the constant habit of leaping over such walls. His first intention with respect to the sheep is absurd, his means more absurd, and his error is perfect in all its parts. He tries to do that which, if he succeed, will be very foolish; and tries to do it by means which he himself, at the time of using them, admits to be inadequate to the purpose: but I hope this objection to the oaths of Catholics is disappearing. I believe neither Lord Liverpool, nor Mr. Peel, (a very candid and honorable man,) nor the archbishops, (who are both gentlemen,) nor Lord Eldon, nor Lord Stowell, (whose Protestantism nobody calls in question,) would make such a charge. It is confined to provincial violence, and to the politicians of the second table. I remember hearing the Catholics from the hustings of an election accused of disregarding oaths, and within an hour from that time, I saw five Catholic voters rejected, because they would not take the oath of supremacy; and these were not men of rank who tendered themselves, but ordinary tradesmen. The accusation was received with loud huzzas; the poor Catholics retired unobserved and in silence. No one praised the conscientious feelings of the constituents: no one rebuked the calumny of the candidate. This is precisely the way in which the Catholics are treated: the very same man who encourages among his partisans the doctrine, that Catholics are not to be believed on their oaths, directs his agents on the hustings to be very watchful that all Catholics should be prevented from voting, by tendering to them the oath of supremacy, which he is certain not one of them will take. If this is not calumny and injustice, I know not what human conduct can deserve the name.

If you believe the oath of a Catholic, see what he will swear, and what he will not swear: read the oaths he already takes, and say whether in common candor or in common sense, you can require more security than he offers you. Before the year 1793, the Catholic was subject to many more vexatious laws than he now is; in that year an act passed in his favor, but before the Catholic could exempt himself from his ancient pains and penalties, it was necessary to take an oath. This oath was, I believe, drawn up by Dr. Duigenan, the bitter and implacable enemy of the sect, and it is so important an oath, so little known and read in England, that I cannot, in spite of my wish to be brief, abstain from quoting it. I deny your right to call No Popery, till you are master of its contents.

"I do swear, that I do abjure, condemn, and detest, as unchristian and impious, the principle, that it is lawful to murder, destroy, or any way injure, any person whatsoever, for or under the pretext of being a heretic; and I do declare solemnly before God, that I believe no act, in itself unjust, immoral, or wicked,

can ever be justified or excused by or under pretence or color that it was done either for the good of the church, or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power whatsoever. I also declare that it is not an article of the Catholic faith, neither am I thereby required to believe or profess that the Pope is infallible; or that I am bound to obey any order, in its own nature immoral, though the Pope or any ecclesiastical power should issue or direct such order; but on the contrary, I hold that it would be sinful in me to pay any respect or obedience thereto. I further declare, that I do not believe that any sin whatsoever committed by me can be forgiven at the mere will of any pope or any priest, or of any person whatsoever; but that sincere sorrow for past sins, a firm and sincere resolution to avoid future guilt, and to atone to God, are previous and indispensable requisites to establish a well-founded expectation of forgiveness; and that any person who receives absolution, without these previous requisites, so far from obtaining thereby any remission of his sins, incurs the additional guilt of violating a sacrament: and I do swear, that I will defend, to the utmost of my power, the settlement and arrangement of property in this country, as established by the laws now in being.-I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present church establishment, for the purpose of substituting a Catholic establishment in its stead; and I do solemnly swear, that I will not exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled, to disturb and weaken the Protestant religion and Protestant government in this kingdom. So help me God."

This oath is taken by every Catholic in Ireland, and a similar oath, allowing for the difference of circumstances of the two countries, is taken in England.

It appears from the evidence taken before the two Houses, and lately printed, that if Catholic emancipation were carried, there would be little or no difficulty in obtaining from the Pope an agreement, that the nomination of the Irish Catholic bishops should be made at home constitutionally by the Catholics, as it is now in fact,' and in practice, and that the Irish prelates would go a great way in arranging a system of general education, if the spirit of proselytism, which now renders such a union impossible, were laid aside. This great measure carried, the Irish Catholics would give up all their endowments abroad, if they received for them an equivalent at home; for now Irish priests are fast re

The Catholic bishops, since the death of the Pretender, are recommended either by the chapters or parochial clergy to the Pope; and there is no instance of bis deviating from their choice.

sorting to the Continent for education, allured by the endowments which the French government are cunningly restoring and augmenting. The intercourse with the see of Rome might and would, after Catholic emancipation, be so managed, that it should be open on grave occasions, or, if thought proper, on every occasion, to the inspection of commissioners. There is no security compatible with the safety of their faith, which the Catholics are not willing to give. But what is Catholic emancipation, as far as England is concerned? not an equal right to office with the member of the Church of England, but a participation in the same pains and penalties as those to which the Protestant dissenter is subjected by the corporation and test acts. If the utility of these last-mentioned laws is to be measured by the horror and perturbation their repeal would excite, they are laws of the utmost importance to the defence of the English church; but if it be of importance to the church that pains and penalties, should be thus kept suspended over men's heads, then these bills are an effectual security against Catholics as well as Protestants: and the manacles so much confided in are not taken off, but loosened, and the prayer of a Catholic is this: "I cannot now become an alderman without perjury. I pray of you to improve my condition so far, that if I become an alderman, I may be only exposed to a penalty of 5001." There are two common errors on the subject of Catholic emancipation; the one, that the emancipated Catholic is to be put on a better footing than the Protestant dissenter, whereas he will be put precisely on the same footing; the other, that he is to be admitted to civil offices, without any guard, exception, or reserve, whereas in the various bills which have been from time to time brought forward, the legal wit of man has been exhausted to provide against every surmise, suspicion, and whisper of the most remote danger to the Protestant church.

