60 MR. GRATTAN'S OPINION ON A UNION. [CHAP. III.

and eloquent:-one of them, it is to be hoped, will not prove prophetic:

"Protestant ascendancy I conceive to be two-fold:first, your superiority in relation to the Catholic ;-second, your strength in relation to other objects. To be the superior sect is a necessary part, but only a part of your situation. To be a Protestant state, proud and able to guard yourself and your island against those dangers to which all states are obnoxious, is another part of your situation. In the one point of view, I consider you as a victorious sect; in the other, as the head of a growing nation; and not the first sect in a distracted land, rendered by that division a province and not a nation;-it would be my wish to unite the two situations.

"There is another danger to which, or to the fear of which, your divisions may expose the Protestant ascendancy-I mean a Union. Let me suppose the minister, as he has often proposed corrupt terms to the Protestant, should propose crafty ones to the Catholic, and should say, You are three-fourths of the people excluded from the blessings of an Irish constitution; accept the advantages of an English Union.' Here is a proposal, probably supported by the people of England, and rendered plausible to at least three-fourths of the people of Ireland. I mention a Union, because I have heard it has been darkly suggested as a resort of Protestant desperation against Catholic pretensions. Never think of it. The Protestant would be the first victim;-there would be Catholic equality and Parliamentary extinction. It would be fatal to the Catholic also; he would not be raised, but you would be depressed, and his chance of liberty blasted for ever. It would be fatal to England, beginning with a false compromise, which they might call a Union, to end in eternal separation through the progress of two civil wars.

"I have stated three dangers to which your ascendancy is exposed; let me suggest a fourth-the intermediate state of political languor whenever the craft of the minister touches you in your religious divisions; the loss of nerve, the decay of fire, the oblivion of grievances, and the palsy of virtue; your harp unstrung of its best passions, and responsive only to notes of gratitude for injuries, and grace and thanksgiving for corruption. I conclude this part of the subject by saying, as broadly and unconditionally as words can import, that the progressive adoption of the

CHAP. III.]

VIOLENT OPPOSITION.

61

Roman Catholics does not surrender, but ascertains the Protestant ascendancy; or that it does not give the Catholic the power to shake the establishment of your constitution in Church or State, or property. Neither does it leave him the disposition; it gives him immunities, and it makes Catholic privileges Protestant power. I repeat the idea and never did any more decide my head or my heart, my sense of public justice, and of public utility—I repeat the idea, that the interdict makes you two sects, and its progressive repeal makes you one people; placing you at the head of that people for ever, instead of being a sect for ever without a people, equal perhaps to coerce the Catholic, but obnoxious, both you and the Catholic, to be coerced by any other power,-the minister, if he wishes to enslave, or the enemy, if he wishes to invade you; an illassured settlement, unprepared to withstand those great diseases which are inseparable from the condition of nations, and may finally consume you; and in the mean time, subject to those intermitting fevers and panics which shake by fits your public zeal, and enfeeble all your determinations. I sit down reasserting my sentiments, which are, that the removal of all disabilities is necessary to make the Catholic a freeman, and the Protestant a people."

On the 20th, the House of Commons, as if repenting what had been just done, acted under the influence of those feelings which have unfortunately guided all proceedings wherever the Catholics or the country were concerned - a spirit of violence at one moment of concession at another-praising one day-insulting the next. In this mistaken spirit, David Latouche, a privy councillor, a supporter of Government, a person commanding respect and veneration, but who belonged to a French refugee family, and seemed alive even then to the sufferings of the Huguenots, proposed that the Catholic petition, which had been received with only one dissentient voice, and the Belfast petition, that had lain on the table for near a fortnight, should now be rejected.

This produced a violent debate. The demand

62

VIOLENT OPPOSITION. [CHAP. III.

of the elective franchise increased the support which Mr. Latouche obtained; and, singular to say, this privilege, which had been exercised for near forty years after the Revolution, was represented by the pretended champions of that great event, as forming part of the settlement, and a principal prop of Protestant ascendancy! Messrs. Brownlow, Ponsonby, and Bushe, were found among the supporters of Mr. Latouche; together with Beresford, Ogle, Loftus, Maxwell, Toler (Solicitor-general), and Sir Edward Newenham. They were opposed by Forbes, Egan, Hutchinson, Smith, Curran, Hardy, and Grattan. On a division, the numbers were-208 to 25 against the petition.

