those who, under such circumstances, had | rank, or of greater standing, though certhe courage to sign this petition, deserved tainly not of greater learning or ability, all the attention which any number of than those who, in the first instance, had gentlemen could receive in approaching affixed their signatures. No member of parliament with their sentiments. The that House had either signed it, or taken petitioners were possessed of knowledge, part in its preparation; and it did not information, and intelligence, and certainly contain the names of any of the Roman they had a right to expect that the le- Catholic members of the profession. He gislature would pay due attention to begged leave most distinctly to add his their opinions. He could not conclude evidence to the assertion of his learned without expressing the high sense which | friend, that the House would form a most he entertained of the honour conferred on inadequate estimate of the numbers of the him by intrusting such a petition, to his members of the bar who were in favour of hands. He felt it deeply and sensibly. the petition, if it judged merely from the He was not apprised of the existence of number of the signatures. The northern the petition until lately. It was not circuit consisted of about ninety members; signed by any member of that House; it might be termed a floating body of from and could not therefore be traced to the ninety to a hundred members; upwards influence of any gentleman who had a of fifty of these barristers had signed the seat there. He believed there never was petition, and from his own personal knowa time when a larger number of gentle-ledge, he would assert, that thirty-four or men, highly educated, possessing greater thirty-five of the remainder had expressed knowledge, more indefatigable zeal, or their warm concurrence in the object of more unbending integrity, could be found the petition, but at the same time had obat the bar than at the present moment.jected to sign it, because they entertained He knew it was asserted, and that too, in a high quarter, that the bar was deficient in talent; that it was not now so fruitful in ability as it formerly was. He unfortunately was growing old amongst that body; but, he would say, that for learning and ability, the bar of the present day might enter into competition with the bar of former times. Anciently there were but a few men of learning at the bar, and that learning was chiefly confined to their own profession; but he would assert, that for general information, and for extent and variety of knowledge, there never was such a body of men at the bar as those who now supported its character. Mr. Brougham observed, that he should not discharge his duty to that illustrious body, the professors of the law, whose importance to the constitution, to the preservation of the rights of the subject, and to the stability of the government, as well as to the due administration of justice, was undoubted, if he did not join his testimony to the clear and forcible statement of his learned friend. With regard to the petition itself, he wished to add one or two particulars, in his view, of some moment. His learned friend had justly observed, that it was set on foot and signed, before it was known to him, and to those who might be termed the leaders at the bar, that such a project was entertained. Afterwards it had been adopted by others of more distinguished some scruple, how far it was fit for the bar, as a body, to petition the legislature. Out of the whole circuit, he believed he might say, that there were not half a dozen, and certainly not twelve, members of it, who held opinions adverse to the claims of the Catholics. He entertained the highest respect for the circuitof which he was an unworthy member, and had no reason to think, that opinions favourable to emancipation were more prevalent upon that than upon other circuits. He therefore called upon the House to observe the prodigious majority on behalf of concession. The same observation could not have been truly made even ten or twelve years ago. When Mr. Fox brought forward the question in 1805, seconded by Mr. Grattan, the majority was the other way, and disposed to combine against the Catholic Claims. Now, however, a great and salutary change had occurred; and the opinion of the English bar might fairly be taken as an exponent of the sentiments of the enlightened portion of the community. Not more than six in the hundred, or about one-twentieth part of the whole bar, objected to the grant of what the Catholics so justly required. Those who cast their eyes over the petition would observe, that the signatures were not those of men of one religious or political persuasion-Churchmen and Dissenters, Whigs and Tories, the enemies and the friends of the minister of the day, joined in one prayer; namely, that disabilities, on account of religious opinions, should be immediately removed. Lord Nugent moved for leave to bring up the petition of the Roman Catholics of Great Britain, a most considerable, exemplary, and deeply aggrieved portion of the community; considerable in number and station, exemplary in character and conduct, and deeply aggrieved, by being shut out from many of the most valuable privileges, which both by right of birth and title they ought to enjoy. They approached the House on the present occasion with renewed, and he did not disguise it, with most sanguine hopes of success hopes founded on the justice of their claim, and on the increased prevalence of liberal and enlightened principles-hopes also increased and confirmed by the progress of the bill upon the table, placed as it was in the hands of the one man in this country, whom, in his conscience, he believed best qualified to carry it through the House [hear, hear!]. The Catholics of Great Britain felt, that the cause of humanity, justice, and liberality must be advanced under his auspices: the sincerity, the energy and ability of his proceedings could only be equalled by the spirit of moderation and forbearance to which it was known he had made most important sacrifices [hear, hear!]