and thus was a kind of civil war carried into the very midst of the Catholic camp. It was a firebrand which ought not to have been made use of by the Catholics, himself considering that their Protestant enemies would know too well how to lay hold of it, and send forth its destructive properties in those quarters, where the combustible materials chiefly abounded, and where the ravages of which could not be easily stopped. At a period when all ought to have been union and concord, the hostile political parties employed every means which lay within their reach to sustain the internal conflict. The English vetoists kept up constant communications with their friends. in Ireland. In 1810, a resolution strongly declaratory of their opinions, the joint suggestion of Lord Grenville and Lord Grey, was circulated amongst the body, it was replaced by a resolution, since notorious in English and Irish Catholic politics, under the name of the fifth resolution of the English Catholics, It was inserted in their petition to the legislature and signed by the great mass of the English Catholics, clergy, and laity. The Irish Catholics were extremely divided; the clergy unanimously and many of the majority of the laity still retained their opposition to the measure, but the aristocracy for the most part were favourable. During the year 1811, these differences, with slight variations, continued. O'Connell sounded the tocsin of alarm, should the veto be allowed. The friends of the measure urged as an additional argument, the situation in which the pope then was, being in the hands of the French emperor, and presumed to be under the controul and direction of our arch enemy. Application was finally made to the pope, and in his absence and detention in France, Monsignor afterwards Cardinal Quarantotti addressed in 1814, his celebrated letter to Dr. Poynter, which instead of calming, added only new fuel to their dissensions. Every bearing of the measure continued to be argued by Protestants and Catholics, both in and out of Parliament with an acerbity scarcely known in the earliest discussions of the questions.

Before viewing the progress of this division, a sketch of the

position of the Roman Catholic church in Ireland may not be unacceptable to those of our readers, who are unacquainted with the merits of the important question of the veto, and which called forth in so a spirited manner the energies of Mr O'Connell.

There are four archbishops and twenty-two bishops. In Galway, there is a dignitary called a warden, who seems to supply the place of a bishop. Each bishop has a vicar-general, and in each diocese there is an archdeacon and dean-persons whose offices are merely nominal, neither power nor salary being annexed to them. On the death of a bishop, the clergy of his diocese assemble, and make choice of a person to be recommended to the pope, as a candidate for the vacant see, and the bishops of the province assemble for a similar purpose generally naming two or three persons. A sort of committee of cardinals sits on the list thus transmitted, and one is submitted to the pope, who generally confirms the nomination. Parish priests are chosen by the bishop, and may be removed at pleasure, unless they have a written appointment, or have been three years in peaceable possession. This system is rather repugnant to the republican feelings of Presbyterians; but It must be remembered that it is quite voluntary. The hold of the parish priest is on the minds of his flock. The bishop has no better foundation for his jurisdiction, than the consciences of the priests. The system appears to us, who have been brought up to respect a different one, to be erroneous, but if it be so, surely those who adopt it are responsible, and are the sufferers-we suffer nothing from it. We have no right therefore, to take the rod into our hands; and, as to eradicating the erroneous faith, the persecutions of seventy years, and the injustice of seventy more, have only made the unhappy subjects adhere more firmly to their errors-if such they be.

Is the Roman Catholic religion opposed to liberty, or freedom of opinion? It has flourished without injury to liberty in republican America, and in Belgium. In our own colony of Canada, it has been wisely allowed to exist unfettered, and no

evil has arisen from it; and it is in some Catholic countries only that clergymen of a different faith from the establishment are paid by government. The salary of the Irish priest is collected on various periodical occasions, which, depending on no better hold than the esteem and good feeling of a very poor population, are more scrupulously attended to, than the support of an offensive establishment, enforced by the arm of the law, will ever be. Each head of a family gives, according to his means, from a guinea to a shilling, at Christmas and Easter. Fees are generally paid to the parish priest at christenings and weddings. The emoluments of the bishops are generally derived from licences to marry without publishing the bans, and an annual sum paid by each priest of his diocese.

