A VINDICATION, &c.

THE General Committee of the Catholics of Ireland, finding, with the deepest concern, that their principles and conduct have been misunderstood and misrepresented in a variety of late publications; and fearing lest silence on their part might be supposed to proceed either from a consciousness that the charges made against them were just, or a disregard to public opinion, think proper to publish the following exposition of their objects and their motives.

After a century of pains and penalties, in which period the most severe and minute investigation had not been able to attach on them one instance of disloyalty, the Catholics of Ireland ventured to approach the Government of their country, and with all humility to hope for some relaxation of the oppressive system of laws under which they groaned. For that purpose, in 1790, a deputation from their body prepared a petition to Parliament, of so modest a tenor as to ask for nothing specific, but merely that their case should be taken into consideration. With this petition they waited on the Minister to implore the countenance and protection of Government, but in vain; and not only so, but the Catholics of Ireland, constituting, at the lowest, threefourths of the inhabitants of the kingdom, had not sufficient influence to induce any one member of Parliament to bring in their petition.

In 1791, a second deputation of twelve of their body waited on the Minister, with a list of the penal code, and again, without presuming to point out any specific measure, humbly submitted the whole to the wisdom and humanity of Government to remove any part which they might think fit; and so low was, at that time, the spirit, so abject the situation of the Catholics, that the smallest relaxation of their slavery would have been received

and acknowledged as the greatest favor. But it did not please the Minister to consider either their sufferings or their gratitude; occupied in more serious concerns, he had not leisure or inclination to attend to their complaints, and three millions of faithful and loyal subjects were turned away from the Castle, without even the ceremony of an answer.

Repelled by Government here, it was determined to try the Government of England; and, for this purpose, one of the Catholic body was delegated to lay before his Majesty's confidential Ministers a state of the sufferings of his Catholic subjects of Ireland. In consequence of this delegation, a negotiation was instituted, at the close of which it was understood that the Catholics might hope for four objects, grand juries, county magistrates, high sheriffs, and the bar; admission to the right of suffrage was also mentioned, and taken into consideration. But the enemies of their emancipation had, in the mean time, not been idle; every art was used to divide and distract, and, consequently, to baffle the strength and councils of the Catholics. An address was procured, signed by several respectable gentlemen, most of whom were utterly ignorant of the negotiation then going forward in England, by which the Catholic claims were submitted to the good pleasure and discretion of the Government here, and nothing specific demanded; equal diligence was used to shock the prejudices, and alarm the fears of the Protestants of the country, and to render them inimical to the wishes of their brethren; wherever it was hoped that influence could reach, it was exerted to the utmost; an outcry was raised and continued, particularly in the Corporation of Dublin, and one or two others of inferior note, reprobating the claims of the Catholics, and full of alarm for the safety of some undefined metaphor, which was called the "Protestant Ascendency;" particular pains were taken to vilify and asperse the General Committee, and to hold them up as an assembly of obscure, desperate, and factious men, who designed nothing less than a total subversion of every thing established in church and state.

Under these ill-boding auspices, Parliament met in January, 1792. On the first day of the session, notice was given by a respectable member, of a bill intended to be introduced for the relief of the Catholics, and on the 4th day of February, the bill was introduced, containing four heads; the bar, subject to ex

clusion from the rank of King's counsel; intermarriage with Protestants, subject to the disfranchisement of a Protestant husband marying a Popish wife; and further subject to the punishment of death to any Catholic clergyman performing such ceremony, although, by something which scarce any deference to the wisdom or goodness of the Legislature can prevent from appearing at once a contradiction and a cruelty, such marriage is declared to be null and void; the privilege of teaching school, without obtaining a license from the ordinary; and, finally, the privilege of taking more than two apprentices. Such was the bill substituted for that, which, in all human probability, would have been obtained, but for the arts of some designing, and the credulity of some honest men, and such was the relief for which the Catholics of Ireland were ordered to be grateful and contented.

While this bill was in progress, the great body of Catholics, acting by their Committee, presented a petition to Parliament; and because it was openly said that they were proceeding on a principle of indecent menace and intimidation, and that the House was called on to assert its dignity, and to crush such audacious violence in the outset, it is necessary, for the justification of the Committee, to republish the petition, which was as follows: "That, as the House had thought it expedient to di"rect their attention to the situation of the Roman Catholics of ❝Ireland, and to a further relaxation of the penal statutes still "subsisting against them, they beg leave, with all humility, to "come before the House, with the most heartfelt assurance of "the wisdom and justice of Parliament, which is at all times "desirous most graciously to attend to the petition of the peo"ple; they, therefore, humbly presume to submit to the House ❝their entreaty, that they should take into their consideration whether the removal of some of the civil incapacities under "which they labor, and the restoration of the petitioners to some share in the elective franchise, which they enjoyed long after the Revolution, will not tend to strengthen the Protestant state, ❝ add new vigor to industry, and afford protection and happiness "to the Catholics of Ireland; that the petitioners refer with "confidence to their conduct for a century past, to prove their "uniform loyalty and submission to the laws, and to corroborate "their solemn declaration, that, if they obtain from the justice

"and benignity of Parliament, such relaxation from certain in"capacities, and a participation in that franchise which will "raise them to the rank of freemen, their gratitude must be "proportioned to the benefit, and that, enjoying some share in "the happy Constitution of Ireland, they will exert themselves "with additional zeal in its conservation." Of this petition, whatever may be the faults, it can scarcely be said with truth that insolence of language is one of them. It is a petition so humble, that it can hardly be said to be a petition at all, for it asks nothing, or next to nothing. The prayer of it is, not to be restored to any right or possession, but merely that the House should take into consideration whether the removal of some of "the grievances of the petitioners might not be compatible with "Protestant security, at the same time that it would insure the "happiness of the Catholics of Ireland." Surely this is not the language of menace or intimidation.

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Humble, however, if not abject, as this petition may be thought by some, it did not escape a very severe condemnation. It was, contrary to the ordinary custom of Parliament, and to that indulgence usually shown to those who come humbly to supplicate their compassion, taken off the table, and, by a very large majority, rejected; by which the House did refuse, not to grant any relief to the petitioners, for that the petition did not venture to demand, but even to take their case into consideration. Whether regard be had to the numbers, the loyalty, the merits, or the sufferings, of the men who were thus driven from the door of the Legislature with so harsh a condemnation of their hopes, it may, perhaps, be thought that their petition, as well from the extreme modesty of the demand, as the almost servility of the language, might have been let to die in silence, without going through the ceremony of a public and ignominious execution. But this rejection was not confined to the petition of the Catholics; it extended also to their friends. The opulent, liberal, and spirited town of Belfast had petitioned that the Catholics might be released from the restrictive statutes at present in force against them, and so be restored to the rank of citizens. Their petition was taken off the table, and, by a specific vote, rejected also.

During the whole progress of the bill, a line was studiously drawn, at least in argument, between those gentlemen who had