introduce and make common cause with the the Almighty. Let bigots rail, let polemics revile, let headlong zealots vociferate, but the parochial clergy of Munster will agree with me, that licentiousness should be confined to the human species, and that the majesty of the Godhead should remain inviolate. What, is there nothing in our religion, nothing in its external, nothing in its internal evidence, nothing in its miracles, prophecies, propagation, doctrine, and diction, to raise its author above the possibility of being affected by the paper war, and wretched controversy, in which some idle ecclesiastics may have involved themselves? He has prevailed against greater enemies, the pride of the high priest, the servility of the bishop. But it should seem that it was not religion which supported the parson, but the parson that supported religion. The error, however, is natural and common; the politician thinks the state rests on his shoulders; and the dignified divine imagines the church and the Christian religion, the firmament and starry sphere to dance round his person and property. It is a matter of curiosity to know what, on the present occasion, has endangered the Christian religion; an anonymous pamphlet against tithe, and a motion to enquire into the sufferings of the poor; for this is the Godhead brought out from his shrine, and exposed as an outwork in defence of church property. However, if their religion is so connected with every step they take, they have the remedy within themselves; let them agree to such acts as will benefit the community; or let them cease to oppose every act that has a tendency to relieve or to enquire. Once more I offer a public enquiry; I solicit once more redress for the peasantry of this country. I offer a bill appointing commissioners for that salutary purpose....Do the clergy of Munster decline the offer? What, are they afraid of an enquiry? Will they shelter themselves under a court? Have they come forth with a manifesto, and do they now deprecate an examination? Once more I offer it, and I add, that if this bill should pass, and commissioners should be appointed, the clergy will be made sensible that we are friends to the provision of the church, as well as to the relief of the people.

No. LXXXIV.

DECLARATION OF THE CATHOLIC SOCIETY OF DUBLIN...P. 304.

Dublin, October 21st, 1791.

IN the present enlightened and improved period of society, it is not for the Irish Roman Catholics alone to continue silent. Not accused of any crime; not conscious of any delinquency, they suffer a privation of rights and conveniences, the penalty reserved in wise states for offences of atrocious magnitude. It does not become them, whilst with liberality ever to be gratefully remembered, many descriptions of their fellow-citizens compassionate their situation, to seem indifferent to the desirable, and they hope, not distant event of their emancipation. They wish to ascertain upon what terms they may venture to settle in a country, which they love with the rational preference of men, not the simplicity of puerile acquiescence. It is not for the Irish Catholics, armed as their cause is with reason and justice, like public foes to seek advantage from public calamity. They ought to advance their claim at a time most favourable to discussion, when the condition of the empire is flourishing and tranquil. They might seem culpable to their country, if affecting to dissemble what it were unmanly not to feel, they reserved their pretensions in ambuscade to augment the perplexities of some critical emergency. They would be culpable to posterity, if they omitted to profit of the general inclination of public sentiment. They would be culpable to themselves, if they suf fered an imputation to subsist, that in the extent of the British territory, they alone submit without repining, to a mortifying and oppressive bondage, degrading to themselves, and pernicious to their country. They conceive, that in the present state of things, their silence might be received as evidence of such dispositions.

Influenced by these considerations, and instructed by a recent transaction, that although laws may be shameful and preposterous; for even in a philosophic age there will be bigots and tyrants, where the votaries of freedom are most sanguine. A number of Roman Catholics, resident in Dublin, have formed themselves into a society, which they invite their fellow sufferers throughout the nation to unite with, which shall have for its object to consider, and individually to support with all their zeal and personal influence, such measures, not inconsistent

with their duty to the civil magistrate, as shall appear likely to relieve them from the oppressions and disqualifications imposed in this country on persons professing the Roman Catholic religion. We therefore do unanimously resolve,

That we will, to the utmost of our power, endeavour, by all legal and constitutional means, to procure the repeal of the laws by which we are aggrieved, as Roman Catholics. That we will promote repeated application to every branch of the legislature for that purpose; and assist such application by all means of legal influence, which it shall at any time be possible for us to exert.

It would be tedious, it might be disgusting, to recount each individual grievance under which we suffer. The Roman Catholics seem preserved in this land but as a source of revenue. The whole legislative, the whole executive, the whole judicial powers of the state, are in the hands of men, over whom they have no control; and with whom they can have little intercourse. They are prohibited to engage in any mode of industry from which it is possible to debar them, or which is worth the monopoly. They are restricted in the education of their children. As conscientious we cannot lightly abandon our religion, as prudent men we hesitate to engage in controversial study; the wisest have been bewildered in such pursuits, and they are for the most part incompatible with our necessary occupations. Nor is there any moral advantage held out as an inducement to change our creed: it is not pretended that we should become better men, or more dutiful subjects, but merely experimentalists in religion seek to gratify their caprice by forcing us from our habits of education into the perplexing labyrinth of theology.

