1805. merick. The Earl of Limerick emulated the learned Chancellor in zealously resisting the motion. He Earl of Liadmitted indeed, that the leaders of the late rebellion were Protestants. Mr. Arthur O'Connor had even received Deacon's orders in the presence of the noble Earl's father: but those circumstances were not sufficient to establish with him the innocent intentions of the adherents of the Romish faith. Between two and three o'clock in the morning, the Chancellor proposed an adjournment, which was resisted by Lord Hawkesbury, but at length acquiesced in. folk. On the 13th of May, to which day the Lords Earl of Sufhad adjourned, Lord Suffolk resumed the debate, by answering many of the old objections. He urged, that the whole course of their measures towards the Catholics for a series of years had been only preludes to their final and complete emancipation. If not then granted, it would disappoint the Catholic mind, and he knew little of the human mind, who did not anticipate the most deprecable consequences from the refusal. Though the noble Secretary had denied, that no pledge in terms had been holden out to the Catholics at the Union he defied him or any one else to deny, that a strong expectation was then raised by Government, and universally entertained by the whole Catholic body upon the subject of their emancipation. And had it not been for the implicit acqui the nation, the Irish Government of Lord Hardwicke was directed. 1803. Earl of escence of the Irish Catholics upon the ground of such an understanding, the Union could not have been carried. What boon had been granted to them since the Union for their support of it? Their taxes had been aggravated, and the greatest part of the army destined for their defence had been sent abroad. He bitterly lamented and deprecated the language of Ministers, that emancipation never should be granted to the Catholics: and in answer to their arguments, that any encrease of power or of influence allowed to them would be used only in subversion of the Protestant religion, he instanced the Catholic county of Galway, which had lately been in the most tranquil and orderly state, which a very considerable Prótestant land owner of that county attributed solely to the judicious appointment of several Catholic gentlemen to the Magistracy. Lord Buckinghamshire, like all other opposers hamshire of the motion, spoke much of his own disposition to liberality and conciliation: denied that any such pledge for emancipation as had been alluded to, was or could have been given, and deemed it most inflammatory to allege, that the Catholics would be sore or irritated at the refusal of the prayer of their petition. Lord Carle ton. Lord Carleton urged the same arguments. He added, that the spiritual supremacy of the Church was by the law of this country vested in the Crown*; and surely it was a piece of the highest It is to be greatly lamented, that so much error upon this important topic finds countenance from the authority of those, contumacy in any sect of his Majesty's subjects to who have a sort of right to demand submission to their dicta. With submission to that learned Lord, and all other persons, who think with him, that Catholics admit the same supremacy in the Pope, which British subjects allow to exist in the King, the author in full confidence of speaking constitutional and legal language asserts, and will be ready at any time to prove, that no particle of that spiritual supremacy, which the Catholic holds necessarily to reside in the supreme Bishop of the Christian Church, is vested by the laws of the land written or unwritten in the King or first executive Magistrate. It is merely pontifical not regal. It is that only, which the sound Protestant divine calls the Power of the Keys, and cannot fall within the competency of the civil Magistrate. Our present King is the head of the civil establishment of the Protestant episcopalian religion in England and Ireland, as Henry the Seventh was the head of the civil establishment of the Catholic episcopalian religion in England and Ireland before the Reformation: with this only difference, that formerly the Pope had by grant of the nation some civil benefits allowed to him, which under Henry VIII. were by the act of the nation revoked. No Monarch ever pretended, or ever was allowed to have in him, or to exercise the power of the keys, or to partake of the pontifical or episcopal order. He consequently cannot, nor ever could ordain a Priest, administer the word of God or the Sacraments, or perform any pure spiritual function of the sacerdotal cr episcopal order. He cannot therefore confirm a Bishop, or institute a Clerk. That being the act, by which spiritual jurisdiction is conferred: it cannot, nor ever was pretended to be drawn from the civil Magistrate. Order and jurisdiction are essentially different: they are both necessary for Church Government: but neither can be drawn from the civil Magistrate. The act of Henry VIII. which regulates the ordination of Priests and consecration of Bishops, gives to the Crown a right of punishing the metropolitan with a premunire in case after the election under the Congé d'Elire he ne glect or refuse to consecrate and confirm the Bishop elect; but it enables not the Crown to do what the metropolitan might have 1805. 1805 deny that supremacy, and to vest the controul in a foreign potentate; more especially one, whom all Europe knew to be under the immediate influence of our common enemy. His Lordship also ascribed much importance to certain* maps and rolls of the forfeited estates, which he said, were circulated and handed down from generation to generation amongst the families of the ancient proprietors, with a view to resumption. If Catholics were once admissible to Parliament, through the influence of the Priests, all the 64 Members for counties, and most of the open Boroughs would done, but refused or neglected to do: viz. to collate spiritual jurisdiction over the diocese: that flowing from the power of the keys could not be granted by the civil Magistrate. Whereas by the same act, if the Dean and Chapter refuse or neglect to elect a person under the Congè d'Elire, (which is a civil act) the King is by that statute enabled by letters patent to appoint the person to be presented to the metropolitan. So in the inferior Clergy, the Clerk is presented by the patron, to be instituted by his Bishop, who alone can confer spiritual jurisdiction and the cure of souls over any part of his diocese. The only difference between the Catholic and Protestant on this point is the former holds it necessary to derive spiritual jurisdiction from the universal Bishop, the latter from a metropolitan. friend The late Charles O'Connor of Ballynagare, made a general sketch of a map of the ancient divisions of Ireland before the days of Elizabeth, and specified the names of the general owners of districts, for the private use and satisfaction of a and countryman of his own, then a general officer in the Austrian service. Some persons prevailed on Mr. O'Connor to permit the map (or rather sketch) to be printed before he sent the draught to Germany. Hence arose the wicked and unfounded charges of Catholic resumption. The Petty survey will be men tioned hereafter. be represented by Catholics: an unsurmountable objection to the prayer of their petition. 1805. chinson, Lord Hutchinson deeply regretted to hear his Lord HutCatholic countrymen traduced without ground or reason. Had the assertions made that night in the House to calumniate the Irish Catholics, and ignite one religious sect against the other, been uttered elsewhere, he should without hesitation have pronounced them the most unfounded calumnies. If it were the pleasure of Parliament to refuse the measure, it should at least be. done without insult and vituperation to the characters of the loyal claimants, without echoing those calumnies from one House to the other, and charging them with purposes the most criminal, upon conjectures the most vague. The noble Lord had been bred, educated, and had spent the greater part of his life in Ireland, and never had witnessed, or even heard of such fooleries and horrors, as had been retailed by the learned Lord, whom he challenged to verify his assertions by facts, Lord Redesdale feeling himself called upon in so Lord Redes pointed a manner, repeated many of his generali-dale. ties: reiterated his invectives against the Catholic hierarchy, and assured the noble Lord, who last spoke, that all his warmth should not deter him from stating, what he knew to be fact. His Lordship's own servants dared not reside in the interior of the country. moud. The Earl of Ormond trusted he should not be Earl of Orcontradicted by any man, who really knew any thing of Ireland, when he said, that the learned |