The Catholic question is not an English question, but an Irish one; or rather, it is no otherwise an English question than as it is an Irish one. As for the handful of Catholics that are in England, no one, I presume, can be so extravagant as to contend, if they were the only Catholics we had to do with, that it would be of the slightest possible consequence to what offices of the state they were admitted. It would be quite as necessary to exclude the Sandemanians, who are sixteen in number, or to make a test act against the followers of Joanna Southcote, who amount to one hundred and twenty persons. A little chalk on the wall, and a profound ignorance of the subject, soon raises a cry of No Popery; but I question if the danger of admitting five popish peers and two commoners to the benefits of the constitution, could raise a mob

in any market-town in England. Whatever good may accrue to England from the emancipation, or evil may befall this country for withholding emancipation, will reach us only through the medium of Ireland.

I beg to remind you, that in talking of the Catholic religion, you must talk of the Catholic religion as it is carried on in Ireland; you have nothing to do with Spain, or France, or Italy: the religion you are to examine is the Irish Catholic religion. You are not to consider what it was, but what it is; not what individuals profess, but what is generally professed; not what individuals do, but what is generally practised. I constantly see in advertisements from country meetings, all these species of monstrous injustice played off against the Catholics. The inquisition exists in Spain and Portugal; therefore I confound place, and vote against the Catholics of Ireland, where it never did exist, nor was purposed to be instituted.' There have been many cruel persecutions of Protestants by Catholic governments; and, therefore, I will confound time and place, and vote against the Irish, who live centuries after these persecutions, and in a totally different country. Doctor this, or Doctor that of the Catholic church has written a very violent and absurd pamphlet; therefore I will con found persons, and vote against the whole Irish Catholic church, which has neither sanctioned nor expressed any such opinions. I will continue the incapacities of men of this age, because some men in distant ages, deserved ill of other men in distant ages. They shall expiate the crimes committed before they were born, in a land they never saw, by individuals they never heard of. I will charge them with every act of folly which they have never sanctioned and cannot control. I will sacrifice space, time, and identity, to my zeal for the Protestant church. Now in the midst of all this violence, consider for a moment how you are imposed on by words, and what a serious violation of the rights of your fellow-creatures you are committing. Mr. Murphy lives in Limerick, and Mr. Murphy and his son are subjected to a thousand inconveniences and disadvantages, because they are Catholics. Murphy is a wealthy, honorable, excellent man; he ought to be in the corporation, he cannot get in because he is a Catholic. His son ought to be king's counsel for his talents, and his standing at the bar; he is prevented from reaching this dignity, because he is a Catholic. Why, what reasons do you hear for all this? because

Whilst Mary was burning Protestants in England, not a single Protestant was executed in Ireland; and yet the terrors of that reign are, at this moment, one of the most operative causes of the exclusion of Irish Catholics.

Queen Mary, three hundred years before the natal day of Mr. Murphy, murdered Protestants in Smithfield; because Louis XIV. dragooned his Protestant subjects, when the predecessor of Murphy's predecessor was not in being; because men are confined in prison, in Madrid, twelve degrees more south than Murphy has ever been in his life: all ages, all climates, are ransacked to perpetuate the slavery of Murphy, the ill-fated victim of political anachronisms.

Suppose a barrister, in defending a prisoner, were to say to the judge, "My lord, I humbly submit to your lordship that this indictment against the prisoner cannot stand good in law; and as the safety of a fellow-creature is concerned, I request your lordship's patient attention to my objections. In the first place, the indictment does not pretend that the prisoner at the bar is himself guilty of the offence, but that some persons of the same religious sect as himself are so; in whose crime he cannot, (I submit,) by any possibility, be implicated, as these criminal persons lived three hundred years before the prisoner was born. In the next place, my lord, the venue of several crimes imputed to the prisoner is laid in countries to which the jurisdiction of this court does not extend; in France, Spain, and Italy, where also the prisoner has never been; and as to the argument used by my learned brother, that it is only want of power, and not want of will, and that the prisoner would commit the crime if he could; I humbly submit, that the custom of England has been to wait for the overt act before pain and penalty are inflicted, and that your lordship would pass a most doleful assize, if punishment depended on evil volition; if men were subjected to legal incapacities from the mere suspicion that they would do harm if they could; and if it were admitted to be sufficient proof of this suspicion, that men of this faith in distant ages, different countries, and under different circumstances, had planned evil, and when occasion offered, done it."

When are mercy and justice, in fact, ever to return on the earth, if the sins of the elders are to be for ever visited on those who are not even their children? Should the first act of liberated Greece be to recommence the Trojan war? Are the French never to forget the Sicilian vespers; or the Americans the long war waged against their liberties? Is any rule wise, which may set the Irish to recollect what they have suffered ?

The real danger is this, that you have six Irish Catholics for one Irish Protestant. That is the matter of fact, which none of us can help. Is it better policy to make friends, rather than enemies, of this immense population? I allow there is danger to the Protestant church, but much more danger, I am sure there is, in re