Crown, the appointments made by him ought not to cease on the demise of the king, would lead to this conclusion—that these appointments ought only to fall on the demise of the Regent; but this he was sure was not meant by the gentlemen on the other side. If, however, it was to be held, that the bill went on the principle of the Prince Regent having made certain appointments, he would limit its operation solely to these appointments. When he came to reflect on what had been thrown could choose that time for sending them to their constituents, when, perhaps, ministers had acquired a momentary popularity, and when their adversaries were, in consequence, less favoured by the country. The termination, on the demise of the Crown, was, therefore, the only termination of parliament, that was impartial and equal between both parties-as advantageous to the one as to the other. It was to destroy this advantage that the present suggestion was proposed; it was to give ministers a perpetual advantage, in choos-out by the noble lord, he must confess that ing the time of election; and, therefore, not only now, but on every occasion, he should raise his voice against it. . Lord Lascelles said, the learned gentleman seemed to think him a greater enemy to the constitution than he felt himself to be. He meant not to give a perpetual advantage to ministers the suggestion, which did not originate with him, went only to the present king and the present situation of the country, which, through the indisposition of his majesty, was governed by the Prince Regent. Mr. Bathurst said, that the suggestion alluded to was thrown out by an hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. Brougham), whose voice was not a little attended to in that House, and his noble friend (lord Lascelles) had merely introduced it, on this occasion, for the consideration of the House. The right hon. gentleman then shortly argued that there was a strong analogy between the situation of those persons whom the bill contemplated, and parliament; and that, perhaps, it would be wise to extend the same measure to both. Sir James Mackintosh did not mean to impugn the constitutional principle of the noble lord. All he had said was, that the tendency of the suggestion was adverse to the constitution; and nothing he had since heard could cause him to recede from that opinion. For the sentiments of his learned friend he had the highest respect, and he would listen to them with attention; but, he conceived, that it would demand his utmost powers of ingenuity to shake the conviction, so deeply rooted in his mind, that the measure alluded to was fundamentally opposite to the principles of the British constitution. Mr. Ponsonby did not expect that the measure would have given rise to the views which some seemed to have taken of it. The tendency of the argument used by the right hon. gentleman that because the Prince Regent performed the duties of the he was so much startled; because it went much farther than he intended when he introduced the measure, and involved questions which he had no idea of agitating. Lord Cochrane did not apprehend that it would make any material difference in elections, whether the idea which had been thrown out should be adopted or not. It was well-known that the great majority of the returns to that House were carried by money; and whatever might be the circumstances under which a dissolution might take place, the same influence would prevail. He held in his hand accounts, containing charges against him which amounted to more than 5,700%. for one of his elections. These accounts would throw great light on the nature of elections; and it was his intention to move on Monday for a committee to examine them, He should always be against any thing which tended to abridge the rights of the people; but as parliament was now constituted, he was perfectly certain, that, in nine places out of ten, the candidate who had most money in his pocket, if he chose to spend it, would be sure to succeed. The House was resumed, and the report received. Lord Cochrane gave notice, that on Monday he would move for the appointment of a committee to inquire into an attempt to extort money from him under the treating act. HOUSE OF LORDS. Friday, May 16, 1817. ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION.] The order of the day, for taking into consideration the Petition of his majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, having been read, The Earl of Donoughmore rose, and addressed their lordships as follows: It is in the first place necessary that I should apprize your lordships that I have [602 caused to be placed upon your lordships In calling your lordships attention to table, two petitions, which I had the those petitions which I have again laid on honour to present to the House during the table of the House from no unimportant the last session upon the same subject a part of the constituency of the state, after with these which I am about to call on the fullest consideration of the present you to discuss. One of these, the petition circumstances of the question, I have of the Roman Catholic nobility, and thought it to be my indispensable duty to those other respectable persons of that abstain as much as possible from all genecommunity who thought it expedient to ralities, as little calculated to tend to any approach parliament with a separate and prompt or practical results; and, instead distinct petition from the rest of the Roman of approaching your lordships with a triCatholic body? the other, that of the umphant statement of the merits of my prelates and clergy of the Roman Catholic Roman Catholic countrymen, their claims, church. With respect to the first of these and privations, I prefer to submit to petitions, I have received from one of the your consideration the case of the petinoble persons whose signature it bears, a tioners rather in the shape of an answer special intimation of the earnest wish of to those arguments, a refutation of those the