influences of the constitution-lending to justice the character of faction-irritating, by a succession of dangerous stimulants, the entire national temperamentembittering every variety of social intercourse, and shaking to the foundation that mutual confidence, without which all government is difficult, and the entire frame of civil society must ultimately be dissolved.

Industry, deprived of all its natural nourishment, languishes-commerce, uninvited by proportionate security, flies our shores-mauufactures, unsupported by capital, have almost disappeared-employment, exclusively agricultural, is not adequate to the wants of our population; the surplus emigrates, in every shape of wretchedness, to the more prosperous parts of your Majesty's dominions, or passing on through a rapid succession of disasters at home, from idleness to wantfrom want to malady-perish, at last, in almost annual visitations of pestilence or famine.

The consequences of these evils are obvious and universal; they are commensurate with our entire system. The Protestant is not more exempt than the Catholic; but, on the contrary, in proportion to his superior wealth and station in the community, is, if possible, more exposed to their injurious effects. They embrace every individual in their influence, and they affect all the relations of every individual whom they embrace.

And your faithful and loyal subjects presume further to represent to your gracious Majesty, that the influence of these calamities is not restricted to Ireland alone; that such a state of things must require a large military establishment for its support; that this establishment

necessitates a corresponding taxation of the country; that the country, by the repression of its natural energies and resources, is unequal to this supply; and that thus this kingdom, instead of being a source of strength, is, by a singular anomaly in government, a source of weakness to the united empire.

Your petitioners would willingly believe that these evils were of a temporary nature, removable by temporary expedients; but they have reason to apprehend that, instead of diminishing, they will gradually increase, unless prevented, ere it be too late, by a patient and impartial inquiry into their causes, and the generous application of a full and final remedy to their cure. Their continuance will prepare for the first aggression of foreign foes a long-accumulating spirit of dissatisfaction in the country-it will invite the insult and injury of surrounding nations-it will paralyse the national forces of the state-it will detract from the moral strength and character which enabled England so long to hold the first rank in European civilization, and materially endanger, and perhaps ultimately compromise, the safety of the entire British empire.

Your petitioners cannot ascribe these evils to any defect in the moral or physical condition of the country itself; they are compelled to seek elsewhere for the fertile source of these calamities. They see, in the partial distribution of the burdens and rewards of the state, the exclusion of one part of the people from the franchises and rights enjoyed by the other, a just and enduring principle of discontent, further exasperated by religious animosity, the parent of that national disunion

from which every other national evil must necessarily proceed.

It does not, however, escape the attention of your humble petitioners, that this exclusion may originally have been intended for the better maintenance of the constitution and religion of the state; but they respectfully submit to the consideration of your Majesty whether, on the extinction of the causes which required such guarantee, these restrictions on the liberty of the subject should not also be repealed.

And it is the further conviction of your Majesty's humble petitioners that these causes have long since so disappeared-and this opinion is grounded on the policy of other states, in reference to this country-the cessation of all external menace or attack; the sup pression of all pretensions to the throne of these realms, and the increasing liberality and enlightened feeling of every class and persuasion in the present times.

Your petitioners are therefore satisfied, that the removal of the disabilities under which their Catholic fellow-subjects still labour, so far from being attended with any peril to the institutions of these realms, would, on the contrary, by a removal of all just ground of complaint, most eminently tend to coalesce all sects and orders in the country, in united exertions for their common support; and thus, by "benefiting the state, would confer a benefit upon every individual belonging to it." And in this belief your petitioners are more fully confirmed, by the gracious message of your Majesty's royal Father to his Irish parliament in 1793, in which he was pleased to recommend such measures as might be

most likely to strengthen the general union and sentiment amongst all descriptions of his Majesty's subjects, in support of the established constitution; and in which his Majesty was further pleased to point out the relief of his Catholic subjects of Ireland, from the disqualifications by which they were affected, as the means best calculated to ensure this desirable result.

And your petitioners gratefully remember, that your Majesty has professed, on more than one occasion, towards your faithful people of Ireland, a favour and affection not inferior to that evinced by your royal Father. May we then implore your Majesty, graciously to interpose the noblest exercise of your royal prerogative in their behalf? may we implore you to allow the inhabitants of this distracted but generous country to dedicate their undivided energies-now exerted chiefly against each other-to the augmenting the resources, the ennobling the character, and elevating the glory and prosperity, of their native land? And may your Majesty be pleased, with the least possible delay, to recommend to your parliament to take into their most serious consideration, the alarming and wretched state of this portion of your Majesty's dominions, with a view to such final and conciliatory adjustment as may be conducive to the peace and strength of the united kingdom, to the stability of our national institutions, and to the general concord of your Majesty's loyal subjects; so may your Majesty more fully reign in the hearts of a grateful people, and transmit your crown with additional lustre to posterity.

A petition to the Houses of Lords and Commons, conveying similar sentiments, &c. was also adopted by the meeting.

An address from the same petitioners to the Marquess of Anglesey was likewise proposed and adopted, declaratory of "those principles of civil and religious freedom which are the bond of their union, and were the guide of his Lordship's counsels," and which now induced them to join" the voice of a multitudinous people, uplifted to mourn an event, whose painful interest has been able (words of no light import) for a season to suspend the universal discordance, to unite all orders in one common sentiment of sorrow, and to show that the passions which have disturbed our judgments have not yet softened our hearts."

Marquess of Anglesey's Answer.

Uxbridge House, April 14th, 1829.

My Lord Duke-My Lords and Gentlemen,

I have received, with the highest gratification, the address with which you have been pleased to honour me, on my retirement from the government of Ireland.

When it reached me, the happy measure, which it was your object to promote, was already under the consideration of the legislature; and I, therefore, deferred offering my acknowledgments for your personal kindness to me, in the hope that I should soon be enabled to add to them, as I now most joyfully do, my sincere congratulations upon the accomplishment of the great good which you desired for your country.