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 COLONEL WARDLE 
 
 TO HI8 COUNTRYMEN. 

 
 COLONEL WARDLE 7 
 
 TO HIS COUNTRYMEN. 
 
 Parve, nee invideo, sine me, Liber, ibis in Urbem. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
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 Oap(T»yrac, Xe'ywj' KariTrXijaasy CTrt to (pofteltrdat, 
 
 Thucyd. B. ?£. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY JAMES BIGGS, 
 53, PARLIAMENT STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXVIII.
 
 HARJETTE AND SAVILL, 107, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, 
 CHARING CROSS.
 
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 COLONEL WARDLE 
 
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 When I addressed you upon former occasions 
 you attended to me unasked ; upon the present, I 
 pray you to do so ; for it is the cause of justice and 
 humanity that I plead. 
 
 The champion of civil and religious liberty is no 
 more ; but, forefend it fate that Liberty should wither 
 on his tomb ! 
 
 The immortal name of Canning; will still be a 
 talisman to all her votaries ; and the great woFk he 
 so nobly had begun they will accomplish. Never 
 did statesman inspire such great and extended ad- 
 miration whilst living, or occasion such deep afflic- 
 tion by his death. Great and general is his loss ; but 
 great and general must be the influence of that short 
 but glorious period, in which his transcendant genius, 
 while extending and legitimating liberal sentiments, 
 gave the death blow to the foulest and most power- 
 ful conspiracy that ever was formed against civil 
 and religious liberty. Much has he done for the 
 world ; much for his country ; and the beams of his 
 splendid mind will continue to cheer the one and the 
 other in his last great work, the union of talent and 
 liberality. 
 
 The common enemy of national independence, 
 bigotry I mean, found its own destruction in attempt- 
 
 B 
 
 307886
 
 ino; that of this great statesman, who, in the over- 
 throw of that common enemy, secured to it a com- 
 mon friend by the triumph of liberality. He secured 
 to the service of the state a more enlightened body 
 of men than ever occupied the ministerial benches at 
 any former period. A body of men whose stakes 
 in the country are great as their talents are splendid, 
 and who have given such repeated proofs of their in- 
 dependent principles, as to' raise them beyond a sus- 
 picion of being influenced by other considerations 
 than the public good. His last best gift to the nation 
 was this common friend ^ and in the revolution of 
 party effected by him, he has left an inestimable 
 legacy to his country. Great, however, are the 
 difficulties of the country, and the common enemy, 
 though stript of its ministerial influence, has still the 
 power to increase them ; and, with that power, the 
 will : that enemv stands unmasked : and whilst corn 
 is grown in the land there will be record to after 
 ages of the thing it was ! That the common friend 
 will conquer in the open field, and, in defiance of 
 all opposition, correct the abuses in the public ex- 
 penditure, push commerce to an extent that may al- 
 leviate the pressure of the national debt, consolidate 
 the landed and manufacturing interests, and, in giv- 
 ing security and stability to both, give food to the 
 people, I am disposed to believe. That he may do 
 all this, and even more than this, if the power be 
 continued to him and time allowed him, is both pos- 
 sible and probable ; but though he may thus triumph 
 over the foe in the open field, still I cannot divest 
 myself of fears that he may fall by the shafts of 
 secret treachery ; and as in his fall that of the coun- 
 try would be involved, you must not blame the 
 anxiety I may shew to guard against the possibility 
 of your inadvertently lending yourselves to the ac- 
 complishment of a plan, upon which the common 
 enemy places his hopes of returning into power.
 
 The danger that I apprehend arises out of the ques- 
 tion of Catholic Emancipation; a question that must 
 ultimately decide upon the fate of the empire. How 
 far the scruples of the late King had been worked 
 upon by secret and evil counsellors, is manifested by 
 the disregard he shewed to the opinion of his liord 
 Chief Justice, Lord Kenyon, in respect to the coro- 
 nation oath. The workers of darkness then pre- 
 vailed ; and Mr. Pitt was betrayed and sacrificed 
 to vulgar prejudice. That base artifices will again 
 be resorted to, when the Catholic question is next 
 agitated, with the hope of removing the friends to 
 Emancipation from the councils of George the 
 Fourth, there can be little reason to doubt. The 
 men that have recently made the unconstitutional 
 attempt to influence the votes in parliament, by re- 
 ference to a pretended royal feeling, will not hesitate 
 to resort to unconstitutional means to strengthen that 
 feeling, if it does exist, or to give birth to it if it 
 does not. 
 
 The absurdity of the doctrine, that the coronation 
 oath was an obstacle to the granting the prayer of 
 the Catholics, having been completely established, 
 there will be a necessity for seeking other poison for 
 the royal ear. This new poison for the crown will 
 be prepared by administering new poison to the 
 people, and a deception, as to national opinion, will 
 .succeed to the deception as to the coronation oath. 
 As the medium of such opinion is petition to the king 
 or parliaanent, nothing will be left undone, by the 
 bigots of church and state, that can promote the de- 
 lusion under which petitions, declaratory of opinions 
 inimical to the Catholic claims, can alone be pro- 
 cured. The same insidious means that have been 
 successful before will be again resorted to ; and the 
 Protestant mind will again be assailed by calum- 
 nious I'alsehoods, that justice maybe sacrificed at the 
 shrine of prejudice. These their means it is that I
 
 shall endeavour to expose, in order, by a reference 
 to the past, to put you upon your guard agamst 
 them for the future. That the insidious part they 
 have acted should altogether have escaped your ob- 
 servation, I cannot suppose ; but as they succeeded 
 generally in agitating the public mind and, in many 
 instances, in producing a strong feeling against the 
 Catholics, it is natural to conclude that, iii a state of 
 agitation, the cause might be lost sight of in the ef- 
 fect : if that had not been the case, such means, so 
 far from having produced such effect, could not have 
 failed to have stamped the cause at once with its real 
 character, oppression supported by bigotry, decep- 
 tion, and falsehood. Undistuibed by any feelings, 
 save those of sorrow that justice should have been 
 so long delayed (for sooner or later it must be ren- 
 dered), and of indignation against those that have 
 caused that delay, I have given uninterrupted atten- 
 tion to all that was passing in England. Happy 
 shall I be if my observations on what has passed 
 there, and such information as I can oft'er relative to 
 the situation of the Catholics and Protestants on the 
 Continent, should enable me to induce any of you 
 to cast away those prejudices that have originated 
 in so foul a source — Prejudices that have led you 
 to the monstrous belief that the profession of the 
 Catholic faith rendered man unfit for the social com- 
 pact, and, in that belief, to give support to a party 
 whose blind and intolerant zeal threatens the country 
 with anarchy and bloodshed. After twelve years 
 residence amongst the Catholics on the Continent, I 
 may be allowed to speak with some degree of con- 
 fidence as to their general character, and I should be 
 most unjust if I did not declare that I have found them 
 liberal in their sentiments upon all subjects, and upon 
 that of religion, infinitely more so than very many of 
 my Protestant countrymen. I am borne out in this 
 my feeling by those who, like myself, have lived
 
 much in their society. One of that number distin- 
 g;uished by rank and talent, led me in the first in- 
 stance to give attention to the fact. On observing- 
 that a young Englishman, engaged in a religious 
 discussion, measured his words with extreme cau- 
 tion, he encouraged him to speak out, in reminding 
 him that he was on the Continent. Upon the same 
 principle of justice, I will add that, I believe, the 
 Catholics to be as loyal, and true, and to have as 
 many virtues and as f'ew vices as any other sect in 
 Europe, and, consequently, to be as worthy of con- 
 fidence as their fellow men, be those men of what 
 sect they may. I speak of the Catholics generally ; 
 for, as to the enlightened men of that and every other 
 religion, their mutual acquirements naturally ap- 
 proach them to each other, and banish even the 
 shadow of distinction. I may, probably, have al- 
 ready said enough to bring upon me an anathema 
 from the intolerants amongst my countrymen. I 
 well remember that Deist, according to their dic- 
 tion, was synonomous with Atheist ; and those that 
 believed not as they did, were servants of Satan. 
 The least then, that I can expect at their hands, is 
 to be dubbed Papist ; if they do dub me so, they 
 will, as usual, be wrong; my conversion, so far 
 from being accomplished, has not yet been at- 
 tempted, and such as I left my country, I am at this 
 hour. 
 
 Very far from my intention is it to enter at length 
 into the great quesion of Emancipation, which has 
 been so ably discussed by the most illustrious of our 
 statesmen at different periods in this and the last cen- 
 tury. It will be sufficient for my purpose to call your 
 attention to some of its prominent features. The first 
 of these features is an incontrovertible truth, result- 
 ing from those discussions, that all the great leaders 
 of all the parties, differing on other questions, were 
 agreed on this, that the Emancipation of the Catho-
 
 6 
 
 lies was a measure not only advisable hid necessary to 
 the safety and prosperity of the United Kingdo?n. The 
 second, that the opinion of those great leaders has 
 been also that of a very great majority of the men 
 of talent, rank, and property, in both houses of par- 
 liament. These two facts alone render it matter of 
 astonishment, that the question has not long ago 
 been set at rest. How it is that these enlightened 
 statesmen and patriots have been successively baffled, 
 and the country so long deprived of those greatest of 
 bles^ngs, domestic peace and good fellowship, com- 
 monno other civilised states in Europe, shall be my 
 task to shew. But, before I descend to the polluted 
 source of that spirit of intolerance which continues 
 to disturb our peace at home, and to astonish and 
 disgust both Catholic and Protestant abroad, I 
 would ask, whether it be the part of wise and good 
 citizens to profit by the knowledge and experience 
 of statesmen, before whom all Europe bowed, and 
 who " ruled her when she was w ildest," or to set 
 that knowledge and experience at nought, to see 
 danger where they saw safety, and to prefer strife 
 to harmony ? Who amongst you, is prepared to 
 say that your opinion outweighs that of a Pitt, a 
 Fox, a Burke, a Grattan, or a Canning ; or that an 
 Eldon, a Colchester, a Peel, a Dawson, can be put 
 in competition with men like those ? Not one of you 
 will answer in the affirmative on either point : how 
 is it then that you reject the great and enlightened, 
 and cling to such as these ? Because, the first, su- 
 perior to all trick and subterfuge, addressed your 
 judgment; and the latter, by trick and subterfuge, 
 have blinded that judgment, and w-orked upon your 
 passions. Possessed of these, they have directed the 
 worst of them, that of intolerance, against six mil- 
 lions of your brethren, whose only crime is the ad- 
 herence to the religion of your ancestors, which you 
 have in part rejected, but which they hold entire.
 
