Gandolphy, as presenting a most revolting statement of the doctrine and discipline of the church of Rome,-and that they had been approved by the licensing tribunal of the see of Rome. The fact, however, was, that Mr. Gandolphy's Exposition of Doctrine and Discipline, stood reprobated by his episcopal superior in London, before it was laid before the Roman tribunal; and though it was equally certain he had attained an approbation of his work, from the Roman licensor of the press, it was almost immediately discovered, that no adequate examination of it had taken place, and the officer of the see of Rome was censured for the incautious manner by which he had permitted such a work to go forth under his nominal authority. The work also stands censured here; and the writer suspended from his spiritual functions, till he makes an adequate retractation of his errors. Adverting again to the several documents of the report of the select committee, which, sir J. H.observed, had procured much reputation at the several courts of the continent, and was considered as a most useful text book in their pending negociations with the court of Rome; he added, that whenever parliament seriously lent itself to a task of sweeping away those glaring anomalies, which, in reference to this subject, were spread through our statute books, this report would be found the surest and safest guide to adequate legislation. As the law stood at present, anomalies of the most conflictory nature, met us on every side. In Ireland, where the Catholic in proportion to the Protestant population, was at least three to one, the elective franchise, which was certainly an instrument of much political power, was conceded to the Catholic, together with the capacity of holding the greater proportion of civil and military offices. In England, where the Catholics are not a twentyfourth part of the general population, those franchises were withheld from them under an apprehension of the danger of concession; and in Scotland, the Catholics by taking the same oath as in England, were capacitated to hold every office in common with the members of the establishment. Such inconsistencies was very little creditable to our municipal code, and loudly called for revision. On this question he should unite with those who called for inquiry, and inquiry alone was now asked. Without the strongest guards and securities for the establishment, he should

It was unne

never concede farther. cessary for him to trouble the House with a repetition of his opinions on this subject; he had long stood committed upon them with the House and the public, and should, conformably with all his former votes, now give his voice for going into a committee.

Sir Henry Parnell had to thank the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Yorke), who had spoken on the other side of the House, for his very valuable, cordial, and conciliating speech. He hoped to be able to satisfy him, that the Gatholics were perfectly willing to do all those things which the right hon. gentleman required should be done, as the conditions on which he would give them his support. In doing so, he should at the same time be able to refute the assertion of an hon. member who spoke from the second bench (Mr. Foster), that there was nothing new in the proposed plan of domestic nomination. But before he proceeded to do so, he wished to say that the statement of the hon. member concerning the number of coadjutor bishops in Ireland, was altogether incorrect. There were at present only three in Ireland, all of whom had been appointed, as the practice was, because the bishops were themselves unable, from infirmities or age, to discharge their duties. In order to understand exactly the proposed plan of domestic nomination of all future bishops, it was necessary that the House should know the proceedings which now took place for filling a bishop's see when vacant. The bishops of the province in which he was situated, assembled together, and having consulted with the priests of the vacant diocese, named those persons as fit to be chosen by the pope for the new bishop. It had been nearly the constant practice for the pope to choose the person whose name stood first upon the list, but there was no law to compel him to do so; he had, in fact, in some few instances, appointed a person not recommended by the bishops of the province, and he possessed the power, if he chose to exercise it, of appointing even a foreigner to be an Irish bishop. It was to exclude the possibility of any such proceeding, and to render all future appointments entirely the appointments of the Catholic Irish priests and bishops, that it was now proposed that the pope should issue a concordat, by which he should bind himself to appoint no person to be a bishop in Ireland, except such a person as should be in the first place elected by the Irish clergy themselves. It

ed laws of the land. Domestic nomination is as objectionable in principle, and more objectionable and dangerous in prac tice. It would establish a numerous corporation spread over the country, possessing extensive powers, still more extensive influence, independent of and unconnected with the constituted powers of the state, necessarily dissatisfied, unless the church establishment is to be conceded, and therefore under a permanent principle of sympathy with the discontented and disaffected. To accede to that project would be to concede that patronage to faction, whic his denied to your Crown. Of those arrangements, therefore, so insidiously proposed as securities, I shall trouble you no more; but of the circumstances under which, in reference to them, this question is now brought forward, there is something to observe and much to reflect on. From the folio volume which the House has published on this subject, it appears, that every state, whether of Protestant or Popish communion, whether of a free, or absolute, or mixed form of government, have found it necessary and indispensable to guard their independence against the encroaching spirit of papal power, and the dangers which ensue from it. Those dangers are of two natures, religious and political.

From the first, states that are of Popish communion, are in a great measure freed. With that system, they are in some measure identified, and when the temporal encroachments of papal ambition have not been directed against them, the religious system was capable of being a powerful support and aid to their thrones, but still against the political dangers even they were forced to guard. But states not in communion with the see of Rome, in addition to the political dangers common to all, have also to guard against the dangers growing out of the religious system of popery; and it is manifest, that in a free state in which popular privileges are to be possessed and exercised, and which when once conferred, cannot, except in an extreme case, be recalled, guards and precautions are much more necessary, than in absolute monarchies, in which all subordinate power is under the immediate direction and control of the sovereign. Under these circumstances, therefore, though so different to each, Protestant states have to guard against the two dangers, Roman Catholic states have only one to guard against. Both, (VOL. XXXVI.)

however, have required and insisted on two points, which, though reluctantly, have been conceded to them, namely, the unqualified selection and appointment of bishops, and the inspection of papal bulls and rescripts. But those conditions, which in all Roman Catholic states are required, and to all Protestant states are conceded, even where an absolute form of government renders such precautions less necessary, even those to this free Protestant state are denied, and at the moment too, when high and important privileges are prayed for from your hands.

