are to be associated with it. I begin by saying, that I am perfectly contented to take the present bill as it stands, without the proposed auxiliary measures. I must, in fairness, declare, that upon those measures I have by no means made up my mind. With regard to one of them, I have much to learn before I can make up my mind to support it. I cannot look at it abstractedly with favour. But if by raising the elective franchise in Ireland, to a higher qualification than that which the present law requires, I could not only get rid of the opposition of those who have

mon humanity would wish to see them enforced. Therefore it is, that the framers of this bill endeavoured to cure the evils of this system by a precautionary supervision. It was no peculiar duty of theirs to do this. The evil does not grow out of any thing that they propose. They find it existing in full force: but so finding it, and finding that no one of the anti-papists has any thought of mending the matter, they gallantly and generously, and as a work of supererogation attempt to deal with it. And what is their reward? Why, that they are not only reviled for the ineffectualness of their re-long been the avowed and most efficient medy, but are held responsible for the existence of the evil.

enemies of the simple measure of Catholic relief, but convert them into active Sir, for my part, I say, if the opponents and zealous friends, I own the temptation of this measure believe the correspond- might perhaps overcome my scruples,ence with the court of Rome to be so full and induce me, though I fear with a someof danger, I call upon them to propose a what questionable morality, to consent to remedy for that evil which is now in full support this doubtful change, and in order existence, a remedy which they can ven- "to do a great right," be ready to do ture to carry into execution. The pre-"a little wrong." On general principles, sent laws are so severe that they cannot I should undoubtedly oppose disquabe executed. I call upon the opponents lification. The very word is odious. of the bill, therefore, to say how they I expressly limit my willingness to take propose to deal with the evil which this proposition into consideration, with the throwing out of this bill, will only the declaration that I do so under the tend to confirm. Than the state of the persuasion that a freehold qualification of law as it now stands nothing can be more forty shillings in Ireland, is a very differmonstrous. I had recently occasion to ent thing from a freehold qualification of know this. Soon after I entered upon my the same nominal value in England, and present office as Secretary of State for that in striking at this symbol of free Foreign Affairs, a letter was addressed election in Ireland, I am not, in fact, vioto his majesty by the pope. It was, of lating the essence of freedom. This is course, transmitted to my office; but I what I expect to have shewn to me by could not venture to advise the king to persons well informed upon the subject. open, much less to answer it, until I had consulted high law authorities as to the legality of such a proceeding. I accordingly did consult them, and I found, as I had previously expected, that by tendering such advice to his majesty, I should render myself liable to the penalties of præmunire. Accordingly the pope's letter remains unanswered to this day. Such is the operation of the present system. Can any thing be more stupid? But, thus it is to remain; because the opponents of this question prefer those laws with the known, constant, daily, unchecked evasion of them, by persons less scrupulous than I was, to some regulation of the correspondence with the court of Rome.

So much for the main objections to the frame of the bill upon your table.

And now, Sir, a few words with respect to the other measures which, it is said,

With respect to the principle of the second proposed measure, that of making some provision for the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland, it is one which was in contemplation long ago-in the time of Mr. Pitt-and for the execution of which I believe some practical steps were taken during lord Cornwallis's administration in Ireland. The principle of this measure (for of the details I have no knowledge) has therefore authority which I highly respect in its favour; and nothing which I have heard in the course of this debate, has altered that favourable impression. The objection that the Protestant part of the community would thus be taxed, in order to raise the funds out of which the Roman Catholic clergy are to be paid, may be met by asking whether the Catholics do not contribute to the taxes out of which the Regium Donum to a portion of the dissenting Protestant church in Ire

But the Regium Donum to the Presbyterian church appears to be in point of principle, the very measure which it is now proposed to extend to the Catholic, and seems to afford a precedent on which" There," they say, "is the weakness, it might safely be modelled, when the time shall come for settling the details of such an arrangement.

Mr. Secretary Peel said, that the House would, he was sure, believe him, when he stated that nothing would have been more gratifying to himself individually, Sir, this declaration recalls to my mind than to have been spared the painful duty the only other point on which I wish to of addressing it upon this occasion. The say a few words, and with which I shall subject, though important in itself, was one conclude. In proportion as we become on which he had so often obtained an ingreat and powerful as our resources con-dulgent hearing from the House, that he

ation. He therefore agreed with his right hon. friend, that though the number of petitions which had recently been presented was an indication that this measure, if carried into a law, would not give universal satisfaction, still it left the House at perfect liberty to grant the claims of the Catholics, if it should be of opinion that, in point of equity and expediency, they ought to be granted.

felt considerable reluctance in claiming it | granting of the claims, supposing the once more, and that reluctance was rather House felt, that the alarm which had increased than diminished, when he recol-given rise to them had no justifiable foundlected that he had not only to follow his right hon. friend, but also to state the grounds on which he differed from him in opinion. His right hon. friend knew with what cordiality he agreed with him upon all other occasions; and would therefore readily give him credit for sincerity, when he declared it gave him the utmost concern to differ from him on the present. But, if he saw greater danger and less benefit arising from this bill than his right hon. friend did-if he thought that less evil would accrue to the country by adhering to the existing system, than by departing from it-he was sure that he should not lose the esteem of his right hon. friend for publicly stating the grounds on which he came to so different a conclusion.

