Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

cious and most effective guarantee of civil liberty.

This disqualification, in fact, shuts them out from the subordinate offices which the law permits them to hold; for all these are places more or less at the disposal of the Irish members of Parliament, in order to secure their attachment to ministers.

[ocr errors]

Thus Catholics, through the greater part of Ireland, are still virtually excluded from the offices of Justice of Peace, and Grand Juror; and where they are admitted, it is because they have a sufficient number of votes to be an object to the county member.

A gentleman's consequence in Ireland consists very much at present in being a Justice of the Peace, a Grand Juror, and a Captain of a yeoman corps. From these situations the Catholics are, for the most part, in fact excluded, and consequently exist in a very painful degree of insignifi

cance.

From the same cause the middling class of Roman Catholics are excluded from the very desirable employments of the revenue, the excise, and all petty municipal offices.

So complete is the monopoly of civil employments in Ireland, that to be a Protestant is almost, sufficient to be secure of a competence.

But the Catholics may have recourse to trade. It is true; but under great comparative disadvantages. They are excluded from all corporations, and are debarrred by law from being Directors of the Bank.

It is very plain that this oppressive restriction, subversive of the freedom of trade as well as of civil liberty, must have a very pernicious effect on the industry of the Catholics; and if Catholic tradesmen and artizans should be found more addicted to idle and irregular habits than the Protestants, it may fairly be ascribed to this very intelligible cause, rather than to the nature of their religion.

Another immediate injury, which the present penal statutes inflict on the Catholics, is a great insecurity of property a nd person, and extreme uncertainty of redress from the laws of their country.

Catholics cannot be Sheriffs, or Subsheriffs; Juries are of course Protestant;

and on any trial, where party feelings can interfere, a Catholic is generally judged unfairly.

It is grown into a proverb among the common people in Ireland, that there is no law for a Catholic.

But a still more vexatious train of injuries flow from the influence which these penal statutes have in forming habits and opinions inimical to the Catholics.

Government, in fact, is the great leader of the ton, and its caprices and absurdities are adopted by the public, with all the rage and servility of fashion.

The English government manifest by their tenaciousness of the penal laws, that they mistrust and dislike the Catholics.

First come the Bank Directors of Ireland, who, not having the good sense to feel, that as their profession is naturally sordid and selfish, it ought to be counteracted by liberality of sentiment, pass á law, that no Catholic shall be employed in any office belonging to the Bank, the number of which is very considerable.

Protestant families will not in general take Catholic servants: every newspaper

contains advertisements for servants; signifying, that they must not be Catholics. In yeoman corps, with very few exceptions, no Catholics are admitted.

Upon the last rebellion, the principal Roman Catholics in Dublin, were anxious to enrol themselves in yeoman corps; they were rejected to a man, by the merchant's corps, and in general by all others, and were only admitted into the lawyer's corps..

In the country corps of yeomanry, the

bigotry of the captains generally excludes Catholics, and even when the captains would wish, for the appearance of their corps, to mix a few stout comely Catholics in it, the bigotry of the privates interferes to prevent it; as in most instances, they would resign to a man, if such a measure was persisted in.

In many towns of Ireland, there are convivial societies, among whom it is a rule to exclude all Catholics.

In many counties, Protestants will not visit a Catholic, and it is the fashion to speak of them in the most injurious and degrading terms.

Yet the Irish Protestants are not so

much to be blamed for these ridiculous and disgraceful habits of domestic dissension; they suffered in fact much by a rebellion which they imagined sprung from Catholic bigotry. They suffered still more in apprehension.

They were too much under the influence of alarm to enquire calmly into the causes of the insurrection, or to consider that a popular commotion, excited by contumely, could not be appeased by a continuance of injurious usage.

But the British cabinet, safe and at a distance, cannot reasonably urge the danger of the present moment, as an excuse for continuing a system of insult towards the Catholics, blind to all its future consequences.

We may disapprove, yet we may still view with some scruples of allowance, the institution of Orange Lodges, those great political blunders of those Protestant gentry. But the government cannot be excused for countenancing the public celebration of the 1st and 12th of July, and the 4th of November; which every year give rise to the most fatal outrages on the part

« PreviousContinue »