nation so stedfastly to the cause and fortune of James. No man who has read the history of British liberty, or who has marked the progress of those who distinguished themselves in establishing its principles from age to age, will deny that the catholic is entitled to the high praise of being in-, strumental to the production of that perfect system of freedom, which now constitutes the pride and glory of the English nation. The professors of the religion of Ireland have been the great founders of the British constitution, Little more, has been done by the English protestant reformers than to echo that spirit which distinguished their catholic ancestors. The catholics, in the days of the Edwards and the Henrys, were not less alive to the blessings of political freedom, than the murderers of Charles I., or the fanatical organizers of Oates' plot, in the time of Charles II. The petition of rights, or the bill of rights, is little more than declaratory of the great commanding principles of Magna Charta. The latter was the offspring of Catholic spirit, the former of Protestant. The Catholic laid the foundation of the English constitution; the Protestant built the superstructure, and put the last hand to that immortal edifice.

Justice Blackstone has borne testimony to the labours of our catholic ancestors. In his enumeration of the instances in which the fundamental principles of the British constitution were assert-. ed by the people of England, he carries back his readers to that period when England was entirely

catholic, and begins with the great charter, or Magna Charta, which was obtained, sword in hand, by the catholics from King John, and afterwards, with some alterations, confirmed in Parliament by King Henry III. his son; "which charter," says Justice Blackstone, contained very few grants; but, as Edward Coke observes, was for the most part declaratory of the principal grounds of the fundamental laws of England, afterwards by the statute, confirmatio cartarum, whereby the great charter is directed to be allowed as the common law; all judgments contrary to it are declared void; copies of it are ordered to be sent to all the cathedral chapels, and read twice a-year to the people, and sentence of excommunication is directed to be as constantly denounced against all those that, by word, deed, or counsel, act contrary thereto, or in any degree infringe it."-These were the acts of the English catholics; and yet it will be urged again and again that the catholic religion is the religion of the slave. This vulgar error, however, is losing ground; and the progressive illumination of his protestant fellow subjects is daily doing justice to the religion and political principles of the catho lic. The ardour with which the Irish catholic combated on the side of James II. is by no means incompatible with the character which we have given of his religion. Every feeling of human nature urged the Irish catholics to fight the battles of James, and the fidelity with which they maintained his cause and fought in his ranks, is their best recommendation to an enlightened protestant mo

narch. They demonstrate, that the Irish nation will ever be true to that power which does justice to their feelings. When James II. ascended the English throne, great hopes were entertained by the Irish that there would be some relaxation of that rigid government which distinguished his faithless predecessor. The latter had experienced the folly of endeavouring to conciliate his enemies by the abandonment of his friends, and James was induced, by religious as well as political feelings, not to follow an example which produced so much uneasiness to his brother. The character of James is admitted by his greatest enemies to be of the most candid and fearless nature. Full of the sacredness of his authority as a monarch, he had no idea of being subject to control from the voice of his subjects. He expected and commanded universal obedience; and, in his anxiety to extend his protection to those of his subjects who professed the religion to which he himself was attached, he could not brook the opposition of that party who had brought his father to the block, and would have pursued his brother with the same sanguinary fury.

James had been witness to such scenes of hypocrisy, fanaticism, and cruelty, and practised too by men who were perpetually declaiming on the blessings of political and religious freedom, that we need not be much surprised when we see him cautious of reposing confidence in those whom no concessions could conciliate, and whom no indulgence could satisfy. He therefore naturally turned

his attention to that portion of his subjects who had distinguished themselves by the sincerity of their attachment to their sovereign, and he was too proud to turn back or retrace those steps which his more prudent advisers whispered him were dangerous and impracticable. It was not easy for a monarch, even of profounder judgment than James, to determine upon that line of conduct which could best secure him against the encroachments of papular ambition. Mr Hume, in one of the wisest passages of his valuable history, takes the following view of the characters of those men with whom the unfortunate Stuarts had to contend. We shall give the entire passage, as it is the best vindication of that conduct which James determined to adopt with those haughty popular spirits who boldly wrestled with the monarch for the liberties of their country. Speaking of the popular parliamentary leaders in the time of Charles and James, Mr Hume writes as follows: "More noble perhaps in their ends, and highly beneficial to mankind, they must also be allowed to have been less justifiable in the means; and in many of their enterprizes to have paid more regard to political than to moral considerations. Obliged to court the favour of the populace, they found it necessary to comply with their rage and their folly; and have even, on many.. occasions, by propagating fictions and by promoting violence, served to infatuate and corrupt that people to whom they made a tender of liberty and justice. Charles I. was a tyrant, a papist, and a contriver of the Irish massacre. The church of

England was relapsing fast into idolatry. Puritanism was the only true religion, and the covenant the favourite object of heavenly regard. Through these delusions the party proceeded, and, what may seem wonderful, still to the increase of law and liberty, till they reached the imposture of the popish plot, a fiction which exceeds the ordinary bounds of vulgar credulity. But, however singular these events may appear, there is really nothing altogether new in any period of modern history; and it is remarkable, that tribunitian arts, though sometimes useful in a free constitution, have been usually such as men of probity and honour could not bring themselves either to practise or approve. The other faction, which, since the revolution, had been obliged to cultivate popularity, sometimes found it necessary to employ like artifices."

It is to be lamented, that the characters whom history hands down to the admiration of posterity, are too often to be found the servile instruments of the most vicious and abandoned policy; that the advocates of popular rights, were often ministering to the malignant passions of fanaticism; and that even the venerated names of Hampden, of Russel, and of Sydney, are to be found among the persecutors of conscience, and the patrons of the grossest intolerance. It is not to be wondered, that a monarch reared in the school of despotism, with the example of his predecessors before him, whose authority was seldom restrained by the popular voice, should feel indignant at the remonstrances of