Before he noticed the various topics to which his right hon. friend had alluded, he would beg to leave to advert to that which appeared to form the chief feature in the present debate-he meant the conversion of several members who had formerly taken the same view of this question that he was now going to take, into supporters of the measure. He had heard, and with the most perfect conviction of his sincerity, the avowal of the hon. member for Armagh, that he had changed his opinion upon it. If he (Mr. Peel) had changed his own opinion, he should have been most ready to avow it; but as he had not changed it, he trusted that his honourable friends would give him the same credit for purity of motive in retaining it, that he gave to the hon. member for Armagh in abandoning it. On this question he had always pursued a course which he considered a course of moderate opposition to the claims of the Catholics. His opposition to them was decided, but unmixed, he trusted, with any feelings of ill-will or animosity. He had never said, that the number of petitions presented against them was an insuperable bar to conceding them; nor had he ever encouraged the presentation of any petitions. If not a single petition had been present ed on the subject, he should have acted upon his own judgment, and should have opposed the claims, as he now intended to oppose them, just as he should have admitted that, had the petitions been ten times as numerous as they now were, they formed no insuperable bar to the

To return, however, to the point from which he had unintentionally digressed. He had been noticing the conversion of his hon. friend, the member for Armagh, and had been proceeding to offer a few remarks on the nature of it. His hon. friend had said, that, in consequence of the attention he had given to the evidence which had been tendered before a recent committee, the ground on which he had formerly opposed Catholic emancipation had been entirely cut away from under him. If that were the case, he could only say that it convinced him that the grounds upon which his hon. friend had opposed it, had always been very different from those upon which he opposed it. His hon. friend declared, that his opposition to the claims of the Catholics had relaxed, because he had heard Dr. Doyle deny that it was a tenet of the Catholic church that the pope had power to excommunicate princes and to depose them from their sovereignty-that faith should not be kept with heretics, and that the temporal power of the pope was not admitted in Ireland. Now, this was not the first time that all these tenets had been solemnly disclaimed by the Catholic church. Had his hon. friend been so long in the habit of opposing the Catholic claims, without hearing of the answers of the foreign universities to the queries propounded to them by Mr. Pitt? If his hon. friend had at all examined into the point, he would have found, that all the answers received by Mr. Pitt contained an express denial of the three tenets he had just mentioned: he would have found the same denial avouched in the oath which the Catholics now took: he would have found that they had long abandoned, in word at least, the temporal authority of the pope: and, therefore, if he was now satisfied for the first time upon these topics, he had not attended with sufficient care to the evidence which had already

access to a recent speech of his right hon. and learned friend the Attorney-general for Ireland, who had demanded in that House for the Catholics, an equality of civil privileges as their abstract natural right, and had said, that a refusal of their claims would be as unjustifiable, in point of moral justice, as a downright invasion of their property. After such a declaration, the petitioners had almost a right to say, that the effect of this bill was, to give the Roman Catholics privileges superior to those enjoyed by the Dissenters, since the Dissenters were protected by annual indemnity bills, and yet no such protection was deemed necessary for the Catholics.-His right hon. friend had

been collected and submitted to the notice of parliament. But, said his hon. friend, "matters cannot long stand as they now are: and therefore, in order to bring them to some better arrangement, I will vote for the second reading of this bill." His hon. friend, however, went to add, that unless some other measures were attached to it in the committee, his assent would be recalled, and he should oppose the bill on the third reading. For his own part, he must confess, that he was somewhat surprised by the conduct of his hon. friend. His hon. friend said, that he voted for the bill because he wished to have a better settlement of matters than now existed; and yet, if the measures to which he alluded were not car-likewise noticed the petitions of the clerried, he was going to pursue that line of conduct which would leave matters just in the same state that they were at present. Now, as he (Mr. Peel) did not attach any very great importance to the two measures to which his hon. friend attached so much-he meant the alteration in the elective franchise, and the qualified establishment of the Catholic priesthood-he thought he was taking a more consistent course than his hon. friend was, in giving his decided oppositions were now contemplated in the bill, tion to the second reading of this bill.