petitioners, that the attention of your calumnies, with which they have been inJordships should be directed once more to dustriously loaded, and never at any fortheir petition; and, as a proof, if any mer period of time with greater violence were wanted, that the Catholic clergy are and acrimony than at the present moment equally desirous to be brought again-of which your lordships must have been under the consideration of the House, they have deputed two most reverend persons of the first rank in their own church, to attend the discussion of these petitions in parliament, for the express purpose of affording to the members of both Houses all necessary information, and in case of the progress of any legislative measure of relief, every aid and facility in their power. Upon the subject of these most respectable individuals, it is only necessary for me to observe, that the reception which they have secured for themselves from all those to whom they have thought it expedient to resort on the subject of their mission, sufficiently speaks their own panegyric, and does equal credit to the selection of that justly venerated body, whose fit representatives they have proved themselves to be. It is necessary, therefore, that the House should be perfectly aware that they have now before them, represented by these, their humble petitioners, the whole Catholic people of Ireland: every individual of that religious community, lay, and ecclesiastic, the peer, and the peasant, joining in the same earnest entreaty, that their greivances may be taken into consideration and redressed. I now stand before your lordships the selected, though inade quate, advocate of all my Catholic countrymen, of whatever rank or degree, of that great community of my fellow-sub-malign their character. The Catholics jects, claiming, with respectful firmness, the restitution of their political capacities that they may be admitted once more within the bosom of the constitution of their country. already sufficiently apprized by the reports of certain recent transactions, through the medium of the daily press-that press which is, and, as I trust, will long continue to be, the authentic expositor of all public proceedings, and the declarations of public men, notwithstanding that extraordinary crusade to which the noble secretary of state opposite, has invited the zeal of the magistracy from one extremity of the kingdom to the other, against the dissemination of every doctrine, principle, opinion, or sentiment, of which each individual justice of the peace may not happen to approve; thus erected into a sort of licenser of the press within the precincts of his own little jurisdiction, an extinguisher of the inconvenient freedom of discussion upon all subjects, religious as well as political, and that, too, by the authority and express appointment of one of his majesty's principal secretaries of state. My lords, this question never came before you under circumstances of greater irritation of the public mind, than it does at the present time. The Catholics have to complain, that they are grossly calumniated-that they are shamefully misrepresented. The Catholics have to complain that their enemies, in endeavouring to prevent them from enjoying the benefits of the constitution, have not hesitated to have to complain, of abominable falsehoods which have been actively circulated against them. I myself have been furnished, gratuitously, with a collection of pamphlets on this subject; and, from their tone and temper, one would think it was the intention of the writers to revive those riots that disgraced this metropolis some years ago, or to bring back the days of bloody queen Mary. Those tracts have been industriously handed about to the members of this House of Parliament, and no means have been left unemployed to prejudice the great cause which I am about to submit to your lordships. Catholic priests and bishops have been represented in the habits of their different orders, for the purpose of ridicule, and every art has been made use of, to excite the popular feeling against them. For what, I ask, has this been done? My lords, the purpose is evident, and the course pursued is most discreditable to its author. It appears that the moment an attempt is made to relieve the Catholics, that moment every engine is set to work, to knock down the unfortunate petitioners at once, and to press them to the ground. Unfortunately, these petitioners prayed for a participation in the benefits of the constitution; if they had asked any other boon they would have been differently treated. I have hitherto complained, my lords, only of what has happened out of doors; but I must complain, certainly with great respect, that it is not out of doors alone that the work of prejudice is carried on. Feeling very high respect for the noble and learned person who presides in this House, still I must observe, that he himself did, on a former occasion, express sentiments on this subject, which were calculated to bias the minds of the noble lords who heard him. Rising up in his place, in this House, with all the authority which his high office and his exalted judicial character impart to him, he was pleased, with extraordinary warmth, to call on noble lords to attend narrowly to the subject of the Catholic claims, as they concerned the very vitals of the constitution. The noble and learned lord used a strong expression-an expression that certainly must have meant a great deal-for he never talks without a meaning. The intention, I believe, was, to brand those persons, whoever they are, who support the prayer of the Catholic petition, which I now advocate, as persons endeavouring to aim a blow at the vitals of the constitution-[Cries of "No, no!"]