stricted political power are resisted, because it is considered that the system of their church government has a dangerous political tendency, and that the stability of the Constitution, as settled in 1688, would be endangered by their admission to legislative authority.

It has of late, however, been largely insisted on that a pledge was given by the English nation at the legislative union of the two countries that Catholic Emancipation should thereupon be granted, and the Knight of Kerry's promised motion on the 1st of May is generally understood to be wholly founded on this assumption. As Mr. Maurice Fitz-Gerald was himself the man who moved the Union in the Irish House, it cannot be supposed that he is ignorant of the pledge given, or the promises implied; but to a plain man, who can form his judgment only by such documents and such authorities as all have access to, it appears plain almost to a demonstration that the very opposite of the worthy Knight's view of the subject is the true one. The House of Commons in Ireland, as all who are acquainted with its constitution well know, was, of all public bodies, the most averse to Catholic Emancipation. Of the three hundred members, fourfifths, at least, were the creatures of the landed aristocracy. This landed aristocracy was not

only Protestant, but notoriously hostile to the admission of Roman Catholics to place or power, partly perhaps from a well-founded dread of dangerous consequences, and partly, no doubt, (for men commonly act from mixed motives,) through a recollection of the vulgar adage "the fewer guests the better cheer." But whatever may have been the cause, so it was in fact, that the aristocracy of Ireland was most opposed to emancipation, and it was from them the English government had to seek the legislative enactment. Now I am utterly at a loss to conjecture on what grounds any man who knows these facts can contend for a moment that the expectation of Catholic Emancipation was the valuable consideration which induced the legislature of Ireland to consent to the Union. When Mr. Pitt wrote to the Lord Lieutenant to ascertain whether the government could carry the two questions of the Union and of Catholic Emancipation, Lord Cornwallis replied, not that we can carry the one, provided we can pledge ourselves to the other, but in these words—" I have sounded the ground and can carry the Union, but not the Catholic question."

It needed not the splendid talents and statesman-like views of Mr. Pitt to perceive that if there were a hope for Catholic Emancipation it must be in the Imperial and not in the

Irish Parliament, and with the decision which marked his character, he threw the question overboard (anticipating that it would sink but to rise again in a more favourable sea) rather than let the vessel of the Union go down amid the breakers. When he had carried the Union, and not till then, he went out on the Catholic question-this was in 1801-the grounds of his resignation remain on record in his own words: "The measure of Catholic relief appeared to me and some of my colleagues to be indispensable, finding we could not propose it from government we thought it inconsistent with our duty and our honour to remain in office." Here is no mention whatever of a violated pledge, yet Mr. Pitt must needs have been the veriest driveller imaginable to have assigned a mere difference of opinion with the head of the government on the nature of a specific question as his reason for quitting office, when he could have pointed to a pledge on that question which it was a breach of honesty and honour to violate. That both Mr. Pitt and the Catholics of Ireland thought, and rightly thought, that the Union very much improved the chance of emancipation I have no doubt, but as to any obligation entered into by his Majesty's government to effect that measure, I cannot perceive the least trace of it; on

the contrary, we know, that the administration would not have been permitted to enter into any such obligation. Nay, Mr. Pitt himself, expressly declares in 1805, four years after he had gone out on the question, that he could not allow at any time, under any circumstances, or any situation, that the Catholics were entitled to have these disabilities removed as a pledge or a question of right.

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From the tone of several of the members of the legislature and of the English journals, I must conclude that every one in England imagines there is now a large majority of the aristocracy of Ireland in favour of Catholic Emancipation. The fact is not so. It is certainly true, that nearly three-fifths of our representatives vote for the measure in Parliament, but this is far from being a fair criterion. I happen to be tolerably well acquainted with the three southern counties of Cork, Tipperary, and Limerick, which, with their county towns, return ten members to Parliament, all of whom support emancipation, and I speak of my own knowledge when I say, that an overwhelming majority of the grand jurors and generally of the gentry of each of these three counties is opposed to Catholic Emancipation. It is likewise a notorious fact, notorious at least to us, who live upon the spot, that the supporters of

emancipation are limited, not wholly, of course, but in a very marked manner limited, to those families of which some member is a representative or has been a candidate for the representation. This is sufficiently intelligible when it is recollected that the Roman Catholic forty-shilling freeholders form an immense numerical majority of the constituency of the southern shires.

LETTER XVIII.

HAVING now, I hope not unsatisfactorily, established the second part of the position with which I set out, namely, that Catholic Emancipation is open to the unpledged decision of the British legislature, I shall proceed briefly to notice some other fallacies which are commonly combined with the consideration of my subject.

It is asserted that all the eloquence of the House of Commons is on the side of the Catholics, and the splendid orations delivered in support of their claims are advanced as a proof that the force of intellect is in their favour,