Romish intrigue, during two centuries and a half, and was entirely the effect of the Popery Code, enacted before the Irish Romanists had time to repair their shattered resources. But that code was no sooner repealed in 1793, than the Irish Romanists resorted to their old practices for the extirpation of the Protestants, and separation of Ireland from Great Britain; and commenced their intrigues for a new rebellion, which, when matured, burst forth in the year 1798, with its usual attendants, massacre in cold blood, and robbery of all Protestants within its vortex. Can there be clearer evidence that the Popery Code operated effectually to prevent rebellion in Ireland, and that the repeal of that Code is the true source of any alarm in England, for the safety of Ireland, which may at present exist?" Now, if EXPERIENCE has yet any authority in political affairs, can any thing more unwise be conceived, than to add concessions to the concessions already made, and to give the Papists the same ability to do mischief, which they possessed before King William, at the glorious Revolution, liberated us from the accumulated evils of Popish aggression and arbitary power?-Have the Whigs forgotten their principles? or, do they renounce them? In this infatuation, the old and the new Whigs concur. In this folly, the ancient friends of the Constitution, symbolize with those dangerous and suspected assertors of freedom, who have received a transfusion, a venomous immixture of jacobinical blood. Poor Mr. Burke, who so clearly foresaw the miseries which France was about to inflict on the rest of Europe, could not discern the consequences of making concessions to the Irish Romanists. Bred in dark ignorance; unacquainted with the Bible; slaves to their priests; filled with uncharitable prejudices; deeming the Protestants utter heretics, doomed to everlasting destruction; knowing nothing correctly of the true Constitution of their native, country, its ancient dependance on England, and its present incorporation and identity with it; the Irish were not in such a state as to use concessions to their own benefit. Mr. Burke, in 1793, unchained a political maniac.-The Question which" agitates the minds of men" at present, is entirely owing to

* See the Irish Acts of Parliament, 28th Hen. VIII, ch. 2,.sec. 1 ; and 38th Hex. VIII. ch. 1, sec. I.

Mr. Burke's scheme of removing disabilities from those who cannot be safely entrusted with freedom.-As to the "permanent cause" of the unfortunate discontents;-that is to be looked for in the very nature of Popery; and this cause will continue to act so long as the religion of the Romanists shall continue, avowedly, semper eadem; and if the Papists are not to be reclaimed from their superstitions,-then must the Legislature re-establish the Code existing previously to 1793; since which inauspicious period, every measure has been the reverse of those pointed out by the politician's only safe guide (far better than any theory of any Whig, new or old; or any Jacobin, French or English),

-EXPERIENCE.

Here, for the present, we must stop.-We trust, that we have established the very points which Mr. Canning submitted to his opponents, evidently in the hope that they could not substantiate them. This, however, being effectuated (we appeal to the public if it be not), Mr. Canning's three principles, with which he made a parade, after his poor exordium, are of no consequence whatever in the present contest;-they are totally irrelevant to the case of the Romanists demanding concessions.

(To be continued.)*

Substance of the Speech, delivered by Lord Viscount Castlereagh, on the 25th of May, 1810, upon Mr. Grattan's motion for a Committee to take into Consideration the Roman Catholic Petitions; to which are annexed Copies of the Original Documents therein referred to.-J. J. Stockdale.

Ir is not our intention formally to review the Speech before as; but we feel it of great importance to print a passage or two extracted from it, relative to a supposed pledge stated to have been given by Mr. Pitt to the Roman Catholics, at the time of negociating the Union with Ireland. Lord Castlereagh declares that no such pledge was given.-Having mentioned this in our last Number, (p. 26), we here lay his Lordship's own words before our Readers, in order that they may be convinced of the

Since the above was written, we have received, from a most valuable Correspondent in Ireland, some Observations on part of Mr. Canning's Speech, which will appear in our next Number,

fact. Lord Castlereagh, to whom was confided the management of the Union, and who displayed so much ability in accomplishing that great measure, must have known whether Mr. Pitt committed himself in the way that has been asserted, or not. So far, however, were the Papists from being lulled into neutrality by any such pledge or promise, that they opposed the Union with all their might. We are convinced that the great body of them hate the Union, and hate Lord Castlereagh for the part which he took in promoting it; and we do verily believe, that in all the violences with which they now urge their claims, they are actuated by an absurd hope and expectation of breaking asunder that bond which holds England and Ireland together. It may be asked,-why do they wish for a separation? It is a difficult matter to account for the hankerings of Irish Papists, on any grounds of reason;-but perhaps their priests are mortified to find, that whereas the Romanists compared with Protestants in Ireland, form a majority of the people ;-compared with those of the United Kingdom, they are of very little consequence, -But let us attend to what Lord Castlereagh said, when he

-Proceeded to complain of the insinuations too often falsely and igno* rantly thrown out, of pledges given to the Roman Catholics on this subject at the time of the Union. He condemned the practice of idly imputing breaches of faith on loose grounds, which tended to excite a sense of injury, as well as disappointment. It was singular, if such pledges had ever been given, or promises made, that none of the parties to whom they were addressed, should have come forward distinctly to claim their execution; he asserted that none such existed, to his knowledge, and he could venture to make the same assertion on behalf of those with whom he had acted.