This debate was conducted with great violence and asperity. Mr. Toler (Solicitor-general) was peculiarly virulent. The bitterest feelings seemed to be set loose; insult and contumely cast on one party; ascendancy and tyranny upheld by the other. In referring to these times, Mr. Grattan used to say, that "I could hardly obtain a hearing. As to Denis Browne, (who always supported the Catholics,) he could not be heard at all;-they would not listen to him. I spoke against the sense, Browne against the noise of the House, and he was abused, insulted, and covered with reproaches."

Such was the account given by the chief actor in these scenes; and what a melancholy picture of a misled and misgoverned people! The consequence was natural, for this violent spirit operates two ways;-it forces one man to wish the slave out of the world; and the other, the tyrant. Mr. Grattan's remarks on the Revolution are worthy of attention:

"The Revolution has been much insisted on and much misunderstood. Gentlemen speak of the Revolution as

CH. III.] MR. GRATTAN ON REVOLUTION OF 1688. 63

the measure and limits of our liberty. The Revolution in Ireland was followed by two events the loss of trade, and the loss of freedom to the Protestants; and the cause of such losses was our religious animosity. It was not attended by the loss of the elective franchise to the Papist. If then the Revolution is the common measure of the condition of both sects, two extraordinary results would follow-that the Protestants should not recover their trade or freedom, and that the Catholics should not lose their franchise; but the virtue of the Revolution in Ireland was its principles, which were for a century checked in this country, but which did at last exert themselves, and inspire you to re-establish your liberty, and must at last prompt you to communicate a share of that liberty to the rest of the Irish. The Revolution in Ireland, properly understood, is a great and salient principle of freedom; as misunderstood, it is a measure and entail of bondage.

"The part of the subject which I shall now press upon you is the final and eternal doom to which some gentlemen propose to condemn the Catholic. Some have said they must never get the elective franchise. What! never be free? 3,000,000 of your people condemned by their fellow-subjects to an everlasting slavery, in all changes of time, decay of prejudice, increase of knowledge, the fall of Papal power, and the establishment of philosophic and moral ascendancy in its place. Never be free! do you mean to tell the Roman Catholic, it is in vain you take oaths and declarations of allegiance; it would be in vain even to renounce the spiritual power of the Pope, and become like any other Dissenter;-it will make no difference as to your emancipation. Go to France-go to America-carry your property, industry, manufactures, and family, to a land of liberty. This is a sentence which requires the power of a God, and the malignity of a demon. You are not competent to pronounce it;-believe me, you may as well plant your foot on the earth, and hope by that resistance to stop the diurnal revolution which advances you to that morning sun which is to shine alike on the Protestant and the Catholic, as you can hope to arrest the progress of that other light-reason and justice-which approach to liberate the Catholic and liberalize the Protestant. Even now the question is on its way, and making its destined and irresistible progress,—

64

MR. TOLER AND MR. TANDY.

[CHAP. III. which you, with all your authority, will have no power to resist, no more than any other great truth, or any great ordinance of nature, or any law of nations, which mankind is free to contemplate, but cannot resist. There is a justice linked to their cause, and a truth that sets off their application."

The House of Commons having involved itself in one difficulty by the rejection of the Protestant and Roman Catholic petitions, was led by the officers of the crown to involve itself with the people on another question-that of the privileges of Parliament. In the debate on the 20th of February, the Solicitor-general, (Mr. Toler,) indulging in one of his usual humorous sallies, criticised rather too severely, the character as well as the person of Mr. Napper Tandy, upon which the latter demanded an explanation, which the Solicitor-general refused to give, and appealed to the House. The House declared it a breach of privilege, and ordered Mr. Tandy to be arrested. The Speaker issued his warrant, but Mr. Tandy escaped from the custody of the officer, upon which the House applied to the Lord-lieutenant to issue a proclamation for his apprehension, and directed the officers of the crown to prosecute him.

Thus, by the misconduct of Mr. Toler, and the imprudence of the law officers, they got involved in two difficulties. To extricate themselves from the first, they were obliged to appeal to the Lordlieutenant; and to extricate themselves from the second, they were obliged to appeal to a jury of their country. Having thus laid the privileges of the Commons at the feet of the executive magistrate, they fled for redress to the people whom they had insulted.

The business ended, like most of the matters entrusted to Mr. Toler, in a complete farce. Mr.