On the 27th February 1810, Mr. Grattan presented the petition. "When last," he said, " he had addressed the House upon that subject, he had stated that the Catholics were willing to concede to his Majesty the right of veto on the nomination of their bishops. He was sorry to say, that he could not repeat this; but whether he had misinformed the House, or they had been guilty of retraction, was a question which he would never agitate, it being his fixed principle never to defend himself at the expence of his country." On the 18th of May, he moved for a committee to consider the petition, and to report on what concessions should be made to the Catholics, and on what conditions; but this was refused by 213 to 109,

The feud thus produced, or rather, perhaps, the feud excused on the ground of these occurrences, may be said, we believe, still to exist. The Roman Catholic aristocracy, who had before shewn coldness, now displayed enmity. During the whole course, indeed, of the struggle, they had not many bonds of union with their suffering fellow-countrymen-now, they had fewer than ever. When the laws of property were restored, they were rich, and able to maintain their rank in society. Rank and riches will always possess influence in a state, despite of disqualifications. The member of parliament, or the under-secretary, who would scorn the cries of a starving "mob," will be honoured by the notice of a Catholic Earl, and "glad

to oblige." To the poor man, political franchises and rights are every thing-without them he is a slave.

The distaste, even the enmity of the aristocracy, came, in latter days, to have but a slight effect on the vast machinery put in motion in the Catholic cause; at the period of the Catholic board, however, they did produce considerable depression. The aristocracy, it is true, sunk in power and general esteem but this was no consolation to the struggling members of the Catholic board. Occasionally they were cheered by the thriling eloquence of O'Connell, who thundered out a bold resolution, which, for a moment, woke the country; but it reposed again— a peculiar inertness seemed to have seized all parties for a time. The Catholic Board sunk, at last, to slumber with the rest.

Meanwhile, a baneful excitement-a sort of excitement which has always been at its highest when the more healthy political feelings have been dormant-disturbed many parts of Ireland; and the unfortunate peasantry, who had not then been taught to look up to the leader, who instructed them in the art of peaceful unanimity, brought farther evils on their devoted heads, by the mad irregularity of the efforts to remove those which had already thickened over them.

In 1813, the attention of parliament, which had been so often in vain called to the disqualifications of the Irish, was eagerly directed to their disturbances. These were of the same nature as those which had been in existence for thirty years and were owing to the same causes-the habits of insubordination and improvidence; which bad laws had early introduced, and which the laws of tithe, grand juries, and vestry cess, tended to continue. Great pains were taken to connect these with political designs; for if the wishes of those enlightened men who wished to free the Catholics could be connected with such outrages, the best argument in the world for Catholic oppression, and the continuation of Protestant Ascendency, was found; but the connection was searched for in vain-it existed only to this extent, that the outrages were among the many evils which the friends of emancipation saw arising from the condition of the Catholics. The views of the rioters were

of the most narrow and unpolitical description. Each saw but the misery of himself and his family; and not being gifted with much political economy, they sought the most obvious practical means of relief-means which only brought additional burdens on them, as in the case of their countrymen, who were said to have tried to ruin a banker by buying up a quantity of his notes and burning them. A description of their proceedings by a magistrate of Westmeath, was laid before Parliament. He said "The disturbances in this county appear to have commenced about the beginning of the year 1813, and have been rapidly increasing ever since; and, notwithstanding great exertions having been used, on the part of the magistracy, to check and subdue them, the persons engaged in these disturbances, styling themselves Carders commenced their outrages by attacking houses, robbery of fire-arms, and swearing the rabble to obey such rules and orders as should be dictated and pronounced by them. Their first object appeared to be that of regulating the price of ground to be set in con-acre, to prevent old tenants from being turned out of their farms, and to regulate the fees and dues payable to their own (Roman Catholic) clergy. To effect these purposes, they posted notices through different parts of the county, declaring vengeance against any person who should not comply with such, their lawless dictates. If a tract of land was to be set in a con-acre, these lawless miscreants would fix a price per acre upon it, and any person giving more, would certainly receive personal torture, or suffer some injury in his property." By such reasoning as the following, were these proceedings connected with the friends of emancipation:-" The persons combining were now obliged, for the attainment of their objects, to observe a great degree of caution, to maintain a strict discipline, and thus to qualify themselves to be dangerous engines in the hands of able and designing men, to be applied to other purposes." There is no doubt that these proceedings required secrecy, and secret discipline; there is no doubt that it put power into the hands of dangerous men-men of the cast of the rioters themselves, of the same origin and pressed by the