. Whatever might be the result of the bill this year, it must triumph ere long: he said this year, because he agreed with those who said, that the opposition to it was reduced to a mere calculation, whether for one, two, or three more sessions it might still be possible to protract the expiring life of this extensive and hazardous injustice. Whatever, therefore, he repeated, might be the result this year, the hon. baronet (sir F. Burdett) might enjoy the proud satisfaction of knowing how much he had contributed to advance the cause of Catholic Emancipation. He had advanced it, he believed, in the opinion even of a majority of the House, not by any compromise of his own feelings or principles, but by raising the popular sentiment upon this question a little nearer to the level of his own virtue [hear!]. The petition he had to offer was signed by upwards of 32,000 persons, but he did not state the number for the sake of any impression to be made by it; because it was easy to conceive that, out of the gross amount of the Catholic population of Great Britain, exceeding 200,000, the mere circumstance, that a few thou sands more or less had signed the petition, was not of much importance, when the whole body was united in one common hope and solicitation. Neither did he feel it necessary to advert to the illustrious names usually standing first on the petition; but he mentioned the facts only to shew, that, under all the circumstances of the affairs of Ireland, under all the appeals, not, he thought, to the best feelings of the Protestant population of this country, the petitioners had not been deterred, by any consideration unworthy of themselves, from doing what they consider justice, not only to themselves, but to their suffering brethren of the sister island. Upon this subject he would not for the world be misunderstood, or run the slightest risk of misrepresentation.The petitioners of Great Britain joined their eager prayer to that of the petitioners of Ireland, and they held their cause inseparable. High as were the personal and hereditary claims of the duke of Norfolk; forcible as were the appeals of the ancient aristocracy of this country, and just as were the demands of 200,000 Catholics to be relieved from disabilities, they would be weak and worthless, compared with the rights of a whole nation, from many individuals of which the House, to its shame, had year after year received petitions. The right hon. the Secretary of State for the Home Department had said from the first day of the debate on the subject matter of the present bill, that he should be ready to rest his vote upon this question on the articles of the treaty of Limerick. Perhaps, before the conclusion of the debate the House might hear the articles of that treaty discussed by the hon. member for Westminster; they might hear the case discussed upon that very point. They might hear the question argued, not on the narrow and partial view of the case, said to be made by the Catholics themselves, but the broad principles of the law-on the letter of the statute of the 9th William 3rd ;-of that statute, known as the act passed in confirmation of the treaty of Limerick. If the conduct of the Irish people, and of the English parliament, could be reviewed from the time of the infraction of that treaty almost to the present moment, he was afraid, the House would appear no better than faithless debtors-than men, whose conduct had been as little directed by moral justice as by political wisdom. He had not the folly or the madness to insult the peti tioners by defending them against the general imputations which some persons might think proper to cast out against them. He wished, on behalf of these petitioners, that the House would believe, not merely from the evidence of one witness, but from the whole body of proof now before them, that the despair at times exhibited by the Irish people-the tone sometimes maintained by that Association which was now put down-nay, even that the very existence of that Association itself, might be dated from the rejection of that very important measure which had been proposed, in order to place English, Scottish, and Irish Catholics upon the same footing. The Irish Catholics had never considered their cause as Catholics, distinctly and separately from that of England, or from that of universal religious liberty. They had always felt that religious liberty ought to be extended to all the subjects of the empire alike; and differring in this from those who had this night presented petitions against them, they prayed that all others who, like themselves, were suffering disabilites under unwise and unjust laws, should be freed from those disabilities. They prayed, too, on their own account, that they might be relieved from oaths which were at least needless; since by them the political integrity of the Catholics could not be ascer tained; from oaths which had been imposed as the consequence of a plot that no man of common sense and honesty did not attribute more to political faction than to religious frenzy. One of the oaths which a Catholic was required to take, in order to free himself from the disabilities under which he now laboured, was an oath against transubstantiation-against that very doctrine which one of the greatest sovereigns, queen Elizabeth, would not suffer to be questioned, and which Henry 8th, going still further, had actually burnt people for denying. All the questions, however, resolved themselves into this Did the Catholics admit the right of foreign interference by any power whatever? The answer to this was too evident to admit of doubt. No one could believe that the Catholics would acknowledge the political supremacy of any foreign power at the present time, whatever they might have been inclined to do in former ages. Did the duke of Norfolk, that illustrious descendant of so many noble families, feel no higher duty-did he acknowledge no clearer interest as VOL. XIII. a public man, or as a private individual— than to be the mere English agent of a foreign power? But, he was prepared to deny that the English Catholics had ever been the willing slaves of foreign powers. If hon. members were willing to go back to remote periods of history, he was equally willing to meet them; and he was prepared to shew, that from the time of Magna Charta downwards, through the statutes of mortmain and præmunire, when the people were engaged in a contest with the church, which was then Catholic, no instance could be found, in which the interference of the pope had been even for a moment allowed [hear!]