 Such is their crime ; but what is the sum of the 
 charges made against them, by the church and state 
 of the nineteenth century? That they are traitors 
 to their king, perjured to their country, and idolaters 
 to their God ! " 
 
 Were there truth in any one of these allegations, 
 Lord Eldon might be justified in his unqualified asser- 
 tion, that the granting them Emancipation " would 
 be destructive to our civil and religious liberties ;" but 
 as these charges are as false as foul, one cannot but 
 lament that, after having sacrificed thousandstol his 
 doubts, when it was his duty to give judgment, he 
 should be found ready to sacrifice millions by his 
 judgment, when common humanity should have led 
 him to doubt. Upon what does his lordship rest 
 this his judgment? Not upon the evidence of facts, 
 corroborative of any of the charges, but upon the 
 alleged opinions of one of those great statesmen to 
 whom I have alluded, Mr. Pitt. If then it be 
 shewn that the opinions of Mr. Pitt, so far from 
 bearing out such judgment, were in direct opposition 
 to it, the judgment must necessarily fall ; but what 
 must be the fall of the Ex-Lord Chancellor, if it 
 should also appear that he knew that Mr. Pitt's 
 opinions w^ere any thing, and every thing but what 
 they were represented to be by his Lordship ? For- 
 tunately for the cause of humanity, excess of bigotry 
 not unfrequently renders its votaries blind ; and 
 fortunately for the cause I vindicate, it has had that 
 effect upon Dr. ^Philpotts, connected by marriage 
 and intolerance with his Lordship. Li attempting 
 to establish the humbug interpretation of the coro- 
 nation oath, he has given a death blow not only to 
 that humbug, but to that of his noble relative, with 
 regard to the opinions of Mr. Pitt. For the late 
 King's correspondence of March 1785, with his 
 Lord Chief Justice Kenyon, and for that of Jan. 
 1801, with his prime minister Mr. Pitt, the public
 
 8 
 
 are indebted to Dr. Philpotts. The friends of civ^il 
 and religious liberty must feel infinitely beholden to 
 the doctor ; what his brother bigots may be I leave 
 it to them to demonstrate. By reference to this 
 corresjDondence it will be seen, that, in answer to the 
 queries of his majesty, originating in the absurd 
 scruples that had been insiduously raised in the royal 
 mind. Lord Kenyon says, " So long as the king's 
 supremacy, and the main fabric of the act of uni- 
 formity, the doctrine, discipline and government of 
 the Church of England, are preserved as the na- 
 tional church, and the provision of its ministers kept 
 as an appropriate fund, it seems that any ease given 
 to the sectarists would not militate against the coro- 
 nation oath or the act of union.'' And to his opinion 
 he adds, " It is a general maxim that the supreme 
 power of a state cannot limit itself." This general 
 maxim was, in itself, quite sufficient to shew the 
 absurdity of the interpretation put upon the corona- 
 tion oath ; but, backed as it now stands, by the 
 opinion of so eminent a lawyer as Lord Kenyon, no 
 further danger to the state is to be apprehended from 
 this source of deception. 
 
 How far Mr. Pitt thought that Catholic Emanci- 
 pation " would be destructive to our civil and religi- 
 ous liberty," the following extract of his Letter to the 
 King will demonstrate. " He trusts your majesty 
 will believe that every principle of duty, gratitude, 
 and attachment must make him look to your ma- 
 jesty's ease and satisfaction, in preference to all 
 considerations, but those arising from a sense of 
 what, in his honest opinion, is due to the real interest 
 of your majesty, and your dominions. Under the 
 impression of that opinion, he has con^ urred with 
 what appeared to be the prevailing sentiments of the 
 majority of the cabinet, that the admission of the 
 Catholics and Dissenters to offices ; and of the Ca- 
 tholics to parliament, from which latter the Dissen-
 
 ters are now excluded, would, under certain condi- 
 tions, to be specified, be highly advisable, with a 
 view to the tranquillity and improvement of Ireland, 
 and to the general interest of the United King;dom, 
 For himself he is, on full consideration, convinced 
 the measure would be attended with no danger to 
 the established church, or to the protestant interest 
 in Great Britain or Ireland." 
 
 Having thus disposed of humbug the second, I 
 should, with this quotation, have taken leave of 
 Lord Eldon, his anathemas against the Catholics, 
 and his rancorous opposition to their claims, had 
 those anathemas and that opposition been confined 
 to the walls of parliament ; but I take leave to 
 follow him within other walls, where he has been 
 no less conspicuous in the cause of intolerance. 
 
 I refer to those places where that society meet, called 
 the Pitt-club ; a society established out of pretended 
 respect to that great man's memory ; and where, in 
 each successive year since his death, the noble Lord 
 and his associates have invariably celebrated princi- 
 ples of exclusion and persecution, as emanating from 
 him who sacrificed every personal consideration, 
 rather than lend himself to the continuance of the 
 one or the other ! 
 
 A more audacious deception than this was never 
 resorted to by fanatics of church or state in any 
 period of our history ! And from this club it is that 
 emanates the charge of idolatry against the Catho- 
 lics ; and the anti-catholic champion, Mr. Peel, un- 
 blushingly comes forward to establish it upon the 
 pretended ground of the second commandment 
 being omitted in their church catechism. Now, 
 what is the fact ? They have an introductory cate- 
 chism abridged for the use of children, in which 
 none of the commandments, which are long, are 
 given at full length ; and in which the second com- 
 mandment is omitted, as being an explanation of the 
 
 c
 
 10 ' 
 
 first ; but in their catechism for adults, the second 
 and all the other commandments are given at full 
 length ! Were it permitted to joke upon a subject 
 of so serious a nature to six millions |ofour fellow 
 subjects, I should be tempted to take a flight 
 abroad with the ex-minister of the home depart- 
 ment, and to carry him into the schools of his young 
 idolaters, where the well merited discipline of the 
 birch-rod might be administered with salutary ef- 
 fect. But, treating the subject with the gravity it 
 imperiously demands, I do not hesitate to say, that 
 the evidence produced, in support of the charge, is 
 as contemptible as the charge itself is abominable. 
 I must, however, acquit Mr. Peel of all premeditated 
 intention of deception ; for it cannot be supposed 
 that he who has had the advantage of all the com- 
 mandments at full length, since his childhood, should 
 intentionally act in direct violation of one of them : 
 and the ninth says, "Thou shalt not bear false wit- 
 ness against thy neighbour." Lamentable is it to see 
 talents and acquirements, calculated to render ser- 
 vice to the country, become dangerous in the ex- 
 treme to her best interest, by the contagion of that 
 bigotry and fanaticism which, in the darker ages, 
 disgraced all the Christian world, but, in their 
 regeneration, seem to have marked the United 
 Kingdom peculiarly for their own ! 
 
 Another ground taken by Mr. Peel, to shew the Ca- 
 tholic claims to be inadmissible, is a supposed danger 
 from their being admitted into Parliament, as he says, 
 " By adroitness they might succeed in getting consi- 
 derable influence in the House." I will meet this 
 assertion by an authority that he cannot dispute, 
 though it goes the whole length of shewing his sup- 
 position to be without a shadow of foundation. I shall 
 again refer to Mr. Pitt's Letter to the King, before 
 quoted ; he writes thus: " That now the Union has 
 taken place, and with the new provisions that
 
 11 
 
 should make part of the plan, it could never give 
 any such weig'ht in office or in Parliament, either to 
 Catholics or Dissenters, as could give them any new 
 means (wer6 they so disposed) of attacking; the 
 establishment; that the grounds on which the laws 
 of exlusionnow remaining- were founded, have long 
 been narrowed, and are, since the Union, removed." 
 Thus, then, does this great statesman, whose opinions 
 have been the boasted guide of Mr. Peel's political 
 life, assure us, not only that the pretended danger 
 does not exist, but that the laws of exclusion ought 
 no longer to have effect, the grounds on which they 
 were founded being removed. 
 