The liberty of Ireland to those of our communion is calamity, and their misfortunes seem likely to encrease, as the country shall improve in prosperity and freedom. They may look with envy to the subjects of an arbitrary monarch, and contrast that government, in which one great tyrant ravages the land, with the thousand inferior despots whom at every instant they must encounter. They have the bustle and cumbersome forms without the advantages of liberty. The octennial period, at which the delegated trust of legislation is revoked, and his importance restored to the constituent, returns but to disturb their tranquillity, and revive the recollection of their debasement. the activity, all the popular acts of electioneering canvas, enforce the idea of their insignificance; they exemplify it too: witness the various preferences given by persons of rank to not always the most deserving among our Protestant countrymen, a preference nearly as detrimental to the independent Protestants as

to us.

There exists not in their behalf any control over power. They have felt the truth of this assertion, when in this age of toleration, even within the last eight years, several new penal statutes have been enacted against them.

They experience it daily, not alone in the great deliberations of the nation, and in the little concerns of public money for the service of the state, but in the local imposition of county and parochial taxes. We appeal to our rulers, we appeal to Ireland, we appeal to Europe, if we deserve a place in society, should we seem willing to insinuate that such a situation is not severely unacceptable.

We are satisfied that the mere repeal of the laws against us will prove but feebly beneficial, unless the act be sanctioned by the concurrence of our Protestant brethren, and those jealousies removed by which the social intercourse of private life is interrupted. It is time we should cease to be distinct nations, forcibly enclosed within the limits of one island. It shall be a capital object of our institution to encourage the spirit of harmony, and sentiments of affection, which the ties of common interest, and common country, ought, ere now, to have inspired. Countrymen! too long have we suffered ourselves to be opposed in rival factions to each other, the sport of those who felt no tenderness for either. Why should diversity of sentiment, so usual where the matter in debate is abstruse or important, separate those whom heaven placed together for mutual benefit and consolation? Objects, material in their day, produced hostility between our ancestors. The causes of that discord have ceased to exist; let the enmity too perish. Let it be the duty of present and future ages to prevent the recurrence of such unnatural and calamitous dissension; except in the actual discharge of the religious duties, which conscience renders inevitable, we wish there never shall be found a trace of that, which may possibly divide us into distinct communities.

The ill effects of these restrictions are not confined to those of our religion; they extend to every individual, and every public body in the nation; under the weight of them, industry, under their influence, public spirit is enervated. It is the interest of every man in Ireland that the entire code should be abolished. It is the interest of the crown, as it must promote the general happiness of the subjects. It is the interest of the great, as it will serve to tranquillize the country, and to encourage industry: it is the additional interest of the middle and inferior ranks, as it must impart new importance to their sentiments, and to the expression of their sentiments; we call upon every order of the state, not alone by their benevolence and justice, but by their patriotism and self-interest, to co-operate with our

exertions.

It adds the insult of mockery to the misfortune of the Irish Catholics, that the number of persons aggrieved, in every other instance an inducement to redress, is a reason alleged to procrastinate their relief, and an argument used to impose silence on their murmurs: is it their act, that a multitude of Irishmen are aggregated by common grievance, and classed in one great community of fellow-sufferers? Why accuse them of hostility to the constitution? They earnestly solicit to participate in its advantages. Why suspect them of enmity to their country? They desire entirely to incorporate themselves with it, to contract closer ties, which shall decide them to consign their posterity irrevocably to its bosom. We envy not its endowments to the established church; adversity has instructed us, that all the consolations which are promised, are most faithfully and tenderly administered by the pastors with moderate appointments, a free gift of gratitude to the kindest benefactors. Fastidiously excluded from the constitution, we can pronounce on it but as aliens, by speculation. We discern in it the means of much happiness; we regret that its symmetry is not complete ; a chasm remains which might be filled with advantage by the Roman Catholics; we have neither passion nor interest at variance with the order of things it professes to establish. We de sire only that property in our hands may have its natural weight, and merit in our children its rational encouragement. We have sworn allegiance to our sovereign, and the very evils we complain of prove how inviolable is our attachment to such obligation. We respect the peerage, the ornament of the state, and the bulwark of the people, interposing, as we hope the Irish Catholics will experience, mediatory good offices between authority and the objects of it. We solicit a share of interest in the existence of the commons. Do you require an additional test? We offer one more unequivocal than a volume of abjurations....we hope to be free, and will endeavour to be united. Do you require new proofs of our sincerity? We stood by you in the exigencies of our country. We extend our hands, the pledge of cordiality. Who is he that calls himself a friend to Ireland, and will refuse us?

We feel ourselves justified in this association: the period draws near when it will be fit the Irish Catholics approach the legislature with respectful solicitations. It is meet that those who suffer should confer, in order to ascertain the means and matter of redress likely to prove at once satisfactory and successful. It is insinuated, that some of our Protestant brethren are adverse to our emancipation; it is meet we should investigate the grounds of this strange assertion. The laws that have separated us from our countrymen, destroying our intercourse with bodies constituted by authority, leave us no other manner