. The Lord Chancellor admitted, that he had used the words stated. He thought that these petitions did concern the vitals of the constitution-and, he was sure, if, on the one hand, the noble lord expressed opinions favourable to the Catholic claims, he would allow him, on the other, to state those sentiments which he had always held, and which, the more he considered them, he felt himself the more strongly bound to support. But, when he used the expressions in question, he begged the noble lord to believe, that he meant not to insinuate that any person aimed a blow at the vitals of the constitution. He would go as far in the march of toleration, consistently with the safety of the empire, as any noble lord in that House; and, when he spoke on the catholic petition, on a former day, he did not mean to prejudice their lordships against the question. The Earl of Donoughmore-I beg to observe, with great respect, that this interruption is not strictly correct. I shall, however, again advert to what the noble and learned lord said, on a former occasion. If the noble lord has so strong an opinion on this subject (which I am sure he feels, or he would not have so expressed himself), it must be most painful to him, in the course of his daily business, in his high office of a cabinet minister of the Crown-in the daily discharge of his most important duty, as a privy counsellor-to find himself surrounded by a number of brother privy counsellors and cabinet ministers, who are in favour of the measure, and who, he conceives, are aiming blows at the vitals of the constitution. Certainly, those strong expressions do a great deal of mischief-but sometimes they may be too strong. A case may be too well proved. I trust it will appear, that, in this case, more than enough has been proved-and, notwithstanding the pains which have been taken, to prejudice these petitioners in the minds of the public, I hope the cause will at last stand erect before both Houses of parliament, and that it will meet with that candid, fair, and liberal consideration which its importance demands. Now, my lords, in the course which I have chalked out for myself, in arguing the merits of these petitions, the first objection to which I am to apply myself, arises from a part of the subject, which it would not be quite correct to anticipate, in the commencement of the debate, while addressing your lordships as a House. The objection is one that rather suits the period, when your lordships have gone into a committee, if such shall be your pleasure. It is said, "we cannot go into a committee to examine the present state of perhaps, two exceptions, in one of which government interfered-purely and substantially domestic? Now, though we give nothing new, looking to the present practice, yet we give a great deal in confirming for ever the principle of domestic nomination; for the idea is, to procure a concordat of the Pope, which shall go along with domestic nomination: and thus the Pope will be bound, hereafter, to continue that, by treaty, which the Catholics are now willing to concede. I, therefore, cannot think that this security is illusory. I think the Catholics have come forward with a sufficient guarantee. I do not say that a private body should parley with the state; but it is clear that the Catholics have done all that lay in their power to remove the apprehension of foreign influence. And so far as this security operates against the danger of foreign influence, no liberal man, I conceive, can say, that it is not satisfactory, and that it does not call for concession. the laws, respecting the Roman Catholics, unless you first state what securities they are ready to give to the Protestant church." Before you have got one step, in consider ing the claims of the petitioners-before the accomplishment of the most trifling matter-this objection is raised; which, I think, is rather an anticipation of what ought, in the proper course, to follow the committee. But it is argued, that it is not unjust to ask the Catholics-"What is your object? I will not go into a committee to grope my way in the dark, and seek out principles for you." This is, undoubtedly, a most material point in the consideration of the question. But it appears, from the public press, that securities of a three-fold nature have been devised. First, domestic nomination; next, that security called the Veto; and, lastly, a new security, which I had not heard of till the present session, the payment, by government, of the Catholic church. This has been mentioned in the public prints, as a security for the Protestant church and Now, my lords, on this part of the substate, if a measure of concession were ject it is almost unnecessary for me to agreed to. Securities are insisted on as speak farther. If you go into the comessentially necessary-the Catholics of the mittee, for which I shall presently move, present day are greatly condemned be- it will be just and fair to state the whole of cause they have not put the security of my ideas on this question. As to the the Veto in the front of their petition Veto, I cannot offer that. I do certainly and they are greatly maligned, because disapprove of it, as a member of parliathey proposed domestic nomination, which ment, inasmuch as I do not think it right some persons have disapproved of, as in- to commit the Roman Catholic prelacy effective and illusory? Why is it illusory? and priesthood of Ireland, to the Irish proThe importance of it, I contend, is most ex- vincial government. The Catholics here traordinary indeed. The Catholics have are more nearly connected with the body offered you a security, under the name of do- of the state than they are in Ireland. The mestic nomination-and it is asserted, that it government of this country is not by deis no new security at all. "This domestic no- puty. The royal personage resides here, mination," its enemies argue," has been, and has his ministers about him. The goof old, the mode of electing the Catholic vernment of Ireland is conducted by a bishops, with hardly any exception. Why, representative of the sovereign; and, if then, do you, the advocates of this cause, the great power of the Veto were conoffer that, as a new security, which is the ceded, the worst consequences might be established custom?" This