-there is, in such artifice, an effrontery, a hardi hood, an insensibility, that can best be answered by sensations of astonishment and disgust.

The Constitution may be for a time so lost. The character of the country cannot be so lost. The min isters of the Crown will, or may, perhaps, at length find that it is not so easy, by abilities however great, and by power and corruption however irresistible, to put down forever an ancient and respectable Nation. Liberty may repair her golden beams, and with redoubled heat animate the country. The cry of loyalty will not long continue against the principles of liberty. Loyalty is a noble, a judicious, and a capacious principle; but in these countries loyalty, distinct from liber ty, is corruption, not loyalty.

The cry of disaffection will not, in the end, avail against the principle of liberty. I do not give up the country. I see her in a swoon, but she is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, still there is on her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of beauty:

"Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And Death's pale flag is not advanced there."

While a plank of the vessel sticks together, I will not leave her. Let the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry the light bark of his faith with every new breath of wind; I will remain anchored here, with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, faithful to her freedom, faithful to her fall!

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION, 1805.-Henry Grattan.

The Parliament of Ireland!-of that assembly 1 have a parental recollection. I sat by her cradle,—1 followed her hearse. In fourteen years she acquired for Ireland what you did not acquire for England in a century,--freedom of trade, independency of the Legislature, independency of the judges, restoration of the final judicature, repeal of a perpetual mutiny bill, haDeas corpus act, nullum tempus act-a great work! You will exceed it, and I shall rejoice. I call my countrymen to witness, if in that business I compromised the claims of my country, or temporized with the power of England; but there was one thing which baffled the effort of the patriot, and defeated the wisdom of the Senate,-it was the folly of the theologian! When the Parliament of Ireland rejected the Catholic petition, and assented to the calumnies then uttered against the Catholic body, on that day she voted the Union if you should adopt a similar conduct, on that day you will vote the separation. Many good and pious reasons you may give; many good and pious reasons she gave; and she lies THERE, with her many good and pious reasons! That the Parliament of Ireland should have entertained prejudices, I am not astonished; but that you,--that you, who have as individuals and as conquerors, visited a great part of the globe, and have seen men in all their modifications, and Providence in all her ways,-that you, now, at this time of day, should throw up dikes against the Pope, and barriers against the Catholfc, instead of uniting with

that Catholic to throw up barriers against the French, this surprises; and, in addition to this, that you should have set up the Pope in Italy to tremble at him in Ireland; and further, that you should have professed to have placed yourself at the head of a Christian, not a Protestant league, to defend the civil and religious liberty of Europe, and should deprive of their civil liberty one-fifth of yourselves, on account of their religion, -this- this surprises me!

remove.

This prescriptive system you may now What the best men in Ireland wished to do, but could not do, you may accomplish. Were it not wise to come to a good understanding with the Irish now? The franchises of the Constitution!-your ancestors were nursed in that cradle. The ancestors of the petitioners were less fortunate. The posterity of both, born to new and strange dangers,-let them agree to renounce jealousies and proscriptions, in order to oppose what, without that agreement, will overpower both. Half Europe is in battalion against us, and we are devoting one another to perdition on account of mysteries,when we should form against the enemy, and march!

RELIGION INDEPENDENT OF GOVERNMENT, 1811.—Henry Grattan.

Let us reflect on the necessary limits of all human legislation. No Legislature has a right to make partial laws; it has no right to make arbitrary laws-I mean laws contrary to reason; because that is beyond the power of the Deity Neither has it a right to institute

any inquisition into men's thoughts, nor to punish any man merely for his religion. It can have no power to make a religion for men, since that would be to dethrone the Almighty. I presume it will not be arrogated, on the part of the British Legislature, that his Majesty, by and with the advice of the Lords spiritual and temporal, etc., can enact that he will appoint and constitute a new religion for the People of this empire; or that, by an order in Council, the consciences and creeds of his subjects might be suspended. Nor will it be contended, I apprehend, that any authoritative or legislative measure could alter the law of the hy pothenuse. Whatever belongs to the authority of God, or to the laws of nature, is necessarily beyond the province and sphere of human institution and government. The Roman Catholic, when you disqualify him on the ground of his religion, may, with great justice, tell you that you are not his God, that he cannot mould or fashion his faith by your decrees. When once man goes out of his sphere, and says he will legislate for God, he would, in fact, make himself God.

But this I do not charge upon the Parliament, because, in none of the penal acts, has the Parliament imposed a religious creed. The qualifying oath, as to the great number of offices, and as to seats in Parliaments, scrupulously evades religious distinctions. A Dissenter of any class may take it. A Deist, an Atheist, may likewise take it. The Catholics are alone excepted; and for what reason? If a Deist be fit to sit in Parliament, it can hardly be urged that a Christian is unfit! If an Atheist be competent to legislate

that Catholic to throw up barriers against the French, this surprices; and, in addition to this, that you should have set up the Pope in Italy to tremble at him in Ireland; and further, that you should have professed to have placed yourself at the head of a Christian, not a Protestant league, to defend the civil and religious liberty of Europe, and should deprive of their civil liberty one-fifth of yourselves, on account of their religion, -this-this surprises me!

This prescriptive system you may now remove. What the best men in Ireland wished to do, but could not do, you may accomplish. Were it not wise to come to a good understanding with the Irish now? The franchises of the Constitution!-your ancestors were nursed in that cradle. The ancestors of the petitioners were less fortunate. The posterity of both, born to new and strange dangers,-let them agree to renounce jealousies and proscriptions, in order to oppose what, without that agreement, will overpower both. Half Europe is in battalion against us, and we are devoting one another to perdition on account of mysterics,— when we should form against the enemy, and march!

RELIGION INDEPENDENT OF GOVERNMENT, 1811.-Henry Grattan.

Let us reflect on the necessary limits of all human legislation. No Legislature has a right to make partial laws; it has no right to make arbitrary laws-I mean laws contrary to reason; because that is beyond the power of the Deity Neither has it a right to institute