XXI. 1829. CHAP. not, like the genius in the fable, return within its narrow confines after having gratified our curiosity, and enable us to cast it back into the obscurity from which we evoked it. If we begin to recede, no limit can be assigned to our retrocession. We shall produce a violent reaction-violent in proportion to the hopes which have been excited. Fresh rigours will become necessary. The re-enactment of the penal code would be insufficient; we must abolish trial by jury, or at least incapacitate Catholics from sitting on juries. What can result from this but a more marked separation of the people of Ireland into distinct and hostile classes; a more entire monopoly of offices and power by the Protestants; a more unmixed and unqualified degradation of the Roman Catholics? How is this state of matters to go on in a country in which there are in all 5,000,000 of Catholics, and 2,000,000 of Protestants all congregated in the north-eastern parts of the island, and in the remaining three-fourths of which the Catholics are four to one, often twenty to one, compared to the Protestants? 139. "These are real and practical evils, which could not Concluded. fail to be felt the moment that the system of resistance to the Catholics is resumed. But are there no contingent evils likely to arise, and still more to be dreaded? Is there no danger of rebellion and civil war? To go no farther back than 1798, the character of the rebellion in that year is written in the statute-book. The preamble of the statute which contributed to its suppression declared it to be a wicked rebellion, that desolates and lays waste the country by the most savage and wanton violence, excess, and outrage, which has utterly set at defiance the civil power, and has stopped the ordinary course of justice and of the common law.' The rebellion thus characterised was defeated by force; Government completely triumphed; but was there an end, in consequence, of the Catholic question? So far from it, Mr Pitt, before the dying embers of the Union were cold-before the ink of the XXI. 1829. contract of union was dry-resigned office because he CHAP. could not carry this very question of Catholic relief. Will the issue, even the successful issue, of civil war leave us in a better condition now than it left us in the year 1800? Shall we not, on the contrary, at its close have to discuss this same question of emancipation with bitter animosities, with a more imperious necessity for the adjustment of the question, and with a diminished chance of effecting it on safe and satisfactory principles? No doubt there are real difficulties in the way of a solution of the question by concession,—no man is more disposed to admit that than I am; but what great measure, which has stamped its name upon the era of its adoption, has been ever carried through without objections insuperable, if they had been abstractly considered? Our difficulties may be great, but they are as nothing compared with those which obstructed the great measure which united in one whole the two separate and hostile kingdoms into which this island was divided. We must contemplate the measure now proposed in the same spirit in which our ancestors acted under similar circumstances-we must look to the end to be achieved, and the danger to be avoided; we must be content to make mutual sacrifices, if they are essential to the attainment of a paramount object, and withdraw objections to separate parts of a comprehensive scheme, 1 Parl. Deb. if, by insisting on these objections, we shall endanger its 756. final accomplishment." 1 xx. 728, the anti On the other hand, it was maintained by Sir Robert 140. Inglis, Mr Bankes, and Mr Sadler: "Not one of the Answer of grounds stated in justification of the proposed measure Catholics. will bear examination. The state of Ireland, the difficulty of governing the country with a divided cabinet, the impossibility of managing a House of Commons which left the Minister in a minority, the mischief consequent upon a division between the two branches of the legislature, are not imaginary evils; but the question is, Are they likely to be remedied by the measure now proposed? Is it not XXI. 1829. CHAP. rather calculated to aggravate and enhance them? The distracted state of Ireland is unhappily too well known, and has been of too long continuance, to admit of any dubiety concerning it; but from what does it date? From the concession of political privileges to the Catholics in 1793, which has rendered the country ever since the arena of party contention, and a scene of turmoil, confusion, and bloodshed. The penal code was relaxed, the elective franchise extended to the Catholics, a university endowed for their education, the army and navy thrown open to their ambition. What has been the result? The rebellion of 1798, and thirty years of subsequent agitation and discord. Everything conceded, instead of lessening, has only added fuel to the flame. Every acquisition made has been converted into a platform from whence fresh attacks on the constitution have been directed. Guided by this experience, what are we to expect from throwing open the portals of the legislature to the entire Catholic body? What but this, that the advanced work now gained will become the salient angle from which the fire will be directed on the body of the fortress; and that the work of agitation, headed by the Romish leaders in either House of Parliament, will be renewed with increased vigour to effect the overthrow of the Protestant Establishment, the severance of the Union, the dismemberment of the British. empire? 