 From the ex-minister I am naturally led to the 
 ex-secretary, and brother-in-law to Mr. Peel, Mr. 
 G. Dawson. This gentleman tells you that the 
 Catholic claims should be opposed, because " The 
 Catholic religion is unchanged, and so long as it 
 shall continue so, so long it will be necessary to 
 oppose its views;" in other words, that the Catholics 
 still blindly adhere to those principles which, in 
 giving their spiritual directory an unlimited power 
 over them, rendered them dangerous to a Protestant 
 state. As I have answered the assertions of Lord 
 Eldon and Mr. Peel, so will I answer this of Mr. 
 Dawson, by the authority of Mr. Pitt, who, in the 
 letter which I have twice quoted, thus writes: "That 
 those principles formerly held by the Catholics, 
 which made them be considered as politically dan- 
 gerous, have been for a course of time gradually 
 declining; and among the higher orders particularly 
 they have ceased to prevail." In 1801, then, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Pitt, such a change had taken place 
 in the Catholic religion, as to allow the professors 
 of it to be received, without danger, into the bosom 
 of the state ; and when it is considered what has 
 been the progress of intellect since that period, any 
 thing short of intolerance would desist from offering
 
 12 
 
 further objection to the measure. As I may not 
 ag-aiii have occasion to make reference either to Mr. 
 Pitt, or his letter, I am led, in taking leave of 
 them, to an observation respecting the publication of 
 that letter. What the object might be I leave to 
 the publisher to say ; but nothing can well appear 
 more strange than that the arguments used , and the 
 statements made by Mr. Pitt, to convince his royal 
 master of the necessity of Catholic Emancipation, 
 should be given to the world twenty-six years after- 
 wards by an Anti-catholic. The moment chosen 
 for the publication was not less remarkable ; it was 
 that when the soi-disant disciples of Mr. Pitt, under 
 the sanction of opinions daringly and falsely attri- 
 buted to him, were poisoning the ears ])oth of king 
 and people ! Such are the facts ; and were I to 
 avail myself of the cant of the whig-club, I might 
 attribute to the " Heaven-born minister," the gift 
 of divination, and insist that, aware his name would 
 be taken in vain, he liad prepared an antidote against 
 the poison of his slanderers. The letter is invaluable, 
 not only as an antidote to that poison, but as being 
 that of a highly gifted minister, who had studied 
 more closely the principles and conduct of the Irish 
 Catholics than any that preceded or followed him ; 
 of a minister who, in the confidence inspired by his 
 intimate knowledge of those principles, did not hesi- 
 tate to hold out a promise to them of a full partici- 
 pation in the British constitution. Under such 
 promise was accomplished the great measure of the 
 Union. That it could not have otherwise been 
 accomplished, was the Lord Lieutenant, LordCorn- 
 wallis' declared opinion : after it had been effect- 
 ed, the pledge was unequivocally confirmed by 
 his Majesty's speech from the throne, July, 1800. 
 **■ This great measure (the Union), on the accom- 
 plishment of which my wishes have long been ear- 
 jiestly fixed, I consider as the happiest event of my
 
 13 
 
 reign, being persuaded that nothing is so well calcu- 
 lated to extend to my Irish subjects a full participa- 
 tion in the blessings to be derived from the British 
 constitution, and to consolidate the strength and 
 power of the whole Empire." 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that no scruples appear to 
 have been renewed in the King's mind, as to the 
 coronation oath, after his correspondence with Lord 
 Kenyon, until the question of the union had been 
 carried. The secret and perfidious intriguers about 
 his person, were as greedy of the encrease of power 
 and patronage to be transferred to England by the 
 measure, as they were adverse to granting to Ire- 
 land the stipulated consideration for them. This 
 plan of proceeding embraced two objects ; to avail 
 themselves of the promise of Emancipation in order 
 to carry the question of the Union, and to prevent 
 the fulfilment of such promise. In the interval 
 between the carrying the measure and the perform- 
 ance of the promise, their plan was perfected; and that 
 they acted in conformity to this odious j^olicy, is 
 most evident. In 1800, his Majesty, in the absence 
 of all scruples, holds out to his Irish subjects a full 
 participation in the blessings of the British consti- 
 tutions ; and in 1801, is assailed by them anew, and 
 accepts Mr. Pitt's resignation rather than grant 
 the promised participation ! To these secret 
 advisers of the King, then, we are indebted for this 
 breach of national faith, for the resignation of the 
 minister who had pledged that faith, and for the 
 prolonged misery and distraction of the country be- 
 trayed by the pledge so broken. 
 
 Mr. G. Dawson urges another ground for opposi- 
 tion to the Catholic claims: " In the reign of James 
 . II," he says, *' the Catholic supremacy, and an at- 
 tempt to establish it, was openly avowed; Protestant 
 ministers were ejected from church preferments ; 
 Protestant lawyers were expelled the courts of jus-
 
 14 
 
 tice; Protestant property was confiscated ; and Pro- 
 testants were included in lists of attainder by name." 
 And what conclusion can be drawn from such pre- 
 mises further than this ; that, in the attempt of a 
 despot and a bigot, who was a Catholic, to give su- 
 premacy to that church, atrocities were committed 
 upon the Protestants who contested the point of su- 
 premacy ? Had he continued his inflammatory rap- 
 sody, and added, after the abdication of James II. 
 the Protestant supremacy was established and open- 
 ly avowed ; Catholic ministers were ejected from 
 church preferments ; Catholic lawyers were expelled 
 the courts of justice; Catholic property was confis- 
 cated ; and Catholics, if not included in the lists of 
 attainder by name, were attained en masse by every 
 name that malice could engender ; — another conclu- 
 sion, and one equally well founded, would have 
 been come to, that man, be his religion what it may, 
 in abandoning himself to the violence peculiar to re- 
 ligious contention, becomes a monster. What more 
 frightful — what more unjust, than the attempt to ap- 
 propriate crimes common to man's nature as exclu- 
 sively those of a particular sect, and then to calum- 
 niate the whole sect, because fanatics have disgraced 
 it ! The crimes, which are industriously and insidi- 
 ously represented as peculiar to the Catholic religion, 
 are common to every religion connected with the 
 state ; and are produced by the influence of relative 
 circumstances acting upon such connection. The 
 persecuting Catholics in the reign of James II., and 
 the persecuting Protestants that succeeded them, 
 were, in their turn, influenced by the same circum- 
 stance, power combined with religious phrensy ; and 
 in proportion as that power is great, and that phrensy 
 strong, are the frequency and atrocity of the crime. 
 That more instances of crimes of this nature have 
 occurred in the Church of Rome than in any other, 
 is certainly the fact ; and for these obvious reasons.
 
 15 
 
 that for centuries, which included the dark ages, she 
 had the exclusive power of persecuting" ; and, as the 
 supreme mother of all the churches in the christian 
 world, she must have been more sensibly affected by 
 the revolt of her children, than those revolted child- 
 ren by the revolt of their's; and, consequently, her 
 passions have been infinitely more frequently and 
 violently assailed than those of any protesting es- 
 tablishment. But regarding her as she stands at this 
 hour, reconciled to, and in friendly communication 
 with, many of her revolted children, and with the 
 conviction that three revolving centuries must give, 
 that they are lost to her for ever, I cannot admit 
 that the Church of Rome, under existing circum- 
 stances, is more exposed to fanaticism than any other 
 church-and-state-establishment, and return to my 
 position, that in proportion as the power is great, 
 and the religious phrensy strong, are the frequency 
 and atrocity of crime in all such religious establish- 
 ments. To prove this fact, I will seek no other 
 times than those we live in, and in which, according 
 to the doctrine of the Anti-Catholics, the Protestant 
 Church, " as established by law," is the emblem of 
 perfect toleration. A notable proof of the truth of 
 my assertion may be had in a comparison between 
 the conduct of the intolerants at home, with regard 
 to the Catholics restrained by the immediate presence 
 of the law, and that of one of the ministers of the 
 established church in our colonies, in the absence of 
 its restraining power. That the Anti- Catholics 
 should have kept themselves altogether within the 
 letter of the law (I refer to the law of man, for of the 
 law of God they seem to have lost sight altogether), 
 and at the same time have indulged their evil dispo- 
 sition in every excess to which malignity could give 
 birth without an infringement of it, clearly demon- 
 strates that their intolerance knows no other bounds 
 than those occasioned by their fear of the law ! And
 
 16 
 
 to what excess not immediately cognisable by law 
 have they not run ? Have they not industriously re- 
 presented the Catholics as utterly unworthy the so- 
 cial compact? Have they not vilified their church, 
 declared their religion to be idolatrous, and their 
 bishops unworthy of belief on their oaths ? Have 
 not even the petitions of the Anti- Catholic Protestant 
 Clergy to Parliament, been denounced by a mem- 
 ber of the House of Commons, as containing " foul, 
 monstrous, libellous, and seditious allegations?" In 
 one word, has any thing been left unsaid or undone 
 that could tend to establish a belief in those scan- 
 dalous and daring falsehoods, "that the Irish Catho- 
 lics were traitors to their King, perjured to their 
 country, and idolaters to their God ?" And by these 
 diabolical means have they not succeeded in raising 
 feelings against the Catholics, as cruel as unjust, and 
 dangerous both to the oppressed and the oppressors ? 
 And if they have done all this, and even more than 
 this, where, I will ask, would they have stopt in the 
 absence of the law ? To this query we may find a 
 solution in the conduct of the established church 
 intolerant in our island of Jamaica, to whom I have 
 alluded. In Jamaica it appears that the law has 
 slept the sleep of death, and the unshackled spirit of 
 persecution has availed itself of its absence. That 
 spirit ranges over a wide field, and visits alike the 
 fettered slave and his humane deliverer, the Catholic 
 and Dissenter. In the present instance, a Wesleyan 
 Missionary was the object of its vengeance. Per- 
 petrators of that bloody vengeance were wanted, 
 and inflammatory slander and falsehood, unrestrain- 
 ed by law, failed not to produce them. I shall state 
 the fact as given in the parliamentary debates, March, 
 13th, 1827. 
 