That denial I should not advert to, but to show what is the spirit of conciliation with which the unceasing demands for conciliation are accompanied. Submission to this course of conduct, as to menacing petition before, I have heard recommended as dignified procedure. I confess I do not understand such dignity. To legislate without consideration of the giddy desires or angry passions of any particular description of people, does belong to legislative dignity, because it belongs to wisdom to do so. But that is applicable only to subjects of general legislation, affecting the whole community, not to the extension of privilege to a particular portion of it. When such is sought, until very late times it has been considered that it should be sought with respect, at least, to the legislature from which it was expected, and with good reason, for the manner in which privilege is applied for, may often indicate the spirit in which it will be used. Shall we apply that criterion to the present case?

That it has been sought with eagerness, with an unremitting importunity, which never before attended the constitutional pursuit of any other public object, I am willing to overlook or excuse. If inteinperance or clamour have proceeded to menacing and insulting demand, I must say that it was not with the Roman Catholics that the disposition of so treating the question originated. It has been suggested by the wild declamations of unprincipled or inconsiderate partisans, and the misrepresentations of what persons of deserved weight and authority had said in their behalf.-Hence the fallacious misapplication of terms, which, in violation of every degree of truth and candour, have now got into established use in speaking of this question. Toleration, religious liberty, are said to be violated by withholding political power-as if those terms (2 A)

1

were not applicable only to the freedom of religious faith, and the exercise of religious worship. But these abuses of terms are trifling and venial, compared with that by which this measure has been artfully and delusively designated. The term emancipation, in the outset, suggests a prejudice, and summons our best feelings to its support;-it assumes a fact, and suggests and animates arguments against it-it assumes the fact of a pre-existent state of slavery, from which to be emancipated. This term, familiarly adopted by their Protestant advocates, has encouraged them to believe that such really is their unmerited condition;-and they go about clanking their imaginary chains, and naturally seeking to break them on the heads of those who are represented to them as their oppressors. My right hon. and learned friend, the representative of the university of Dublin, was actually reported as having so spoken of their condition in debate-as representing them as standing in chains behind the backs of their Protestant fellow-subjects. I will state the words of that most able and zealous advocate of their claims, as acknowledged by himself. " They are not slaves, as some of their absurd advocates call them, but free men, possessing substantially the same political rights with their Protestant brethren, and with all the other subjects of the empire-that is, possessed of all the advantages derived from the best laws administered in the best manner of the most free and most highly civilized country in the world." This, Sir, is the condition of Roman Catholics under this Protestant government, with the addition of not only the most perfect toleration of their religion, but having an exclusive seminary for the education of their clergy, supported at a great public expense. Do Roman Catholics in Catholic states so treat or so tolerate Protestants? Some degree of toleration, but none of maintenance, has been admitted in revolutionized France, and in part of the Austrian dominions. It has been made a basis in the new constitution of the lately established kingdom of the Netherlands. But wherever it has been in any degree admitted, papal censure has followed, and condemned and remonstrated, asserting and denouncing that fundamental principle of intolerance from which all their Persecutions have arisen-"that out of the pale of their church, salvation cannot be found." See the late papal rescript, res

pecting permission of the use of the holy scriptures in Poland, and the inveterate opposition which in these kingdoms-even in this metropolis-they give to all schools where, under any modification, it is permitted. Such is their notion, and such their principle of toleration!-Such their construction of the toleration they claim, and of the toleration they admit. That which they claim, includes political power in its fullest extent that which they admit, excludes even the use of the holy scriptures.-Candour, therefore, I am bold to say, must allow that this is not a question of toleration or religious liberty, or a case of emancipation. When the penal code existed there might have been some pretence for the constructive application of that term. But that code has now no existence. It was enacted mostly in the 2d and 8th of Ann, and was finally repealed in 1793. Its name and the memory of its severities only have remained. The former for misapplication to the disqualifying statutes which were completed and made fundamental of our constitution at the time of the revolution. The latter to excite a false feeling, and to preserve and transmit hostility and vindictive resentment against the descendants of those who enacted them; who found them-as far as their agency was required, did not exccute them, and finally repealed them with acclamation. No person who hears me, has felt more objection to their principle, or more regrets that under any provocation or excuse they were adopted.But I can do so without falling into the unjust and vulgar error of unqualified condemnation of our forefathers, without taking into consideration the provocations under which they acted respecting themselves, and the motives which actuated them for the security of us their descend

ants.

Those laws were certainly severe and oppressive, and were meant to break down the strength of the Catholics as a party, and to compel conformity-they had nearly effected both objects, when they were repealed. It was for those purposes that they were severe. No sufficient excuse-neither is it one that they were only faintly retaliatory of tenfold cruelty, not merely enacted, but unrelentingly inflicted on the Protestants in Ireland, during the whole reign of James 2nd-or that they bore only a faint comparison to the cruelties practised by Lewis the 14th on the Hugonots for nine years previous