His right hon. friend (Mr. Canning) had opened his speech by referring to the petitions which had been presented against the bill, and had said, that they were founded in erroneous notions, that they exhibited absurd apprehensions of danger, and that they evinced the most extraordinary ignorance of its nature and its provisions. In proof of his assertion, his right hon. friend had alluded particularly to one petition, which certainly did make out the charge which he had advanced against them. The persons who signed that petition approached the House with all humility, and prayed it not to place the Roman Catholics, as it was going to do, in a better situation than that in which it had placed the Protestant Dissenters. His right hon. friend had said, and said truly, that the object of this bill was only to place the Roman Catholics on the same footing with the Protestant Dissenters; and had then proceeded, with his usual talent for raillery, to ridicule the error into which the petitioners had fallen. Undoubtedly, the petitioners, if they looked at the bill, would see that they had committed a mistake; but, their mistake was pardonable, if they had had

gy against this bill, and had thought it strange that so much theological discussion should have been introduced into them. Now, he could not participate at all in that surprise. The second clause in the preamble to the bill referred to "the doctrine, discipline, and government of the Protestant Episcopal Church of England and Ireland," and stated, that it was essential to preserve it "permanently and inviolably." And yet, such altera

that the clause was quite unnecessary. For the question was not any longer, whether the House would admit Catholics to a share of political privileges, but whether it would consent to a qualified establishment of a Roman Catholic church. Now, if the doctrine, discipline, and government of the church of England were to be permanently and inviolably maintained, it became necessary to consider, what that doctrine, discipline, and government was, and where it was to be found explained. The doctrine of the church of England was to be found in what were called the Thirty-nine Articles. Amongst those articles he found one containing a protest against the establishment of the church of Rome. When, therefore, a clergyman of the church of England heard that measures were proposed in parliament, for paying professors of that very religion against which he was bound, in the discharge of its functions, to protest, what was there in his religious creed to prevent him from petitioning firmly but respectfully against such a measure? In the Articles of the church of England it was stated, that the administration of the sacrament in a language which the vulgar could not under

stand, was contrary to the word of God | that the adoration of saints, the worshipping of images, and the sacrifice of the mass, were not sanctioned by the Bible; and that the pope had no jurisdiction, either temporal or spiritual, within this realm. Now, when the clergyman of the church of England was told that the doctrine, discipline, and government of his church was "established permanently and inviolably," and yet saw that it was intended to erect a modified establishment for another church which held as articles of implicit faith those articles which it condemned as contrary to the Bible, and as unsanctioned by the word of God, had he not reason for thinking, that the time was at length come in which his duty compelled him to introduce into his petition, matter which trenched closely upon theological discussion?

England, and to strengthen our free con. stitution, would be an absurdity too great for any man at this time of day to think of believing. He had, therefore, some apprehension, from these two clauses being still inserted in the preamble, that there was, in the enactments of the bill, something pregnant with hidden danger to the constitution. The House would recollect, that, in the feast in Macbeth, that tyrant, before he went round the table to pay his respects to his guests, expressed an anxiety for the presence of Banquo, whom he had doomed to die. One of the commentators had remarked, that this single touch of nature showed a greater consciousness of guilt in Macbeth's mind, and excited a stronger suspicion that he intended mischief to Banquo, than a thousand laboured speeches could have done. He, too, thought, that the anxiety He must confess, that he was himself for the welfare of the church of England somewhat surprised at the two first clauses exhibited in the preamble, and not folin the preamble of the present bill. They lowed up in any of the enactments of the were as follow:-" Whereas the Protes- bill, was one of those touches of nature tant succession to the imperial Crown of which showed a consciousness of danger this united kingdom and its dependencies, in the bosoms of the framers of the bill; is, by the act for the further limitation of and which ought to excite a lurking susthe Crown and the better securing the picion that all was not so correct in it as liberties of the subject, established per- at first sight it appeared to be. The conmanently and inviolably: and whereas stitution, he contended, was virtually althe Protestant Episcopal Church of Eng-tered by this bill. The bill of rights was land and Ireland, and the doctrine, disci- repealed by it. That bill provided, by an pline, and government thereof, and like-enactment as solemn as an enactment wise the Protestant Presbyterian Church could be, that the oath taken by every of Scotland, and the doctrine, discipline, person, on his admission to office, should and government thereof, are, by the re- be the oath of supremacy, which asserts, spective acts of union between England" that no foreign prince, person, prelate, and Scotland, and between Great Britain state, or potentate, bath or ought to have and Ireland, therein severally established any jurisdiction, power, superiority, prepermanently and inviolably." Now, why eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or were these two clauses introduced into spiritual, within this realm." This oaththe preamble? There was no clause in he said nothing at present about the dethe bill which provided for the permanent claration against transubstantiation, which and inviolable security of the Protestant stood on different grounds-this oath was establishment. These clauses had some now to be repealed. He did not deny the connexion with the first bill that was in- right of the House of Commons to alter troduced by the late Mr. Grattan; for this oath, if it thought good; but, he they were there followed by a third clause must say, that, when they told him that to this effect-" And whereas it would they wished to secure to the church of tend to promote the interest of the same, England permanency and inviolability, and strengthen our free constitution, of and when they altered that act which prowhich they are an essential part, if the vided for it most effectually, he had a civil and military disqualifications under right to ask what security they had to which his majesty's Roman Catholic sub-give him for the fulfilment of their projects now laboured were removed." That clause was omitted in the present bill; for to say that the privileges which it conferred upon the Catholics were intended to promote the interest of the Church of

mises? He was not going to deny, that the maintenance of the succession to the Crown in the Protestant line, together with the necessity of two or three of its principal officers still remaining Protes-