their neighbours for the brothers of their blood---Ireland, where some strokes given by a peer of the realm, to a poor inoffenfive priest in the last stage of a decay, which in a few days rescued him from the miseries of this life," the law's delay, "and the proud man's contumely"---Ireland, where this scene raised fuch indignation in the generous breaft of every Proteftant, that a lawyer*, who to the powers of the orator joins the courage of the hero, without fee or reward, pleaded for obfcurity againft eminence, for weakness against power, and, after afferting the rights of humanity at the bar, went to encounter death in the field for a helplefs, client, in the laft ftruggles of the agony---Ireland, fo famous for the generous fentiments of her inhabitants, is the devoted spot, where out of a million and half of subjects, not one can become a coal measurer,-a common foldier,-an excife-man, nor have more than two apprentices at a time! Their Diffenting brethren, fo humane in their private characters, and the profeffors of whofe religi on are fo tolerant in Holland and Switzerland, * Counsellor Curran. erland, confider their Catholic neighbours as fo many flaves ready to cut their throats, at the firft fignal given by their royal mafters, without whofe concurrence the chain could never have been fastened to their bodies. The kings of England on the other hand, whose treasury would be better fupplied by opulent fubjects than by a million of naked and famished objects, are obliged at an enormous expenfe, to hire foreign mercenaries of every religion, with their respective chaplains, whilft their dauntlefs fubjects are forced to throw themselves into the arms of those sovereigns who pay them for fighting, and permit. them to pray as they think fit. Thus government is distressed on one hand, and the kingdom is deprived of its ftrength and internal refources on the other. The Catholics, between their fellow fubjects and the throne, are like the forlorn hope between two armies. They are doomed to civil deftruction between both. Europe will foon bear a different afpect and the examples fet by those princes, who, for the aggrandizement of their ftates, are doing away all religious diftinc diftinctions, are fo many warnings to copy after them. The Gauls, the Romans, the Carthaginians, thought themfelves once invincible. Their divifions precipitated their downfal. No oracle has as yet declared that foreign candidates for glory and conqueft will be deterred from attempting to become our mafters. The power to refift becomes greater in proportion to the number of the fubjects: In proportion to the stake they have to defend, their attachment to their country, their attachment to each other. A fmall ftate, rich, populous, and well united, is preferable to a large but divided kingdom. Let religious diftinctions, then, be laid afide. It is equal to the Ifraelite, released from bondage, whether his temple be built by Solomon or Cyrus; provided he has liberty to pray unmolested, and to fleep under his vine and fig-tree. Difeafes,fickness,--death, which mows down the young and old,emigrations, the waste of war,-countries, now unknown, which will be hereafter discovered,-colonies that ever and always depopulate the parent-ftate,-rifing empires, and princes inviting ftrangers to fettle in their dominions,-will leave land enough in Ireland, to the end of time, for ten times the number of its inhabitants. The world is in a continual change. New monarchs fway the fceptre. New minifters direct their councils. New characters are daily mounting the ftage of life, to become the objects of the applause, derifion, or cenfure of mankind. Every new generation is a new world, raised on the ruins of the former, aiming at their prefent advantages, without any retrospect to paft tranfactions, in which they are noways concerned. We frequently change our bodies. Reafon on its travels from age to age, acquires a new mode of thinking. In a word, every thing is liable to change; and it is high time to change from divifion to union. Let not religion, the facred name of religion, which even in the face of an enemy discovers a brother, be any longer a wall of feparation to keep us asunder: though it has been often perverted to the worst of purposes, yet it is easy to reconcile it with every focial bleffing. In In the course of this work, I intend to make Toleration a citizen of the world, inftead of confining it to one kingdom or province. I am not an able, neither am I a partial advocate. I plead for the Protestant in France, and for the Jew in Lisbon, as well as for the Catholic in Ireland. In future ages should fanaticism attempt to re-establish her deftructive empire, and, crying out with the frantic queen, exo"riare aliquis ex offibus noftris," fummon the furies to spring from her embers, which I attempt to difperfe and deprive of their noxious heat, let this votive offering, hung up in the temple of the Order of the Monks of St. Patrick, announce to pofterity, that in feventeen hundred and eighty one, the liberal-minded of all denominations in Ireland, were reconciled, maugre the odious diftinctions which the laws uphold, and that those very laws, enacted before we were born, but not the difpofitions of the people, are the only fources of our misfortunes. Whatever tends to promote the public good, is a tribute due from an adopted brother, to great and illuftrious charac ters, |