141. "According to the confession of Ministers themselves, Continued. the Catholic Association, and organised agitation it kept up by means of the priests in the country, is one main ground for this concession. It had produced the disease for which they now professed themselves unable to find a remedy. Confessedly, also, not an attempt had been made to crush that aspiring convention. Acts had been passed by large majorities in Parliament to put down the Association, but Ministers allowed them to remain a dead letter. If the acts were defective, and incapable of execution, with whom did the responsibility of that lie but XXI. 1829. with their own crown officers who drew up the bill? As to CHAP. the argument founded on the divided state of the Cabinet, why did Arthur Duke of Wellington and Mr Peel, who declared that their opinion on the subject was unchanged, not try to convert their colleagues to their views, instead of themselves becoming the converted party; or, if they could not do this, look out for other colleagues? Surely they could not be fearful of being able to form a cabinet on the principle of exclusion, and therefore should never have struck their colours, under which there were no difficulties too great to surmount. 142. "As to the dangers of a civil war, Ministers must have strangely mistaken the moral determination and force of Continued. public opinion in England, if they feared want of adequate support in conducting the contest. Besides, it was not a choice between civil war and concession, as far as the people of Ireland are concerned, but a far greater chance of civil war in Great Britain, if the Catholics are admitted, with their ambitious views, to the entire privileges of the constitution. At best it is only postponing the evil day; and it is for the House to consider under what different circumstances the attack could be resisted now, from those under which it would be possible to meet it when the Catholics possessed all the political immunities of the constitution. Unfortunately, the manner of concession is only a provocation to further attack. It is not the triumph of those who had long espoused the cause, gradually working their way by the power of opinion; it is the victory of force driving former enemies into desertion by intimidation. It openly told the Catholic agitators that they were too strong for the Government of Great Britain; that whatever they asked would be conceded, even to the giving up the constitution, provided only it was asked with sufficient clamour and violence. Ministers themselves did not venture to represent this measure as an act of grace, but as one which had been forced upon them by imperious necessity, many of them still retaining their 1829. CHAP. former opinions, and having their eyes open to all the XXI. evils likely to result from the course they were pursuing. No rational man could expect that the Catholics and Catholic priesthood will remain contented even with what is now given. The entire re-establishment of their church will be the next object; it is not only their interest to contend for that object, but if they are good Catholics, they must regard it as a sacred duty, to the attainment of which the civil privileges now proposed to be conferred are chiefly valuable in their eyes as a means. Even Mr Peel seemed to anticipate at no distant period an ulterior struggle; and is it wisdom to prepare for a contest by clothing your enemy in new armour, and putting in his hands fresh weapons of offence? "The securities for the Continued. said, amount to nothing. 143. 144. Church, of which so much is What do they amount to? Nothing but the exclusion of the Catholics from two offices, all the power connected with which is in reality vested in other offices which the Catholics may fill. The Lord Chancellor may not be a Roman Catholic, but what avails that when the prime-minister and all the rest of the Cabinet may be of that persuasion? The primeminister, who recommended all persons for bishoprics, might be a Catholic, and the influence of that faith might be exercised in the choice of persons who were to be forced on the Lord Chancellor by the rest of the Cabinet. The securities taken are just enough to fix a badge or mark on the Catholics, as belonging to an inferior sect, but for all practical purposes they are perfectly useless. Small as they are, they admit the existence of ulterior dangers; for if there are no dangers, why make any distinctions, or insist on any securities? 66 Why is this change in the constitution, subversive Continued. of the principles alike of the Reformation and the Revolution, to be forced upon the country in defiance of the opinions of the great majority of the people? No man can doubt that the preponderance of the anti-Catholics in |