 " Dr. Lushington, in rising to move for certain 
 papers relative to a transaction which had lately 
 taken place in the island of Jamaica, referred to an
 
 17 
 
 act of lawless \Molenco, perpetrated at the instigation 
 of a Cleroi-yiuan of the Church of Ei^c^hnid, by an 
 armed body, against an i)\dividiial as helpless as he 
 was inoiTensive. The attack was attended by cir- 
 CLiinstances of peculiar barbarity. It had formerly 
 been a practice in the colony that the iuilitia should 
 he. called on duty in Christ) vias \\eek, for the 
 purpose of better securing' the inhabitants ai^ainst 
 any dang-er that ini^-ht possi))ly arise during- this 
 period, froiu the general relaxation allowed to the 
 slaves. This practice hadforsoine years fallen into 
 desuetude, 1)ut within the last two years Avas re- 
 vived ; and, on Christmas day last, the first battalion 
 of the militia of St. xVnn's parish, Kingston, was 
 called out for the purpose of preserving the peace. 
 On that )iiorning the corps was assembled in St. 
 Ann's Church, where they were addressed from the 
 pulpit by the Reverend Mr. Crydges, who had been 
 recently chaplain to the Bishop of Jamaica. The 
 house would learn with astonislDuent, that this 
 gentleman had thought fit to address this body of 
 men in arms, in language the most inflammatory, and 
 openly inciting them to acts of hostility against un- 
 offending individuals ; thus desecrating the holy 
 place in which he stood, by using it for the purpose 
 of inciting his fellow subjects to acts of riot and 
 bloodshed. That very night, while the white co}o- 
 pany of the regiment was on guard, the house of 
 the Rev^erend Mr. Radcliffe, a Wesleyan Missionary, 
 in which he and his wife and children resided, was 
 violently attacked by a party armed with fire-aniis, 
 and fourteen balls were lodged within the walls. 
 This attack did not appear to be the result of a 
 momentary ebullition. The firing was continued at 
 intervals, and it seemed to bo in obedience to the 
 word of command. During this atrocious outrage, 
 no interference was made by the civil or military 
 power, no assistance was offered to its unfortunate 
 
 D
 
 18 
 
 and helpless objects ; and it M^as not owing to any 
 humanity on the part of the white company on 
 guard, but rather through the interposition of Pro- 
 vidence, that none of the bullets took eft'ect, and 
 that the party attacking had not to answer for the 
 sacrifice of human life. After eulogising the services 
 of the Wesley an Missionaries, the learned gentleman 
 said, that the house would be surprised to hear, that 
 on the Sunday after this outrage, the reverend gen- 
 tleman mounted the pulpit and repeated the same 
 sermon. This Mr. Brydges had first come into 
 notice by a scurrilous pamphlet upon Mr. Wilber- 
 force, to whom he applied the follow-ing : 
 
 " Mel in ore, verba lactis 
 Fel in coire, fraus in actis." 
 
 '' After this he was promoted to the Rectory of the 
 parish of St. Ann, and soon after appointed chaplain 
 to the Bishop of Jamaica; but he rejoiced to say, 
 after what had happened, that he had ceased to be 
 chaplain to his Lordship before this took place. 
 Colonel Cox had, he understood, instituted an en- 
 quiry into the proceedings of Christmas day, and he 
 trusted it would be moi^e successful than the orders 
 and proclamations of General Ward in Barbadoes." 
 It will not be necessary, however, to travel any 
 further; my position stands established by the fact 
 I have cited, leaving it to General Ward to deal 
 with the intolerants in Barbadoes. I take leave to 
 offer to those of the United Kingdom, the fire and 
 faggot Protestants of Jamaica, as a complete refuta- 
 tion of all their assertions tending to fix a spirit of 
 persecution, as being exclusively characteristic of 
 the Catholic religion ; and under the persuasion that 
 the recollection of the atrocities committed by the 
 reverend Rector of St. Ann, and the white company, 
 may prove a talisman against all future attempts to 
 poison your minds by a repetition of the falsehood, 
 I pass to other matter.
 
 19 
 
 The actual state of Ireland, according to Mr. 
 G. Dawson, is another ground for opposing Ca- 
 tholic Emancipation: he thus alludes to it, " No 
 man with a heart in his breast could hehold the 
 aristocracy of the land bewildered and terrified 
 by the extinction of all respect ; the gentry wholly 
 supplanted ; the merchants and professional men 
 converted into a])ettors of political violence ; the 
 peasantry ready to rush into any excesses ; — 
 no man could see such a state of things without 
 feelings of sorrow and regret." I have again to 
 coinplain of Mr. Dawson for stopping short ; he 
 certaijdy ought to have added, or of indignation 
 against those ivho have produced it. Participating in 
 that indignation, I ask, fr0;ii whence arises this al- 
 most unheard of accumulation of evil ? The answer 
 is plain ; from that religious and political conflict 
 known only to Ireland, fostered by an unjust and 
 mischievous Penal Code, and pushed to madness by 
 individuals still more unjust and mischievous. By 
 persecuting the Catholics, and alarming the Protest- 
 ants, the feelings of both have been irritated, and a 
 demonium created in the country : and this demon- 
 ium it is that is offered as a new argument against 
 Catholic Einancipation ! As a tree is known by its 
 fruit, so is a good and bad government by the state 
 of the governed ; and adopting Mr. G. Dawson's 
 picture of Ireland as she is, it must be admitted, upon 
 his own shewing, that the government of that coun- 
 try has been infinitely worse than any other in the 
 civilized world. It is another thing, however, to ad- 
 mit, that those who have thus governed it should be al- 
 lowed the result of their abominable work as an argu- 
 ment against granting relief to the people whom they 
 have so cruelly lacerated. No one, uninfluenced by 
 passion and prejudice, could tolerate the continuance 
 of a system that has produced such a state of things, 
 much less adopt, as a remedy for the evil, coercion
 
 20 
 
 and persecution, tliougli presented in the a:arl) of 
 " firmness and decision" hy Mr. Peel and his ad- 
 herents. These M^ords, like the horizon, are dif- 
 ferent according to the [>oint from which they are 
 viewed ; and in order to ascertain their precise mean- 
 ing in the present instance, reference must he had to 
 the occurrences in Ireland during the period that the 
 ex-minister of the ho]ne-department, and his ex- 
 secretary, cut so distinguished a figure there. In 
 order to do them strict justice, and that their deeds 
 may he fairly weighed in the balance, I will take 
 uplftn me to shew what the actual feeling and state of 
 Ireland were a very few years ago ; so that by a 
 comparison between the past and the present, for 
 which we have the secretary's authority, the things 
 that are CcX3sar's will be rendered unto Coesar !" For 
 this purpose I shall refer to the year 182(|», when his 
 present inajesty, in graciously honouring Ireland 
 with his presence, gave no unequivocal proof of his 
 sentiments towards that country. That mark of 
 favour and distinction was great, but infinitely ?iiore 
 flattering still were the professions of his majesty, 
 when surrounded by tens of thousands of her citizens, 
 and the addresses to them that emanated from the 
 royal chamber, and teemed with promise of happi- 
 ness to the land, restored to new life by the presence 
 of its sovereign. Who is there that will dare to say 
 that his majesty did not then feel that his Irish sub- 
 jects were second to none in their attachment to their 
 King and country, and that they were entitled to " a 
 full participation in the blessings to be derived from 
 the British constitution," as held out to them by his 
 royal father ? But if there be such sceptics, I would 
 refer them to the letter of Lord Sidmouth, written 
 by command of his majesty, when removed from the 
 vortex of enthusiastic loyalty, and when time had 
 allowed of reflection for maturer judgment. How 
 that letter was understood and felt in Ireland, the
 
 21 
 
 universal burst of gratitude, wliieh was its answer, 
 clearly shews. It was liaileil as the star in the east, 
 the harbiii^-er of salvation, and they fell down and 
 worsln'pped ! The ebullitions of joy were excessive, 
 and too violent to last ; they were soon succeeded by 
 the calmer feeling's of conlidencc, loyalty, and peace. 
 Such was the elTect of his inajesty's visit to Ireland, 
 and of the letter sn])sequently Vv^^ritten ])y his com- 
 mand. The ferocity of the ultra Protestants stood in 
 check ; the liberal Protestants were delig'hted,and the 
 Catholic population g-rateful and loyal ; the voice of 
 dissention had ceased, and all was still. In 182^, 
 then, nothinjiy^ appears to have been wanting' to the 
 prosperity and happiness of the United Kiiigdom, as 
 far as Ireland was concerned, but the realising those 
 projnises contained in the letter of Lord Sidmouth. 
 In what manner his majesty's ministers have re- 
 alised such promises, the present state of Ireland 
 may shew ; but there remains for me to shew how 
 all the good effects attendant upon his majesty's 
 visit to that country have been done away ; how the 
 confidence it had inspired has been destroyed, peace 
 turned to discord, and loyalty outraged. Nothing- 
 may ])e better calculated to demonstrate the extent 
 and violence of that spirit of intolerance industriously 
 instilled by the bigots of England into the bosoms of 
 the ultra Protestants, the Orangemen of Ireland, than 
 the outrage that proved the forerunner of all the 
 horrors that have been brought upon that devoted 
 country since the above period : an outrage that may 
 justly stamp the character of men who, claiming to 
 themselves an exclusive loyalty, vomit out their bile 
 in epithets of rebel and traitor against all others. Dur- 
 ing the King's stay in Dublin, his majesty took every 
 opportunity to make known his royal pleasure that 
 all religious dissention should cease : to the Orange 
 party lie signified his will, that the inflaomiatory 
 toasts drank at their meetings should no longer be
 
 22 
 
 given ; and, in graciously receiving the Catholic 
 in common with the Protestant bishops, made it 
 manifest to the whole country, that his loyal sub- 
 jects, without distinction of religion, v^^ere to be 
 equally respected. 
 
 The appointment of the present Lord Lieutenant, 
 the Marquis of Wellesley, highly gifted by talent 
 and distinguished by his attachment to civil and 
 religious liberty, was also a proof, not less conclu- 
 sive, of such his royal will. But that infernal spirit, 
 that mocks at holy writ, can have little regret for 
 royal mandate. It is, therefore, no matter of wonder 
 that the king should not long have left the country, 
 before the Orangemen, impatient of the temporary 
 restraint his presence and precepts had occasioned 
 them, again sounded the tocsin of animosity. The 
 infernal spirit of intolerance broke out w^ith reno- 
 vated violence : in the ebulution of its fury, in the 
 absence of Majesty, it assailed its representative; 
 and the life of the Lord Lieutenant was endangered 
 in the public theatre ! The actors in this rebellious 
 tumult were perfectly known ; it was beyond the 
 reach of fraud or falsehood to implicate the Catho- 
 lics in its infamy. The Orange party, therefore, 
 stood for once convicted : but for the punishment 
 that followed such conviction, I refer you to the ex- 
 minister of the home department, and his secretary ! 
 The representative of Majesty having escaped 
 from this burst of intolerance, that evil spirit, as- 
 suming a more measured step, sought other victims; 
 and the Catholic bishops were the next objects of its 
 vengeance. The exemplary lives of these digni- 
 taries of the church affording no ground of accusa- 
 tion, they were assailed upon the score of opinion : 
 not of opinion given, but of an opinion said to be 
 entertained; and by whom said to be entertained? 
 by their implacable enemies, the ultra-protestants. 
 That no such opinions were entertained by them.
 