. He had lately heard it said, that it was in the contemplation of the Catholic powers of Europe to restore the order of the Jesuits, and that the intended reestablishment of that order met with the sanction of the pope. That statement had been advanced as an additional reason why the Catholics of this kingdom were not to be relieved from their disabilities. Now, though he was as unfriendly as any man could be to the re-establishment of an order which, in his opinion, had always done its utmost in support of absolute power, yet he could not admit the force of the argument to which he had alluded, for he denied the statement, that the order of the Jesuits was to be re-established in Ireland, under the sanction of the Papal government. On the contrary, the fact was, that the pope had uniformly refused to permit the re-establishment of that order. The union between the Catholic priesthood and people had sometimes been objected to; he besought the House to take the shortest mode to dissolve it. Let them give the laity the means of representing the interests of the peoplelet them thus unite the laity and the people together, and by passing the bill to-night, destroy that influence of the priesthood which they affected so much to dread. He was sure that when a few years had elapsed after the bill now about to come before the House should have been passed (and that it would be passed he confidently hoped), men would look back with wonder that it had been so long delayed. There was no man living who would now propose the enactment of such laws as were in existence; and he did not believe there was any man in the House who could lay his hand upon his heart and say, that their continuance was now necessary. He would read an extract from C a letter written by one who was an Irish man, and who had been a Catholic, but who afterwards abandoned and betrayed his country and his faith: he meant Dr. Duigenan. In writing to Mr. Grattan in 1797, and advocating the Union, he said, "If we were one people, the preponderance of the Protestant interest would be so great, that there would be no necessity for the continuance of any restrictions on the Catholics;" and yet, to the hour of his death, that person who had thus offered an unanswerable argument in favour of the Catholics, persisted in excluding them. The effect of that exclusion was obviously as impolitic as it was unjust; for it accumulated the motives which the Catholics felt to adhere to their faith. It was impossible that any man of honour could abandon a claim which he felt was just, and for his pretension to which he was invidiously deprived of rights to which, as a member of the community, he was entitled. At this moment a very large body of men would receive as a boon that which he demanded for them on grounds of political justice; but, if there were only one man who for conscience sake was subject to these unwise and unjust laws, he would, with undiminished zeal and earnestness, claim for that man, as he did now for millions, the relief to which he would be entitled. He recommended to the serious attention of the House, the petition which he now presented, and reminded them, that by granting the prayer of it they would benefit themselves, at the same time that they did justice to more than six millions of their fellow-subjects. Mr. John Smith feared it was not generally known of what materials the body of the British Catholics was composed. He could assure the House, that for moral conduct, for integrity of principle, for property and industry, they were not exceeded by any body of men in the kingdom-excepting, perhaps, only the Quakers, with whom he believed no sect could be put in competition. The question was, whether the House would be justified in preventing such men as he had described, from enjoying those rights which were freely possessed by all their fellow subjects. Mr. Robertson said, the House were already aware of his sentiments upon this subject. He had before stated, that he considered every concession ought to be made to the Irish Catholics, and he had given his reasons for saying, that their claim to equality of rights ought to be admitted. He could not, however, help saying, that he looked upon the present petitioners in a very different manner. He had a great respect for the Catholics of Ireland, but he felt somewhat differently toward the Catholics of England and Scotland; at least in a political point of view. He would give the Irish Catholics the emancipation they required; but he should feel it necessary to move, that a clause be inserted in the bill, declaring that no Catholic member should sit for any county, city or Borough in Great Britain [a laugh]. Mr. Coke said, he had to present a petition in favour of the Catholic claims from the archdeaconry of Norwich, and seventy clergymen of that diocese. He should be extremely happy if he should be able to congratulate that great and good man, the present bishop of Norwich, on the success of the measure, which that right reverend prelate had so long and so ably advocated. The petitioners would not have intruded themselves upon the notice of the House, but that they saw some of their clerical brethren using