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EXTRACT FROM MR. GRATTAN'S [CHAP. IV.

no part of the state. Who will answer for the satisfaction of those proprietors? It is not life, but the condition of living; the slave is not so likely to complain of the want of property, as the proprietor of the want of privilege. The human mind is progressive :-the child does not look back to the parent that gave him being, nor the people to the legislator that gave them the power of acquisition; but both look forward; the one to provide for the comforts of life, and the other to obtain all the privileges of property.

"Your imperfect grants and comprehensive theories have given those aspiring thoughts, and let in that train of ideas which may hereafter greatly serve, or marvellously distract your country; you have already given to their mind the first principles of motion, and the laws of motion (and not yours) must direct the machine.

"The germ on the soul, like the child in the womb, or the seed in the earth, swell in their stated time to their destined proportions, by virtue of their laws, which we neither make nor controul. Talk not in such cases of gratitude; rely on that gratitude which is founded on interest, such gratitude as governed yourselves from 1691, when you secured your property, to 1779, when you demanded your trade; and in 1782, when you demanded your liberty, from a colony looking only to property, to a people looking to a free form of government,from planters joining with the mother country against the Catholics, to a nation joining with the Catholics to exact of the mother country trade and freedom. Do I condemn you ? Such is the progress of nations, such the nature of man, and such his gratitude!

*

*

*

*

"I have read of a republic, where the whole business of life was neglected, to give place to mathematical investigation. I can suppose a more extraordinary state, where the law excluded from serving the public, three-fourths of the people, unless they would give a theological opinion, touching an abstract point of divinity, and verify that opinion on oath. I have heard of Athens-that cruel republic-excluding so many of her own children from the rights of citizenship; but she only had the wisdom of Socrates, the light of Plato;-she had not, like you, the revelations to instruct her; besides, she had not the press-she had not the benefits of your lesson. What lesson ?-that to a people it was not life, but the condition of living; and to be bound without your own consent, was to be a slave;

CHAP. IV.]

ELOQUENT SPEECH.

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and therefore you were not satisfied in 1782 with the free exercise of your religion, but demanded however, I do not rely on your private productions. What are your public tracts, your repeated addresses to the King, the Speaker's annual speech to the throne,-what are they, while the penal code remains, but so many dangerous and inflammatory publications, felicitating the Protestants on the blessings of that constitution from whence three-fourths are excluded,but above all, that instrument, infinitely more incendiary than all Mr. Paine has written,-that instrument which you annually vote, what is it now? A challenge to discontent, that money bill, I mean, wherein you dispose of the money of 3,000,000 of the people without their consent. You do not stir, nor vote, nor speak, without suggesting to the Catholics some motive either in provocation of your blessing, or the poison of your free principles ;—some motive, I say, which is fatal to that state of quietism, wherein, during this age of discussion, you must enlap your people in order to give your government the chance of repose. You are struggling with difficulties, you imagine; you are mistaken; you are struggling with impossibilities. To enchain the mind-to case in the volatile essential soul -nor power, nor dungeon, much less Parliament, can be retentive of those fires kindled by yourselves in the breast of your fellow-subjects, living on the confines and the carousals of your freedom. Distrust that religious vanity which tells you that these men are not fit for freedom; they have answered that vanity in a strain of oratory peculiar to the oppressed. It is the error of sects to value themselves more upon their differences, than their religion; and in these differences, in which they forget the principles of their religions they imagine they have discovered the mystery of their salvation, and to this suppressed discovery they have offered human sacrifices. What human sacrifices have we offered ?-the dearest-the liberties of our fellow subjects. Distrust again that fallacious policy which tells you that your power is advanced by their bondage; it is not your power, but your punishment; it is liberty withot energy; you know it: it presents you with a monopoly, and the monopoly of others, not your own ;-it presents you with the image of a monster in a state when the heart gives no circulation, and the limbs receive no life; -a nominal representative, and a nominal people. Call not this your misfortune: it is your sentence; it is your

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execution.

MR. GRATTAN'S SPEECH.

[CHAP. IV.

Never could the law of nature suffer one set of men to take away the liberty of another, and that a numerous part of their own people,without feeling some diminution of their own strength and freedom. But, in making laws on the subject of religion, legislators forget mankind, until their own distraction admonishes them of two truths,the one, that there is a God,-the other, that there is a people. Never was it permitted to any nation, they may perplex their understanding with various apologies,—but never long was it permitted to exclude from essential,from what they themselves have pronounced essential blessings, a great portion of themselves, for periods of time, and for no reason, or what is worse, for such reason as you have advanced.