 23 
 
 the Catholic bishops ofTered to testify by oath. 
 And M^hat do the ultras? Why, rather than aban- 
 don their unprecedented accusation, they de- 
 nounce them as unworthy of belief upon oath ! and 
 this body of reverend men, high in station, just and 
 loyal in deed and word, respected by their king", 
 and revered by six millions of his subjects, are 
 collectively and individually arraii^ned by these 
 calumnious fanatics, as being unfit for civilised 
 society, as perjured to their God, and degraded 
 amongst men ! After this, no less novel than in- 
 famous attack upon the Catholic prelates, it could 
 not be expected that the inferior clergy should 
 escape the shafts of calumny. They, like their 
 bishops, were industriously represented, not only as 
 being individually and collectively unworthy the 
 social compact, but as infecting, in the language of 
 Mr. Dawson, tJie land they lived in " with their 
 pestilential influence." But )nalice and calumny, 
 which prove too often fatal when directed against 
 individuals, are apt to recoil upon those, who resort 
 to such weapons against respected and respectable 
 orders in society ; and the intolerants, aware of this, 
 followed up this first attack by an extended warfare. 
 Having vilified the ministers, they next vilify their 
 church ; and having, as they thought, succeeded in 
 exasperating ])oth shepherd and flock, they take the 
 field with the book of peace in their hand, and break 
 the peace of every town, village, and hamlet, by 
 their challenges to theological contention ! Fortu- 
 nately for the cause of humanity, the precepts of 
 that book were ver}^ generally acted upon by the 
 Catholic clergy, or its leaves might eventually have 
 been defiled by blood. The challenges of the cru- 
 saders were not accepted ; and as a forbearance so 
 honourable to the Catholic clergy, as men and 
 Christians, should, in common justice to them, be
 
 24 
 
 put beyond the reach of conti acliction, I annex part 
 of a speech made by Lord Farnhant, one of the 
 most illustrious champions of the crusade. His 
 Lordship says, " That the whole eiforts of the 
 Rojnish priesthood went to expel the Bible from all 
 parts of the land, and to prevent the spread of 
 moral and intellectual education ; that every chal- 
 lenge given to them had been refused, and that, in 
 consequence, private conferences with the people 
 were resorted to ; and that the wliole object of the 
 Catholics was to subvert the established church." 
 In availing- myself of his Lordship's authority, as 
 to the fact of the challenges being altogether re- 
 fused, I am naturally led to the conserjuenccs of 
 such refusal ; the private conferences held by the 
 crusaders with the Romish people. The chiefs 
 having refused to r^uit their citadel, and to give 
 battle in the open field, their troops are to be se- 
 cretly tampered with, and treachery is to succeed 
 to violence. In this case, as in all others, where 
 that vile engine is resorted to, it is accompanied by 
 an engine no less vile, calumny ; — in the calumni- 
 ated character of the betrayed is sought a justifica- 
 tion for the treaso)\ ! Two remarkable specimens 
 of this auxiliary attack are to be found in the short ex- 
 tract fromhis Lordship's speech, ''The whole efibrts of 
 the Romish priesthood,'' he says, " went to expel 
 the Bible from all parts of the land, and to prevent 
 the spread of moral and intellectual education." 
 And how does he support — how does he follow 
 up this unqualified assertion? Why, by telling us 
 that they refused every challenge, and consequently 
 left the crusaders with their Bibles in undisputed 
 possession of the arena. The second specimen, and 
 one still more remarkable, presents itself in his 
 Lordship's closing charge where he says, "that the 
 whole object of the Catholics was to subvert the esta-
 
 26 
 
 blished church." Was ever charge like this so timed? 
 At the very moment the Catholic church is besieged 
 by the crusaders, and treachery is brought into action 
 in aid of disappointed violence ; the Romish priest- 
 hood declining religious contention, and their peo- 
 ple exposed to secret conferences with their enemies, 
 does the noble Lord give us to understand, that it 
 was the Catholic church that was in battle array 
 against that established by law ! Whether the noble 
 Lord has taken leave of his senses, or whether he 
 supposes that you may have taken leave of your's, 
 may be a matter of doubt ; but there can be no 
 doubt that from one or other of these causes has 
 originated his attempt at proving black to be white, in 
 substituting the Protestant church for the Catholic, 
 and white to be black, in changing the besieged into 
 besiegers. But this is not, all according to the cru- 
 saders : it is not only the Protestant church that is 
 assailed, but the lives and properties of the Protes- 
 tants are also in jeopardy. " As to oppression, who 
 are in reality the oppressed ? The Roman Catho- 
 lics ? Certainly not ! No, the Protestants, the poor 
 persecuted Protestants^ who are kept in a state of 
 perpetual terror for their lives and properties." Of the 
 nature of that terror an idea may be readily formed, 
 when a Protestant Irishman, Mr. G. Dawson, has 
 the daring thus publicly to arraign his Catholic 
 countrymen as assassins and robbers ! However 
 monstrous, wild, and dangerous these attacks, still 
 they are not unprecedented ; and the instigators of 
 the crusade of the present day may seek an excuse 
 in similar conduct in those that have preceded them. 
 Men are never persecuted for religious opinion till 
 judgment has given place to prejudice ; and to ren- 
 der a people unjust to Saracen or Catholic, it is 
 necessary that they be calumniated. In the present 
 instance, two distinct methods are acted upon for the 
 
 E
 
 26 
 
 purpose of exciting unjust feelings towards the Ca- 
 tholics ; the one, direct calumnious libel against the 
 living ; the other, defamation of the living through 
 the medium of the dead. The first is the weapon of 
 the younger and more daring enthusiasts ; the latter 
 of the more wily, and the one most frequently 
 wielded by the intolerant members of church and 
 law. 
 
 Of the first I have already offered specimens ; I 
 will now proceed to the second. It consists in a 
 reference to days long passed, when, in the struggle 
 for supremacy, the Catholics prevailed and the Pro- 
 testants were persecuted. Detailed accounts of the 
 cruelties of the one and the sufferings of the other 
 are gone into ; the fires of passed centuries blaze 
 anew: the victims are again tied to the stake; the 
 passions are inflated ; the past becomes the present, 
 and when the object is attained, and the feelings of 
 horror that belong to the persecuting Catholics of 
 old, are fastened upon the persecuted Catholics of 
 Ireland, the garb of benevolence is assumed under 
 some such cant as, God forbid that I should attri- 
 bute the spirit of the seventeenth to the Catholics of 
 the nineteenth century! 
 
 Such are the arts that are in practice to induce 
 you to lend your countenance to a persecution, dis- 
 graceful to the reformed church, and doubly so to 
 the country that tolerates it ! That the anti-catho- 
 lic Protestant clergy, when the question is next 
 agitated, will resort to the same scandalous means 
 of obtaining signatures to petitions against the 
 Emancipation of the Catholics, w^hich they have re- 
 sorted to before, there is every reason to expect : to 
 expose those means is my next object. 
 
 For this purpose I shall take advantage of a state- 
 ment of Lord Darnley's, in the House of Lords, 
 March 22, 1827: " As to the number of petitions,"
 
 27 
 
 said his Lordship, " ap^ainst the measure from the 
 county of Kent, he was not at all surprised that so 
 many had been presented, for nothing could be 
 easier than the way in which they were got 
 up. It was *as easy as lying.' A paper was drawn 
 up containing the usual common places about church, 
 state, and constitution, with a few allusions, perhaps, 
 to the pope, the pretender, bloody Mary, and Guy 
 Fawkes ; and this document was carried about by 
 the clergyman of the parish, who prevailed upon 
 every body that could write to sign it. In one 
 instance the clergyman of the parish (Cuxton), 
 charged with a petition of this description, hap- 
 pened to take it, in the first instance, to an honest 
 tenant of his (Lord Darnley's) who occupied four 
 or five hundred acres of land. The farmer said it 
 might be all very right, but he never signed any 
 thing that he did not understand. ' Not sign it,' ex- 
 claimed the clergyman, ' why surely you won't suf- 
 fer the bloody Papists to get power into their hands, 
 and burn Protestants at the stake again ?' The far- 
 mer persisted in his refusal ; and was equally im- 
 practicable when he wished him to get his wife and 
 children to sign it. The clergyman was at last 
 obliged to go into some neighbouring brick yards, 
 and get the petition signed by as many labourers as 
 could write. It was absolutely absurd to pay any 
 attention to petitions got up in this manner." 
 
