever? As if the catholic religion was not professed by the greatest proportion of Europe. If the objection be well founded, it will follow that the Christian religion is illusive. The objectors must either give up their objections, or the divinity of the Christian religion. In the year 1791, several questions were proposed to six of the most eminent universities on the continent, on the subject of these objections. The questions were submitted to the universities of Paris, Douay, St. Omers, Alcala, and Salamanca, and answers were, that catholics did not acknowledge the temporal power of the Pope; that they did not believe that the Pope could absolve subjects from their allegiance to their sovereigns; that they did not hold the doctrine that faith was not to be kept with heretics---and that they did not acknowledge in the Pope a temporal or deposing power. These were the answers given by these learned universities, under a feeling of moral indignation, that such doctrines should have been ascribed to catholics.

Whatever may be held as the orthodox doctrine upon the other parts of their religious persuasion, these tenets have been utterly condemned as not forming any part of the catholic faith. The catholics of Ireland, too, have repeatedly renounced these doctrines. By the 13th and 14th of his Majesty, they have abjured the temporal power of the Pope, by the act of 1792, they have likewise abjared that doctrine, and renounced any pretension to the property of Ireland. By the act of the 33d of the king, they also disclaimed the infallibility of the Pope, as forming part of the catholic religion, and under that act too, they swore to maintain the protestant establishment, and the state. There was no moral incompatibility, therefore, between the two religions. But say the objectors, there is a political incompatibility. Let us examine that point. They contend, that the catholic religion is incompatible with a protestant prince, but favourable to a connection with a foreign power; as if the doctrine of transubstan

tiation, and the celebration of the mass, were not consistent with the allegiance to a protestant government. To suppose such a thing would be as great a miracle as transubstantiation itself. There is not, there cannot be, in either, any principle of detachment or attachment. What has taken place in

America, as well as in Europe, proves, that on the continent there has been a silent improvement, a political reform in progressive operation. Such a change as Mr. Payley had in contemplation, when he said, that if the catholics and protestants were left to themselves, without exciting animosity, the catholics would soon acquire the mildness of the protestants. It should be recollected, there has been no protestant combination in America. The American protestants and catholics combined with the French, who were catholics, and the difference of their religious creed never interfered with their vigorous co-operation for their common object. At present this country has no protestant ally, not one upon the continent, except Sweden. On the contrary, protestants and catholics were formed into an Anti-English confederation. If as protestants we cannot find any ally on the continent, were we, by giving ourselves up to the rankness of religious bigotry, to deprive the country of the services of so large a portion of our fellow subjects---to depauperate every efficient branch of the public establishment. By so doing, we shall not give the country fair play. It will inevitably become the victim of the tolerant spirit of the continent, and the religious bigotry of its own government. I shall contend, therefore, there is no political incompatibility with a protestant government in the catholic religion, whilst there is a strong political necessity to unite all classes of the people, by removing all civil disabilities on the score of religion. It is the opinion of the most rational political writers, that tests were symbolical of political sentiments. The opinion is sound as a general proposition, though not perhaps, universally true. As a general proposition, it will not be denied, that all the classes of subjects have a right to equal laws---that the state have a right to the assistance and services of all the talents of its subjects ---that the state has not a right to impose arbitrary tests.

There was a case, however, in which the state was justified

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