is the argu- produced. That power would not be posment-and, is it not an answer, and a sessed by the lord lieutenant: it would be fatal answer, to all the objections that have exerted by some great parliament man or been made on the score of foreign in- other, who is thinking more of making fluence? If the opponents of the Catholic speeches and getting into the House, claims state to you, that the security of than of studying the peace of the country domestic nomination, is illusory-quite il--and the ecclesiastical business of Irelusory-because it has been the continued mode of electing Catholic bishops for a long time back, I want to know whether that statement does not go to the danger of foreign influence? Does it not go to prove, as the fact really and truly is, that the mode of appointing Catholic bishops in Ireland, has been, during our time-with, land would at length be left to some third or fourth-rate clerk in the Castle-yard. Now, I do not think it right to leave the Catholic clergy open to such influence. I am myself a magistrate, and, in the most troublesome times, I can assert, with truth, the Catholic clergy are the best magistrates the government can look to. There are no persons in the country to whom the lovers of peace and order are more indebted than to the Roman Catholic clergy. So true it is, that, if they were not to intermix with their neighbours-if they were not to do what they have been in the habit of doing for many years past-it would not be possible to carry on the due administration of justice in Ireland. I wish to make them look, not to the Castleyard of Dublin-not to political intrigue for advancement in their church-I want to make them look, as they do at present, to the due performance of their duties as the proper road to preferment. I have fairly stated my objections to the Veto. The language of the Catholics is strongly against that measure-but were they all in favour of it, I should feel it my duty, to express my opposition to it. Next came the payment of the Catholic church by the state. I object also to this proposition. I will not, my lords, sanction political intrigue between the Catholic clergy and any body whatsoever. They are desirous of no other stipend but what they receive for their religious labours, from those for whose service they exert themselves they desire no other remuneration than that which is the just reward of meritorious conduct in the performance of their laborious duties. 1, therefore, neither offer the Veto, nor this mode of payment, as the price of the readmission of the Catholics to their constitutional rights. But it is fair, my lords, that I should state what measure I would propose to adopt on this occasion. My measure is, a direct and absolute domestic nomination. Having guarded the church by that nomination, from the small remainder of foreign in fluence having made the election, by the choice of the prelates in that country, purely national and domestic-my next step would be, to create the closest connexion between the Roman Catholics and their Protestant brethren; I should then throw open to the Roman Catholics, under the Protestant government, every office, without exception of any kind whatever, saving only such situations as appertain to the government or patronage of the established church. In doing this, I should hope and trust, that the Protestant church would be, beyond a doubt, fully and clearly left to the sole and exclusive management of the Protestant clergyand I cannot conceive why your lordships should have any difficulty in yielding to the Catholics, the equally exclusive ad ministration of their own religious affairs. This is the measure which I mean to propose for the concurrence of your lordships, if you shall be pleased to go into a committee. Your lordships will be aware, that it will be necessary for me to answer those arguments against the Catholic claims that have been scattered, here and there, throughout different publications which I have lately read on this subject. My lords, the first is one of rather an extraordinary nature. It is said, that, because the existing laws deprive four millions of subjects of their constitutional rights, it is dangerous to revise them. "Take care," say those who reasoned in this manner," how you meddle with this subject; it relates to the rights and claims of four millions of people. If the Catholics of Ireland were a small body of men, their situation might be ameliorated; but consider how Ireland is circumstanced with respect to her population. There are four million of Catholics in that country-take care how you meddle with them." This is a most singular argument. There are certainly, in Ireland, four million of Catholics-a million and a half of Protestants-and half a million of Dissenters. The Catholics represent eight-tenths of the population of that country of which I am a native. Now, it must be a great object with every good member of the British Union, to make all parts of it as productive as he possibly can; and, therefore, the greater the body of subjects who complain of grievances, the greater should be the anxiety to relieve them. Admitting this to be the fact can your lordships imagine that the argu ment which I have just stated has been used against considering these petitions at all? It has been, however, so used— although it ought to be considered as a conclusive argument, to call on your lordships for an immediate consideration and settlement of this question. Another ob jection, and one of singular injustice, has been urged by those whose experience of Catholic fidelity ought to have taught them better. Take care," say they, "how you enter on the consideration of those petitions. Take care how you pro. ceed any further towards the relief of the Catholics;-for you know not how attentive their clergy are to every thing that promises to extend their political power. Their prelates meet for the purpose of administering the affairs of the college of Maynooth-but, when the matters con |