 Though I perfectly agree with his Lordship as to 
 the absurdity of attaching importance to petitions so 
 got up, still, as much pretended importance is given 
 to them, and arguments established upon them, as if 
 they spoke the sense of the majority of the nation, it 
 would be fortunate if, exposing the means used to 
 get them up, they could not be got up at all. Under 
 that impression, it is, that I shall offer a word or two 
 relative to the proceedings of these reverend gentle- 
 men, and take the pastor of Cuxton for their proto-
 
 28 
 
 type. Of all cant I frankly and freely acquit him ; 
 he does not mask his purpose, but serves himself 
 boldly of the bloody Mary as his fire-brand for 
 kindling a spirit of intolerance in the bosoms of his 
 parishioners. In the hands of a practised incendiary 
 this weapon does execution ; even the dull clay of 
 the brickmakers caught the flame, and the petition 
 was signed against the persecuted Irish of the nine- 
 teenth century, to prevent the bloody English of 
 the seventeenth from rising from their graves, and 
 burning the brickmakers instead of the bricks ! The 
 reverend gentlemen may glory in their success ; but 
 how they contrive to reconcile such conduct with 
 their calling, I am totally unable to conjecture. 
 Certain I am that they can find no justification for 
 it in that book, whose precepts it is their peculiar 
 duty to expound and propagate. If, however, re- 
 flection should bring them back to a sense of their 
 duty, and prompt them to promote peace rather 
 than discord amongst men, they will naturally be- 
 come more cautious in their references to fire and 
 faggot : they will leave the odium of the Catholic 
 fires in Smithfield on those who lighted them, and, 
 should long habit have rendered reference to fire 
 indispensable, they will exemplify the danger of a 
 spirit of intolerance to their Protestant flocks, by 
 the Protestant fires of Bloomsbury and Holborn of the 
 days we have lived in ! Having myself been a witness 
 of those fires, and of the infernal spirit that made 
 them blaze in 1780, it is with no common feeling of 
 indignation that I now witness this attempt to renew 
 that spirit : nor can I express my astonishment, that 
 Protestants of sound understanding should be so 
 far blinded by their prejudices, as to travel back to 
 the horrors of the reign of Mary, and urge them as 
 demonstrative of the Catholics being unworthy the 
 social compact, when a similar reference to those in 
 the reign of George III. must lead to the same con-
 
 29 
 
 elusion against the Protestants. But, to revile thd 
 one or the other church estabhshment, because bigots 
 and fanatics belonging to them have acted like mon- 
 sters and disgraced both, can only be exceeded in 
 weakness and wickedness by blasphemy against 
 God, because ministers of those churches have lost 
 sight of their duty. 
 
 Another argument made use of against Catholic 
 Emancipation merits particular notice : it is said to 
 be unnecessary, inasmuch as measures have been 
 taken for converting the Catholics to the Protestant 
 faith. However wild the idea of satisfying the 
 claims of six millions of Catholics by a promise of 
 converting them, not less wild is that of thinking it 
 possible to elfect their conversion if they consented to 
 wait the experiment. Under the supposition of such 
 consent, what would be the probable result ? Ad- 
 mitting the Catholics to be converted at the rate of 
 one an hour (which is rather an extravagant allow- 
 ance, as a third of those hours must be dedicated to 
 sleep) it would give a total of 8,7G0 in the year, to 
 which add 1,240 to meet any great casualties of suc- 
 cess, and you have the round number of ten thousand 
 per annum ; and, consequently, in a century that of 
 a million. In one hundred years a sixth part of the 
 work only will be accomplished ! This might stagger 
 any one but an enthusiast ; but they abound ; and 
 it is but fair to consider their view of the subject. 
 For this purpose I shall again refer to the debate of 
 the 16th of March in the House of Lords, and profit 
 of what Lord Rod en says upon the conversion of 
 the Catholics. " That great work has been censured 
 by persons in other places, and in high authority, 
 as a mere chimera ; I think differently, my Lords ; 
 my sincere conviction is, that its success is the work 
 of heaven, the pure result of the preaching the word 
 of God, and the operation of his Divine Spirit." Al- 
 lowing the noble senator to profit to the full extent
 
 30 
 
 of his inspiration, that miracles are about to be re- 
 newed, and that millions of men going to their rest 
 as Catholics may awake to a new light, still the 
 hopes of the crusaders might not be altogether re- 
 alized. A second miracle is necessary to their pur- 
 pose ; they must awake members of the church as 
 established by law, or the cause of intolerance might 
 be a loser rather than a gainer ; for as the cry for 
 Emancipation became feeble, that against the Test 
 Act would become strong; a circumstance altogether 
 inimical to the plans of the intolerants, who, by 
 availing themselves of the prejudices of the different 
 sects against each other, have hitherto succeeded in 
 persecuting them all ! As this plan of conversion is 
 the only one proposed by the Anti- Catholics for 
 tranquillizing Ireland, I am led to give more atten- 
 tion to its promised result than it otherwise would 
 have been entitled to. 
 
 In the debates of the House of Commons of the 
 2nd of March, 1827, Mr. Leslie Foster spoke as 
 follows : " He would ask what was the state of Ire- 
 land at present as contrasted with its condition twen- 
 ty years ago ? At that period, the mass of the Roman 
 Catholic population were upon an equality, in point 
 of information, with that of the south of Europe at 
 present. The Scriptures were then totally unknown 
 to the lower classes, and diffused but partially even 
 amongst the superior orders. There were many of 
 them, very many, who had never seen a bible. Since 
 that time a spirit, so much misrepresented, had arisen ; 
 he meant that for the moral improvement of the 
 people, by the propagation of the Scriptures, and the 
 result of that spirit was most beneficial. The House 
 might differ from him, but upon the authority of his 
 majesty's commissioners he would state, that there 
 were now six thousand schools in which the Scrip- 
 tures were read. Within that period, too, one mil- 
 lion copies of the Scriptures had been distributed."
 
 31 
 
 That very many of the Catholics in Ireland had 
 never seen a bible twenty years ago is highly proba- 
 ble ; but that the Scriptures were perfectly unknown 
 to them at that period is not only improbable, but 
 impossible, as the Catholic priests were in the habit 
 then, as they are now, of expounding them to their 
 parishioners. With regard to the alleged ignorance 
 of the superior orders of Catholics at the time al- 
 luded to, I shall only say that, judging from those 
 whose acquaintance I had the advantage of at the 
 time in question, I believe them to have been as en- 
 lightened as those of any other country, or of any 
 other religion. From this disputed state of Ireland, 
 twenty years ago, I come to its present state, as re- 
 presented by this learned legislator. A million of 
 bibles in the country, and six thousand schools in 
 which they are read ! After admitting the facts, and 
 giving to those who sent the bibles and established 
 the schools all possible credit for their good inten- 
 tions, I find myself still at issue with the learned 
 legislator as to his claim of credit for *' the most 
 beneficial results." The bibles and the schools are 
 neither more nor less than the agents in the great 
 w^ork of conversion ; " the moral improvement of the 
 people is the promised result," and until that is ef- 
 fected, he can establish no claim beyond that of good 
 intention. That the means adopted may produce 
 the result promised every friend to humanity might 
 wish ; but that they will produce it, no one, save an 
 enthusiast, can believe. 
 
 The chief ground of my own incredulity, is my 
 adherence to a doctrine which, I think, cannot well 
 be disputed, — that the science of morality and legis- 
 lation is one and the same; and, consequently, that 
 the wide or narrow spread of morality in a state, 
 depends upon a good or bad legislation ; the one 
 and the other alike subject to the influence of a 
 good or bad administration. By a reference to
 
 32 
 
 history, and a comparative view of different periods^ 
 it will be ascertained, that indifferent laws judici- 
 ously administered, are generally attended with a 
 more salutary effect, than wiser laws badly admi- 
 nistered : but the search for a period of wide ex- 
 tended morality, in the absence of good legislation 
 and good administration, is upon a par with the 
 search for the philosopher's stone, altogether fruit- 
 less. With the conviction, then, that extended mo- 
 rality can alone be had by wise laws with a good 
 administration of them, it is impossible for me to 
 lend myself to the delusive promise of that benefi- 
 cial result being about to be realised, through a 
 medium totally unconnected with the one or the 
 other. The land of promise is Ireland ; but the 
 promise is made in England, and given in the midst 
 of her capital, where, during the last thirty years, 
 the Bible has been more diffusely distributed, more 
 schools established for the reading it, and its moral 
 doctrines more foully and frequently violated, than 
 in any capital in the Christian world, during the 
 same period! 
 
 With this example before his eyes, the learned 
 legislator holds steadfast to his faith, and complains 
 of what he terms misrepresentation of the spirit that 
 moved to the undertaking. Whatever the moving 
 spirit might be, that the acting spirit has assumed 
 a very decided character a reference to the Wa- 
 terford newspaper gives ample testimony. " The 
 compulsory system of reading the Bible, adopted 
 by the Ladies' Gaol Committee in Waterford, ac- 
 cording to the instruction of Mrs. Fry, has been re- 
 presented by the prisoners as an intolerable griev- 
 ance to the board of superintendence of the gaol. 
 This board met on Monday, and a resolution was 
 passed of no longer permitting the ladies to visit the 
 prisoners, for the purpose of affording that instruc- 
 tion, for which the laws of the country have pro-
 
 33 
 
 vided authorised instructors." With regard to the 
 propriety of ladies, in or out of committee, passing 
 their time in ^aols, or other receptacle,, of the licenti- 
 ous and profligate, I leave it to their fathers, hus- 
 bands, and brothers to decide. I will, however, 
 take the occasion to statethat, when the sj)ii-it moved 
 some of the ladies of the United Kingdom to visit 
 the prison of the Castello Sant' Angelo at Rome, 
 when the renowned and robust robber Barbone, was 
 a prisoner within its walls, t/ie ignorance of the South 
 of Europe raised so loud a cry of scandal, that in 
 that instance, as in the present, the prison gates were 
 ordered to be shut against them ! The intemperate 
 zeal on the part of the well educated of the gentle 
 sex (for such, as ladies, they must be held to be) that 
 led to compulsory measures too intolerable to be 
 borne, leads one to ask what description of violence 
 is likely to be resorted to by the ruder and less cul- 
 tivated members of the crusade, the male enthu- 
 siasts ? and that, too, where there are no bolts to 
 shut them out ; and no board of superintendence to 
 check their measures of compulsion ? 
 
 Having brought forward this fact, and started a 
 question that naturally arises from it, and which a 
 moment's reflection may answer, I return to the 
 subject of misrepresentation. At the very moment 
 of complaining of the misrepresentation of others, 
 Mr. L. Foster lays himself open to a similar charge, 
 by his assertion, that the Catholics of the South of 
 Europe at this day w^ere in that state of profound ig- 
 norance which he attributes to the mass of Irish 
 Catholics twenty years agfo. A ten years' residence 
 in the country to which he alludes enables me to say, 
 that he is most entirely mistaken in such his idea ; 
 and I do not hesitate to throw the gauntlet to Mr. 
 Foster, and to challenge him to shew, that the Ca- 
 tholic population of the South of Europe is a less 
 enlightened population, than that of Ireland at the 
 
 F
 
 34 
 
 present clay, giving him all the advantage of his 
 million of Bibles, and six thousand schools for the 
 reading them. 
 
