laity and clergy of the Roman Catholic community might receive a liberal education in common. All agreed in the wisdom of opening the Dublin University, for the purpose of education, to Roman Catholics. There was published, at the end of 1792, a curious paper, by the son of Edmund Burke, Richard Burke, who acted as agent to the Roman Catholics, and which paper is contained in the published correspondence of his father. Richard Burke writes:

"The Government of Ireland conducted itself on the falsest principles, and particularly acted towards the Catholics with perfidiousness, injustice, and rancour." The motive he charges to be a vile one, namely, "to get up a Protestant party, and make themselves political undertakers for the government of the country."

The Parliament of 1793 sat from January to August, 1793. The Duke of Wellington spoke briefly, but suitably, in seconding the address. The disturbers of the peace were to be repressed. The loyal Roman Catholics were to be conciliated. Accordingly, the Emancipation Bill of 1793 was carried, which, amongst many large concessions, conferred the right of voting on the forty-shilling freeholders of the Roman Catholic persuasion. This transaction has been often canvassed and questioned. If the object proposed was to conciliate loyalty, property, and intelligence, why not begin when there were most of these valuable qualities to be found, and not when there was least? This was complete emancipation to the lowest class, for they could not expect to sit in Parliament; but it was not emancipation to the nobility and landed gentry of the Roman Catholic persuasion. The grievance on them was now, that whilst the least intelligent of their class (thousands of whom could not speak the English language, and had not a shirt to their backs) could elect, the most intelligent could not be elected. Why not

begin at the very opposite end of the social scale; admit the few nobles; then the next class, and so attach property and intelligence to the State, before numbers alone were admitted? But why admit such a number of forty-shilling freeholders, as to exceed all other classes of voters? I shrewdly suspect, one reason was, because the landlords thought they could easily control them, and make the ignorant masses subservient to their ambition, not foreseeing that the day might come, when another and superior influence might turn the forty-shilling voters against the very power by whom they were created. Again: how absurd the analogy attempted between these voters and the old forty-shilling electors of the time of Henry VI. The latter had an estate of the value of forty shillings a year of their time, which was nearer to £30 or £40 of the money of our day, than forty shillings.

The principle of our Constitution never had been democracy, but that none should vote who had not capacity and sufficient property to enable them to exercise an independent will. The political problem always must be, how to find a sufficiently large class of electors possessing those essential qualities.

Never in the well-ordered, constitutional monarchy of England was it allowed that ignorance should rule over knowledge-poverty over wealth-idleness over industry : therefore, on every ground of policy, and principle, and expediency, the decision of the Irish Parliament was unwise; and, it will be speedily seen, although large in its operation, did not give contentment, nor produce peace.

I remark, in a statesmanlike speech of Sir L. Parsons, wherein he revises the past history of our country with impartiality and candour, he argues that the elective franchise ought not to be imparted to any Roman Catholic who hath not a freehold property of £20 per annum. His review of the state of the lower classes is instructive; and, having stated their

numbers, ignorance, and intense prejudices, he says—" They would be the majority of the electors, controlling you, overwhelming you, resisting, and irresistible. I cannot conceive

a frenzy much greater than this: allow them every virtue that elevates man, still this is a trial that no body of men, that are or ever were, should be put to. I think as well of the Catholics as I do of any body of men in this country or any other; but still I would not trust so much to any body of men in such circumstances. I consider the Catholics as men; and they must be more than men, if, in such a situation, they could be safely intrusted.

"In this case nothing should be left to uncertainty; because upon this everything depends. Suppose you gave the inferior Catholics the franchise, and that they should meet in all their parishes to determine on the exercise of it—as they likely did to determine on the attainment of it—and that they should nominate, in their chapel, their representatives to the Parliament, as they lately did their delegates to the Convention, what would there be to stop them? The power of their landlords might do much; but the power of religion might do much more. How easily might they be persuaded that their temporal as well as their eternal felicity depended upon their uniting together in the exercise of the franchise. I do not say that all this would follow; but I say, that all this, and more, might follow; and therefore, that we should not wantonly trifle with it.”

This clear-headed senator then argues, if parliamentary reform be superadded to this franchise, and the borough representatives be thrown into the counties, the great majority of the House of Commons must be Catholics; and “all this, assuming the Catholics not to be a jot more prejudiced against you, than you must admit the Protestants to be against them." He proves, with logic irresistible, that they

would naturally combine to remove all remaining restrictions; that it would be no security to say they could control Roman Catholics, because they would easily find nominal Protestants to elect, equally fit for their purpose. The temperate reasoning of Sir L. Parsons made a deep impression on my mind, although it appears to have made little on "the ponderous

fox-hunters" he addressed.

"I do not," said he, "expect of the Irish House of Commons that it should be wiser than any assembly in the world; but I only implore it, that it may not immortalize itself for its folly."

Our wise senator was himself in favour of gaining over all the intelligent Roman Catholics of property by liberal concessions; but he argued, the misfortune was, that the Chief Secretary, who framed the Bill, did not understand the internal state of the country, and was ignorant of its interests. Sir Lawrence would admit the first class of Catholics to Parliament, the middle class to vote, and would not admit to the franchise what he called "a multitudinous rabble." "Never was a measure, pretending to be a great one, more narrowly conceived than the present Bill. It courts the Catholic rabble, and insults the Catholic gentry. It gives power to those who are ignorant, and therefore dangerous; and withholds it from those who are enlightened, and therefore safe.” This is judicious advice:

"I would, therefore, begin by giving but a limited franchise to the Catholics, and by making but a moderate reform, and would have these measures united. A sudden communication of power to a great body of people is never wise; changes in an ancient constitution ought to be gradual.”

I have seldom read or heard a more convincing speech: than this, delivered by an Irish country gentleman, the; ancestor of the distinguished man who is now Chancellor of

the University. The Bill, however, as introduced, passed separate from the moderate Reform Bill which was left open for future agitation. I may observe, that the Speaker said Mr. Grattan was mistaken in asserting that the Roman Catholics had voted in the reign of George II.; for, he contended, after every search he could make, they had never exercised the right of voting since the Revolution. Mr. Grattan replied, that their exclusion was only by a resolution of the House of Commons, and that there was no law excluding them till 19th George II.

Touching the actual composition of the Irish House of Commons, Mr. Grattan stated, that of three hundred members, above two hundred were returned by individuals; from forty to forty-five, by ten persons; that several of the boroughs had no resident electors at all; some of them had but one; and that, on the whole, two-thirds of the representatives of the House of Commons were returned by less than one hundred persons.

In dismissing the Parliamentary history of that year, I should add, that the Government introduced a Bill, placing the money voted entirely under the control of the Parliament; an Appropriation Bill; also a Bill excluding a list of placemen from sitting in the House, vacating the seat of any member who got a place, and reducing the Irish pension list to what was then thought the moderate figure of £80,000 a year. This was declared to be done to complete the Irish Constitution, and to assimilate it perfectly to that of Great Britain and so, having passed these and many other good laws, and with general exultation at all the popular concessions granted, the Irish Parliament in August suspended their labours, and left the nation to enjoy its newly acquired liberty.

The Parliamentary debates of the years 1794, 1795, and

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