"Conquerors, or tyrants proceeding from conquerors, have scarcely ever, for any length of time, governed by these partial disabilities; but a people so to govern itself, or rather, under the name of government, so to exclude one another, the industrious, the opulent, the useful,—that part that feeds you with its industry, and supplies you with its taxes, weaves that you may wear, and ploughs that you may eat, to exclude a body so useful, so numerous, and that for ever, and in the mean time to tax them ad libitum, and occasionally to pledge their lives and fortunes!-for what?-for their disfranchisement. It cannot be done:

continue it, and you expect from your laws what it were blasphemy to ask of your Maker. Such a policy always turns on the inventor, and bruises him under the stroke of the sceptre, or the sword, or sinks him under the accumulation of debt and loss of dominion. Need I go to instances? What was the case of Ireland, enslaved for a century, and withered and blasted with her Protestant ascendancy, like a shattered oak, seethed on its hill by the fires of its own intolerance? What lost England America, but such a policy?—an attempt to bind men by a Parliament wherein they are not represented, such an attempt as some would now continue to practise on the Catholics, and to involve England. What was it saved England to Ireland, but the contrary policy? I have seen these principles of liberty verified by yourselves,-I have heard addresses, from counties and cities here, on the subject of the slave-trade, to Mr. Wilberforce, thanking him for his efforts to set free a distressed people. Has your pity traversed leagues of sea to sit down by the black boy on the Coast of Guinea, and

CIIAP. IV.]

PROGRESS OF BILL-THE OATH.

93

have you forgot the man at home by your side, your brother? Come, then, and by one great act cancel this code, and prepare your mind for that bright order of time which now seems to touch your condition!"

On the 25th, Mr. George Knox proposed the admission of Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, in which he was seconded by Major, afterwards Sir John Doyle, and opposed by Mr. Wesley, and the motion was rejected by 136 to 69.

On the 27th, the Bill went into committee. It was opposed by the Speaker, Mr. Foster, and Mr. Ogle. Doctor Duigenan proposed to limit the elective franchise to 207. freehold property. Mr. Vandeleur proposed as an amendment, that it should be limited to 10. This was rejected by 144 to 72. An amendment, by Mr. Warburton, to limit the franchise to 5. was likewise negatived.

On the 2nd of March, Mr. Hobart presented a sketch of the oath to be taken by the Catholics. It consisted of the whole of the oath of the 13th and 14th of the King; and embraced also many of the leading points contained in the late Catholic declaration. Doctor Duigenan proposed a much longer one, but this was objected to, and at length, out of both, one was composed, which was upwards of a page in length, and a very offensive composition. The bill thus altered-not amended, passed on the 7th of March, and on the 15th was sent to the Lords, where it met with considerable opposition from the Chancellor and the Archbishop of Cashel. It was, however, warmly supported by the Bishop of Killala (Law); in reply to whom Lord Clare expressed himself in the following singular terms, and gave his opinion on the Union which is certainly very remarkable:

"When principles of anarchy, the rage of innovation,

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LORD CLARE ON THE UNION. [CHAP. IV.

and the epidemical frenzy seem to have reached this House, when inflammatory declamation, and ill-advised mis-statements come from the reverend Bench, and attacks upon the existing Government, I feel it necessary to rise in defence of the Constitution. Before I allude more particularly to the right reverend Prelate,* I must assume the office of his apologist; and the apologies I shall make for him will be, an utter and radical ignorance of the laws and constitution of the country from whence he came, and the laws and constitution of the country in which he lives."

He wished to resist further innovation, and foresaw, in granting more than the present bill gave, a total separation from England, or a union with her-EACH TO BE EQUALLY DREADED.' These latter expressions will strike every reader acquainted with the history of these times, and with Lord Clare's subsequent conduct on the Union, as very surprising. The report of the speech is accurate; but it must be observed, that at this period Lord Clare was dissatisfied with the British minister. He had not been consulted by him, and, ambitious of power, and seeking to monopolize all government, he expressed himself against a Union, perhaps because he supposed the British minister was for it.

The bill passed both Houses, and on the 9th of April received the Royal assent, and so far raised the Catholic, in point of law, to a level with his Protestant fellow-countryman; but, in point of fact, as far as regarded promotion at the bar, or the enjoyment of civil and corporate rights, Roman Catholics remained excluded in many cases just as much as if the law had not passed. It was not till 1822 (Lord Wellesley's administration) that they were promoted in the legal profession, under the provisions of this bill; nor was it until

*Brother to Lord Ellenborough, who was afterwards Chief Justice of England, and who was perhaps as capable of instructing his brother in the laws and constitution of his country, as Lord Fitzgibbon was.