 Were I disposed to cite political events, I should 
 have no difficulty in shewing that the South of Eu- 
 rope is not only enlightened, but that it would have 
 carried its light into effect, had it not been betrayed 
 by those of greater pretensions, but shewing no light 
 and much treachery upon the occasions alluded to. 
 If it be meant that not reading the Bible establishes 
 the fact against this part of Europe, it is a fact that 
 bears equally upon all the Catholics in the world : 
 they hold it to be wiser and better, that the reading 
 of the minister be the reading of the flock, rather 
 than that the flock should read each after his own 
 manner. It is not that they cannot read the word, 
 but that it is interpreted to them according to the 
 reading of those who are supposed better to under- . 
 stand it. Whether the reading or the interpreting 
 be best, wiser men than Mr. Foster and myself have 
 differed : but the land I live in, Tuscany, is a strik- 
 ing and conclusive proof, that the reading the Bible 
 is not necessary to the establishment of good govern- 
 ment, of which morality is an integral part. Never 
 did the sun rise upon a happier state than that of 
 Catholic Tuscany ; nor ever did it rise on one more 
 conscious or more deserving of its happiness. Reli- 
 gion is here seen in the gentleness natural to it when 
 divested of power, and when undisturbed by perse- 
 cution. An affluent, cheerful, and obliging popu- 
 lation speak the mildness and wisdom of the laws; 
 and the rare occurrence of crime, their sufficiency 
 under good administration. It is the benevolent 
 asylum of the persecuted, and the favourite resi- 
 dence of the affluent foreigner. Neither religion 
 nor political prejudices disturb the peace of the 
 social compact. Distinctions and exclusions are 
 unknown ; the same law and tribunals are common
 
 35 
 
 to all men. Education is the work of g-overnment ; 
 its system one of an enlightened policy ; children are 
 taug"ht obedience and how to reason ; and youth to 
 demonstrate that reason by moral action ; the pre- 
 cepts of the g'ospel are enforced to confirm an active 
 compliance with the moral will of the Creator, made 
 manifest to man by his reasoning* faculty. Such is 
 the education, such the state, and such the govern- 
 ment of Tuscany. The wise, the vigilant, and 
 powerful grand duke Leopold, laid the foundation 
 of the work and perfected the edifice. His reign 
 has been aptly described by an English traveller, 
 " as philosophy working for the people." Accord- 
 ing to the language of the crusaders, it would have 
 been the working of the Holy Spirit ; but, whether 
 of philosophy or spirit, it was Catholic ; for such 
 was the illustrious son of an emperor, the wise Leo- 
 pold, who having rendered a people worthy of him- 
 self lived in their bosom. His successor and son, 
 Ferdinand the Seventh, followed his glorious ex- 
 ample; and the living virtues of their subjects give 
 an unfaded lustre to their tombs. The present 
 Grand Duke promises to be worthy of his predeces- 
 sors, and lives in the full tide of that sentiment of 
 respectful affection which talent and power benevo- 
 lently directed seldom fail to inspire. Very many 
 of my countrymen, who have seen him in the midst 
 of his people, can bear me witness to the nature of 
 that affection. Not even the buoyant festivities of 
 the carnival ever lead to an encroachment upon the 
 respect that is born him. Encircled by thousands of 
 all ranks, in the full career of gaiety, he is as secure 
 from all breach of decorum as in his palace. It is 
 for Mr. Foster to point out this " mass of Catholic 
 ignorance," in the South of Europe ; I have cited a 
 mass of Catholic civilisation there, that does honour 
 to humanity, and fully establishes my position, that
 
 36 
 
 the profession of the Catholic faith is no bar to the 
 perfectioning the social compact. 
 
 The contrast between the happy Catholics of 
 Tuscany and their persecuted brethren in Ireland 
 cannot be contemplated without feelings, that render 
 a sudden transition from the one to the other sorae- 
 w^hat imprudent. The crusaders have already had 
 my assurance of a belief in their good intentions ; but 
 I cannot do otherwise than dread the result of their 
 religious enthusiasm, as directed against the Catho- 
 lics of Ireland : the more so, as a dreadful example 
 of what that enthusiasm is capable has recently been 
 given upon the Continent. In the Canton of Zurich, 
 in Switzerland, one of the sects branching out of the 
 reformed church, in their reading of the Scriptures, 
 were led into a delusive and melancholy belief that 
 the crucifying the body w^as necessary to the salva- 
 tion of the soul. A zealous disciple of the new faith, 
 a young woman of sixteen, under the supposed in- 
 fluence of the Holy Spirit, offered herself for cruci- 
 fixion. The cross was raised by the enthusiasts, 
 the willing victim extended and nailed upon it, and 
 there suffered to remain till death closed her eyes, 
 amidst cries of fanatic transport ! In vain did the en- 
 thusiasts plead that it was the w^ork of heaven ; the 
 government of Zurich thought differently, and sent 
 them to prison ; not to preach their opinions, but to 
 answer for their crime ! 
 
 I shall now endeavour to shew the existing state 
 of the Protestants and Catholics, with regard to each 
 other, on the Continent, and, for this purpose, shall 
 refer to the States in Germany. If there is any coun- 
 try in the world that could stand excused, at this en- 
 lightened period, for religious prejudices and ani- 
 mosities, it would be Germany. The dreadful ef- 
 fects of the one and the other have no where been 
 so severely felt, or for so long a continuance. For
 
 37 
 
 thirty successive years Germany was visited by a 
 vi^ar of opinion, and Protestant and Catholic blood 
 never ceased to flow diirino^ that lon^ period. His- 
 torical records of all the cruelties committed by the 
 one and the other sect are not wantin]"^; and many 
 of the Protestant and Catholic families of the present 
 day would have little difficulty in proving acts of 
 disgraceful hostility on the one part and the other; 
 Nowhere is there such food for religious animosity; 
 and nowhere does there exist a more perfect re- 
 ligious harmony ; both religions are alike respected ; 
 and religious opinions are no bar to any social con- 
 nection. In many instances the prayers of Catho- 
 lics and Protestants are offered up successively in 
 the same church ; and no church is defiled by re- 
 ligious dissention ! During the continuance of " the 
 thirty years war" of opinion, infinite were the suf- 
 ferings of the German States : not less remarkable 
 were the blessings entailed upon them by its termi- 
 nation. During revolving generations the religious 
 peace and general good will, established by the treaty 
 of Westphalia, have never been interrupted. That 
 treaty, in its reference to religion, was dictated by 
 wisdom, humanity, and justice, and that part of it 
 should be written in letters of gold, as applicable to 
 all times, states, and conditions of men, and as offer- 
 ing the only remedy for the wounds inflicted by 
 fanaticism, and the only shield against the return of 
 the mionster. It is in substance as follows: That 
 every person shall be permitted the free exercise of 
 the Christian religion after the Catholic, Lutheran, 
 Calvinist, or any other persuasion or manner. And 
 that no person professing other religion than that 
 predominant in the country where he lives, shall 
 cease in any manner to enjoy the rights of citizen in 
 their fullest extent. This is the balm that healed the 
 wounds of lacerated Germany and, in giving equality 
 of civil and religious rights, perfected its social 
 
 31)7886
 
 38 
 
 union. The enlightened politicians who established 
 the treaty of Westphalia were aware that men's ac- 
 tions alone should be made subject to the laws ; that 
 their religion was matter of simple opinion, and that 
 every attempt to control opinion was as absurd as 
 mischievous. 
 
 Historical reference to the different governments 
 of the German states, during the two last centuries, 
 clearly demonstrates, that an equality in civil and re- 
 ligious rights assures religious harmony ; but con- 
 fining myself to the last half century, and to those 
 particular states, I shall be enabled to shew that 
 every idea of danger to the United Kingdom, from 
 the Emancipation of the Catholics, must be alto- 
 gether chimerical ; and that an equality of rights 
 could alone secure an equality of attachment to the 
 government. 
 
 Saxony has a Catholic king, and the predominant 
 religion is Protestant. The late king Frederick 
 Augustus reigned with an equal hand over his sub- 
 jects for half a century. Mild as his religion was 
 his government ; insensibly he repaired the disasters 
 of the seven years' war, and gave forty years of hap- 
 piness and a constitution to his people ; he died the 
 object of their love and of the veneration of Europe. 
 The reigning king, Anthony, his brother, influenced 
 by the same benevolent principles, perpetuates the 
 happiness of the Saxons. His queen, a sister to the 
 emperor of Austria, a Catholic not less devout than 
 illustrious, has Protestants as well as Catholics im- 
 mediately about her person as ladies in waiting. 
 Baden has a Protestant grand duke, and the pre- 
 dominant religion is Protestant; but his Catholic 
 subjects have never had cause to complain of Pro- 
 testant influence ; and the constitution now establish- 
 ed in the state, is free from every stain of odious 
 exclusion. Bavaria has a Catholic king, and the 
 predominant religion Catholic, but nowhere are the
 
 30 
 
 Protestants in a more perfect enjoyment of all their 
 rights. Maximilian Joseph, the late king, gave a 
 constitution to his subjects ; he lived in every Catho- 
 lic and Protestant heart, and was lamented as a com- 
 mon father. The present king, Louis, is also a Ca- 
 tholic, and his Protestant and Catholic subjects are 
 in the undisturbed enjoyment of their rights : his 
 queen is a Protestant, as is the queen dowager. 
 Thus, in these enlightened states, does religious 
 harmony spread its divine influence alike over the 
 prince and the peasant ; and the Catholic and Pro- 
 testant prayers of the palace and the cottage unite as 
 they ascend to heaven. 
 