He did not mean to say, that many of the Roman Catholics did not form, and naturally form, sanguine hopes, that further political Indulgences would follow the Union, founding such expectation on several of the speeches delivered in parliament at the time, and on the general language held, that their claims would be discussed in the united legislature with less prejudice, and that the question itself would then come forward, stripped of many of its local difficulties; but these speeches could only include the individuals who made them, they could neither commit the parliament, nor the government, whose language uniformly was, that it was a question which must remain for the

anfettered wisdom of the united parliament to dispose of: and so pointedly distinct was Mr. Pitt's language on this subject, that, when opening the measure, after setting forth all the immediate advantages of union, he expressly argued, that it would be more safe, in an united legislature, either to concede, or to refuse the Roman Catholic claims.

So anxiously solicitous was the Irish government not to mislead the Roman Catholics with false hopes, that they never gave them, during the two years the Union was in agitation, any reason to know what line Mr. Pitt was likely ultimately to take upon their measure. In consequence of this Mudious reserve on their part, much of the influence of the Roman Catholic body was exerted against the Union, and so little did the Roman Catholics, who had been in communication with the Irish government, feel themselves entitled, from any previous explanations they had received, to expect Mr. Pitt to take the decisive line he did in favour of their claims, that he believed his doing so was a matter of consideral·le surprize to them.

Lord Castlereagh produces, in addition to this statement, the testimony of the Marquis Cornwallis, who never considered any pledge or assurance whatever to have been given to the Roman Catholics ;-this is proved beyond all doubt by authentic documents, which Lord Castlereagh produced, and recited at length. They are printed in the pamphlet under consideration, to which we respectfully beg to refer our readers.

The Choice of Ministers: the Conduct of the Opposition, with Reference to the Claims of the Catholics, considered; together with an Answer to sundry Statements in the Edinburgh Review, on that Subject. By an Impartial Observer-Cradock and Joy, 1812.

THIS Pamphlet, which was sent to us, we have read with attention. It contains many sensible observations; and we cannot but regret that it has been so carelessly edited. We shall give a few extracts from it, and we think that it well deserves the attention of the Public. Respecting the REGENT'S Conduct, on the attempt to form an Administration, after the lamented death of Mr. Perceval, (whose principles and sentiments on the Claims of the Romanists shall never sink into oblivion, whilst THE PROTESTANT ADVOCATE survives), the Impartial Observer thus expresses himself.

Vol. I. [Prot. Adv. Nov. 1812.]

M

It is not easy to conceive, and might be impossible to express, what passed in the breast of the Regent, during almost an entire month after the death of Mr. Perceval, and while two other invitations to Lords Grey and Grenville to come into power, were negociated by the Marquis Wellesley and Lord Moira, with no better success than heretofore.

Again we see the Regent deserted by those whom he looked up to for assistance, at the moment when he stood most in want of it; and again he is refused, and his overtures rejected, unless he accepted it on conditions that bound him down to sanction the adoption of particular and specific measures, one of which was of vital importance, of doubtful issue, and which went to try a dangerous experiment on the Constitution. Conditions that would not only have exhibited the Regent in the light of a slave, or the tool of a party, but that went to deprive him of the exercise of his faculties as a man, and of his free agency as a magistrate and a constituent part of the sovereign legislative authority; conditions that might have entangled him in a dispute with his parliament, agitated the elements of civil strife, and produced consequences at all times to be guarded against, but especially at the present crisis; for should a King, or a Prince, ruling over a Protestant people, and sworn to govern and maintain the church and the state according to certain known and established laws, suddenly discover partialities in favor of a religion so opposite in its doctrines and tenets to that which was established on its abolition, and [under] which, when it was professed in this country, the people were immersed in vice, ignorance, monkish manners, and monkish misery, there would be but too much reason to apprehend that very bad and very serious consequences would be the result of such a conduct on his part.

But no; the Regent had profited better by his knowledge of the history of his country, and he hesitated not a moment. He acted with spirit as well as with judgment; he spurned at the idea of being held in leading-strings; he consulted the dignity of his own mind; he took refuge in the rectitude of his own intentions, and, standing in the place assigned him by the Constitution, remained neuter, leaving the question, as he had done before, to rest entirely on its own merits, and to the free and unbiassed discussion of the legislature, whenever it should be brought forward, or whenever the voice of the people of this country should call upon them to entertain it.

That these noblemen should so obstinately refuse to give the support of their acknowledged talents, to the Regent and to the country, upon any other terms than by making it imperative on him and on themselves to recommend the repeal of the laws affecting the Roman Catholics to Parliament, making it above all others important in itself, and con