every exertion to get up petitions against the claims of the Catholics. The exertions of the persons to whom he alluded had not been suspended even in Passion Week; and on Good Friday-perhaps they thought the better day the better deedthey had been peculiarly active. Under these circumstances, the petitioners had felt it their duty to come forward. He should not now say more than confirm what had been stated by the hon. member for Norwich; namely, that the Dissenters of Norfolk entertained the most sincere wishes for the extension of civil and religious liberty to all classes of their fellow subjects. He could not better express the opinions of the petitioners than by reading a part of the prayer of their petition: "As ministers of the church of England, we are not behind any of our brethren in attachment to that church, and in anxious regard for its prosperity and welfare; but we consider its true strength to consist in the purity and excellence of its doctrines, rather than in any restraint imposed upon those who may differ from them." A petition founded on such a spirit of toleration offered a worthy example for all the ministers of the established church to follow. Colonel Wodehouse bore testimony to the extreme respectability of the petition ers. He knew no persons of more honourable or unexceptionable character. When, these petitions were first introduced into parliament, they had been treated by some members with an asperity that was quite disgraceful, and which did not accord with the frame and temper of mind of those who sincerely professed the Protestant form of worship. It was, however, impossible for any words to convey a greater propriety of sentiment, than those of this petition. With every word of this petition he heartily concurred. Lord Milton took that opportunity of adding his thanks to those of the hon. gentleman, for the sentiments contained in this petition. It had been too much the practice of those who advocated the pre-eminence of the Protestant religion, instead of founding it upon its own high grounds, to endeavour to establish a system of exclusion which was degrading to its purity and dignity. Friend as he was to Catholic emancipation, he was not blind to the corruptions of the Catholic church. He thought that those clerical petitioners had a very unbecoming sense of the excellence of the religion they professed, who, instead of leaving its defence and protection to its own excellence, and to the piety and learning of its ministry, called in the assistance of the strong arm of the law, and would punish all who dissented from its doctrines, by depriving them of political advantages. The law as it stood at present had this operation, and degraded the church of England, by making it a pretence for persecuting other sects. The word "persecution," might sound ill in the ears of some gentlemen, but what less than persecution was it, to deprive men of those political rights to which, as citizens, they were entitled, on no other ground than that of religious dissent? The several petitions were ordered to lie on the table. ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL.] Sir Francis Burdett moved the order of the day for the second reading of this bill. Mr. Brownlow said :-I rise on this important question at a crisis as eventful, as any which has ever yet balanced the fate of Ireland, with, I hope the feelings of serious ness that should attend a man presuming to bear a part in so momentous a discussion, and with an anxiety, as far as it is possible for an Irishman to feel it, to treat this subject on its own peculiar merits, divested of past recollections, and the soreness resulting from them which must be common not only to me, but to all of both parties who have ever engaged in this painful conflict. It is a sentiment which I hear almost universally expressed in private, and which I trust I shall not hear this evening less strongly marked on responsibility in public-that circumstanced as we are in Ireland, we cannot remain-that life is miserable in that country-that the two great parties are little removed from a state of actual conflict-that no effect can be given to the opening prospects of improvement for Ireland-that according to the natural growth and tendency of things, few Irishmen can pronounce the connexion of their country with England to be secure, and few Englishmen I fear can pronounce it to be desirable-therefore something or other must be done. What will you do? Will you go back? Will you re-enact the penal code? there is one short answer to this which is as good as a thousand - you cannot do it since therefore, you cannot go back, and since to remain as you are, no man in his senses is content; what remains but to go forward fully and speedily on the principle of concession?-all are worn out with this unprofitable conflict; victory has brought with it no cessation of hostilitiesthe baffled party still presses forward, and triumph in its turn comes to all but to the country; therefore, I say, give us some comprehensive settlement-some measure of tranquillity for that distracted country, whose destinies are now collected within the compass of the evening on which we have entered. If I am asked, did I now appear clad in that old hostility, which has hitherto marked me for good or bad towards six millions of my countrymen, I answer cheerfully-and I feel the lighter for the confession-by no means-quite the contrary, the grounds on which I formerly professed to stand are gonemany of the arguments which I have been in the habit of using and hearing used on this occasion, are taken away-those that remain are weakened-and in common sense, justice and consistency, what remains of a man whose arguments are gone but to reconsider his conclusions-and what atonement more reasonable or more due, than finding he has adopted an erroneous opinion to say so and to abjure it. I know how much a change of opinion affords ground of ridicule, and ground of |