 The first reference I have made is to a Catholic 
 Prince, and the predominant religion, Protestant. 
 The second to a Protestant Prince, and the predomi- 
 nant religion Protestant. The third to a Catholic 
 Prince, and the predominant religion Catholic. And 
 under all and each of these circumstances, civil and 
 religious liberty has remained undisturbed : attach- 
 ment to the state unimpaired ; and the union of all 
 its members progressively consolidated by new bonds 
 of social connection ! Internal peace is absolutely 
 essential to the happiness and prosperity of every 
 society; and an equality of rights can alone give 
 that peace ; the Germans have acted upon that 
 principle for centuries, and that peace remains un- 
 disturbed. 
 
 With this example before their eyes, had not the 
 revolutionary contentions in England been of a re- 
 ligious character, we should not have had British 
 Statesmen of the nineteenth century declaiming 
 against equality of rights, the power of the Pope, 
 and the machinations of the Jesuits. The church 
 naturally appropriated to itself part of the spoils of 
 all religious victories. Some of her members were 
 introduced into one branch of the legislature ; and 
 the establishment itself was declared that of the law :
 
 40 
 
 two circumstances that have long infected and con- 
 tinue to infect the state with prejudices that have 
 been banished the rest of Europe. The advance of 
 reason, even in Spain, has been such as to put 
 down the Inquisition ; whilst in England the church 
 " as established by law," has checked the progress 
 of liberal and enlightened sentiments, and continues 
 to hold six millions of people under the torture of 
 civil and religious persecution. What must the en- 
 lightened Germans think of the bulls and papal 
 indulgences that, according to Mr. Peel, were to 
 endanger the British Empire if its Catholic subjects 
 were put upon a footing with those of Germany ? 
 What of Lord Colchester's " Jesuit drops," pre- 
 pared at Naples, distilled at Rome, double distilled 
 at Paris, and puffed off in London as anti-Catholic 
 incomparables. They must, doubtless, think Mr. 
 Peel wilder, if not more vicious, than his bulls, and 
 in great need of the indulgences himself; and as to 
 Lord Colchester's specific, that not a more mischiev- 
 ous mixture was ever offered by quack to the gaping 
 multitude. There is something incomprehensible in 
 the extent to which even enlightened minds may be 
 obscured by the spirit of intolerance ; and it is a me- 
 lancholy fact that the blindness it occasions is fre- 
 quently as pernicious as crime itself. Let the 
 demons of danger and spreaders of alarm be asked, 
 which of the German states have been disturbed by 
 the bulls and indulgences of the pope, or by the 
 machinations of the Jesuits ? What Catholic prince 
 has been led by them to make invidious distinctions 
 in favour of his Catholic subjects ? What Catholic 
 subjects to w^ithdraw their allegiance or affection 
 from their Protestant prince? What Catholic 
 body to encroach upon Protestant rights? And if 
 they cannot shew that the tranquillity of Germany 
 hasj^een so disturbed, let them shew if they can, why 
 equal rights are not to produce religious harmony,
 
 41 
 
 and religious harmony, peace, and security in the 
 British onpire as in Germany ; or let them hold 
 their peace for ever. 
 
 Whilst good legislation has given to Germany re- 
 ligious peace for the last two hundred years, bad 
 legislation has continued religious discord to the 
 British empire! The German states, in their superior 
 policy, adopted the only remedy for religious dissen- 
 tion: no arbitrary measures were there resorted to: 
 personal and intellectual liberty was assured; and 
 the unchained mind, allowed scope to extend and 
 communicate its new feelings, banished every odious 
 distinction, and the bond of peace w^as perfected ; 
 whilst England, in her thirst for Protestant ascen- 
 dancy, lost sight alike of christian charity and sound 
 policy, and, by new lines of odious distinction, con- 
 tinued the reign of discord from the seventeenth to 
 the nineteenth century. To assure such ascendancy, 
 the reformed church, the offspring of reason, became 
 the adopted child of the law, and by such adoption 
 its character was totally changed. From this con- 
 nection between church and state, religious persecu- 
 tions have invariably resulted. To this connection 
 they may be traced through all their ramifications 
 and degrees, from the Inquisition in Spain to the 
 Crusaders in Ireland. In Germany you may look 
 for them in vain : the wise and benevolent negocia- 
 tors of the treaty of Westphalia, aware that tolera- 
 tion was no other than the mask of intolerance, 
 dashed the poisoned cup of power alike from the 
 lips of every religion, and restored them all to their 
 characteristic mildness. In common with all un- 
 natural connections, that between the church and 
 state in England appears to have given any thing 
 rather than stability to the one or the other. The 
 loud and active advocates of Protestant ascendancy 
 see danger to the state in an offspring of this coudcc- 
 tion, " the Catholic Association ;" and as to the 
 
 G
 
 42 
 
 church, if they are to be credited, it is seldom, if ever, 
 out of dangler. In seventeen hundred and eighty, 
 their cry of danger to this law church w^as so loud, 
 that the " no popery" fires were made to blaze, and 
 the establishment miraculously saved. Since that 
 period the same cry of danger, but not so loud, has 
 been renewed as often as the Catholics have renewed 
 their prayers for Emancipation, and so often has it 
 been miraculously saved without any fin+s at alL 
 
 Two conclusions arise from these premises ; the 
 first, that no fires were necessary to the salvation of 
 the law church in seventeen hundred and eighty: 
 the second, that if it be in danger it may not be so 
 from the Catholics. This second conclusion leads 
 to a query. If there be danger to the church, where 
 is it, and what is it ? " The house divided against it- 
 self shall surely fall," says the Gospel, and the 
 truth of that assertion will not be disputed : there can 
 be little difficulty then in shewing where and what 
 that danger is ; or little doubt, if the danger be in- 
 creased according to the number of divisions in the 
 house, that never church was in more imminent 
 danger. 
 
 The history of the world does not offer an exam- 
 ple of any flock having, in such numbers, abandoned 
 their original fold and dispersed themselves mider 
 such a variety of new shepherds. Neither one nor 
 other of these facts, however, can excite wonder, 
 when it is considered that millions of Bibles have 
 been distributed amongst them and read, and that, 
 out of millions of readers, a great multitude have be- 
 come interpreters of the word, each after his own 
 manner. Matter of minor consideration may also 
 have had its effect ; and the danger may have been 
 somewhat augmented by the new order of things, 
 under which the lay ladies and gentlemen are be- 
 come the preacheis of the word, whilst the establish- 
 ed clergy., in violation of it, are stirring up strife by 
 
 i^i)L.^t4,S& •■-"'■- — "• llilili I 1i>- rtMam III
 
 43 
 
 harangues about bloody Quocn Mary. The latter 
 are opposing themselves, with all their might, to a 
 phantom enemy, which their intolerance may event- 
 ually render substantial ! AH this is the result of " a 
 church established by law ;" and a remarkable in- 
 stance of the sway that power, when connected 
 with religion, invariably holds over the human mind, 
 offers itself in the conduct of the old and new Dis- 
 senters, with regard to Catholic Emancipation : a 
 very great majority of the old, purified by time from 
 its baneful influence, are fav^orable to their claims; 
 whilst a majority of the new, clinging to what they 
 have recently been, and unmindful of what they are, 
 decidedly oppose them : eb immitiores quia tolera- 
 verant. 
 
 In the real dangers to the law church the Catho- 
 lics have no part, nor will any arise to it from them, 
 unless it be from their being persecuted. A cruel and 
 prolonged persecution of them has already disgusted 
 all the liberal Protestants of the United Kingdom, 
 and determined those of Ireland to make common 
 cause with their Catholic brethren. Hence, " the 
 Catholic Association," an unruly child perhaps, and 
 impatient of the rod, but not less the legitimate child 
 of Protestant ascendancy. If there be danger to the 
 state in that association, that danger is the work of 
 intolerance. The weak and arrogant counsels that 
 visited the infant and defenceless capital of the 
 United States with fire, dictated augmented perse- 
 cution to Ireland : in one and the other case safety 
 was sought in union. 
 
 The united Americans beat our armies; what the 
 united Irish might have been driven to do, the 
 happy change in our rulers has rendered doubtful. 
 No longer doubtful is the disposition or object of 
 Ireland ; no sooner was she apprised that her per- 
 secutors were replaced by the friends of civil and 
 religious liberty, than all irritation ceased, as if by 
 magic spell.
 
 44 
 
 Writhing under the twofold torment of insult and 
 oppression, she never lost sight of her friends in her 
 hatred to her enemies. Loyal to her King and true 
 to herself and sister kingdom, but steadfast in her 
 claims, she sought the blessings of the constitution 
 by constitutional means alone. A dawn of new hope 
 that those blessings might be extended to her has re- 
 stored her to peace : the accomplishment of that hope 
 can alone consolidate that peace. Religious preju- 
 dices apart, her claims stand undisputed, and justice 
 apart, prudence would grant them. Nothing can 
 torture man more than privation of rights ; and no 
 passion is more violent than the desire of being re- 
 stored to them. 
 
 The heart and spirit of man are eternally at work 
 to {}ass from bad to good, from good to better; the 
 one desires, the other acts ; such is nature's eternal 
 law, but oppression cannot last for ever ! If the force 
 of prejudice should still prevail and render you un- 
 just, a reference to man's first principles should ren- 
 der you prudent, as being demonstrative of the dan- 
 ger of prolonging his sufferings beyond his physical 
 and moral power of endurance ! 
 
 Inasmuch as I may have succeeded in removing 
 those prejudices that are inimical to the cause of civil 
 and religious liberty, my object will be attained ; but 
 let the result be what it may, the attempt will, I 
 trust, be excused, as emanating from those feelings 
 of gratitude and attachment towards you, which 
 neither time nor place has banished for one moment 
 from my heart. 
 
 GM. LL, WARDLE. 
 
 Florence, 
 November Srd, IS27 . 
 
 ii.BK'N ; ' iSaijctif ju'.rt Savill, ]«7, St. Martin's l/ane, C'lniiiig Cm -s
 
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