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On the 10th of January (1793) the parliament of Ireland was convened at Dublin by the earl of Weftmoreland, lord-lieutenant of that kingdom, the fituation of which had for fome time paft been gradually growing very critical. The fanguine hopes of emancipation which the Catholics, who constituted three-fourths of the whole population of Ireland, had indulged at the time of the military convention at Dungannon in the year 1783 had been quickly extinguished; for it manifeftly appeared that the whole body of the Protestants, thofe who were the most zealous for, as well as those who were most violent againft, the cause of parliamentary and political reform, were almost equally hoftile to the Catholic claims. The earl of Charlemont himself had, in the strongest manner, discountenanced them; and the Catholics, in despair, feemed to abandon their project. But on the firft fplendid fuccefs of the revolution in France all their former expectations revived with increase of vigor; and the liberal and noble principles of government, promulgated by the National Assembly in its memorable Declaration of Rights, infused a kindred spirit into the minds of many who had been previously friends and advocates of reform on a more narrow and contracted fcale.

Ever fince the year 1780 the Irish Catholics had chosen from among themselves a general committee of delegates, which fat at Dublin, and whose province it was to watch over the interests of the Catholics as a diftinct body; and a numerous affociation of the friends of liberty, consisting indifcriminately of Proteftants and Catholics, had recently been established, under the name of the SOCIETY of UNITED IRISHMEN, whofe object it was to obtain a complete emancipation for the Catholics, and a radical reform of parliament on the principles of universal fuffrage and annual election.

In the preceding feffion of 1792 the government had made fome conceffions to the Catholics, which only ferved

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to fhow that they were regaining fome degree of political confequence, and to inspire them with the hope and belief of greater fuccefs. By this act all legal obftructions to the intermarriages of Catholics and Proteftants were removed. The right of taking apprentices and of keeping schools was reftored to them, and they were permitted to practise at the bar. But the grand code of tyranny and oppreflion still remained in force: and in a report made by a committee of the Society of United Irishmen to the members of it at this period, a most frightful picture is exhibited of the reftrictions and disabilities, the pains and the penalties, to which the great body of the Catholics of Ireland were ftill liable, under the several heads of education, guardianship, marriage, felf-defence, exercife of religion, civil franchises, acquifition and enjoyment of property.

The number and extenfive fcope of the ftatutes enumerated in the report were calculated to excite the astonishment, no less than the indignation and abhorrence, of every reflecting perfon-" Statutes," to use the language of the reporters, "unexampled for their inhumanity and impolicy, under the galling yoke of which the great majority of the Irish nation had long patiently languished."-" We recognife," fays this excellent report, "a free ftate in the right exercifed by its inhabitants of framing laws for the fe curity of their liberty and property against all invasion: but with us the order of civil affociation is reverfed, and the law becomes the foe, the ruffian that violates the rights and deftroys the harmony of fociety.-As to the favored part of the community, your committee (fay they) confidering that this black code, worthy of a Turkish divan in its expanded operations over this realm, is utterly fubverfive of the fundamental principles of the conftitution, feel it their duty feriously to inculcate this truth, that our liberties mustever reft on the moft precarious foundation, while feven eighths of our fellow-citizens remain palfied in the exercise of thofe rights which were our common inheritance.-No

conftitution

conftitution can be fecure unless the body of the people have an equal intereft therein."

Alfo the general committee of Catholics published (March 1792) a Declaration, in the ftrongéft terms difavowing and abjuring the most obnoxious tenets imputed to the Catholics, and fuch as could alone, with any plaufibility, be pleaded in palliation of the dreadful rigor of the penal code-fuch as the doctrine of the depofition of princes by the pope; that no faith is to be kept with heretics-that men may be abfolved from the obligation of their oathsthat the pope poffeffes any civil authority or jurifdiction whatever within the realm; and even that the pope has any claim to the attribute of infallibility, or the power of pardoning fins or moral offences at his will. The Declaration concludes with a moft folemn remunciation of all claim or pretence to the lands forfeited by the different acts of fetticment and attainder; and an equally folemn disclaimer of any intention to fubvert the actually fubfifting cftablishment either in church or state.

In another of their publications they thus in pathetic and moving terms invoke the juftice and compaffion of the legislative power. "Behold us before you, three millions of the people of Ireland, fubje&s of the fame king, inhabitants of the fame land, bound together by the fame focial contract, good and loyal subjects to his majefty, his crown and government, yet doomed to one unqualified incapacity -to an univerfal civil profcription. We are excluded from the ftate, we are excluded from the revenues, we are excluded from every diftinction, every privilege, every office, every emolument, every civil truft, every corporate right. We are excluded from the navy, from the army, from the magiftrature, from the profeffions. We are excluded from the palladium of life, liberty, and property-the juries and inquefts of our country. From what are we not excluded? We are excluded from the conftitution.-We moft humbly and earnestly fupplicate and imp'ore parliament to call this

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law or univerfal exclufion to a fevere account, and now at laft to demand of it upon what principle it ftands of equity, of morality, of justice, or of policy. We demand the fevereft fcrutiny into our principles, our actions, our words, and our thoughts. Where is that people who, like us, can offer the testimony of an hundred years' patient submission to a code of laws, of which no man living is now an advocate, without fedition, without murmur, without complaint? Our loyalty had undergone a century of severe perfecution for the fake of our religion, and we have come out of the ordeal with our religion and with our loyalty. Why then are we fill left under the ban of our country? We differ, it is true, from the national church in fome points of doctrinal faith-« For this," say these remonftrants, with a just and decent pride, " we offer no apology. We do not exercise an abject or obfcure superstition. If we err, our errors have been, and still are, fanctioned by the example of many flourishing, learned, and civilized nations."

Adverting once more in this eloquent statement of their grievances to their total and unmerited exclusion from their rights and privileges of the conftitution, they fay, "this exclufion is the fource of every evil; it makes property infecure, and induftry precarious; it pollutes the stream of juftice; it is the caufe of daily humiliation. It is the infurmountable barrier, the impaffable line of feparation which divides the nation, and which, keeping animofity alive, prevents the entire and cordial intermixture of the people and therefore inevitably it is that fome participation in the liberties and franchises of our country becomes the primary and effential object of our ardent and common

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folicitation."

As a proof of the fincerity and integrity of the public declaration made by them of their principles, the committee of Catholics, in an admirable address to the nation at large, flate, as perfectly coincident with their own, the

opinions

opinions of the famous Catholic univerfities of the Sorbonne, Douay, Louvaine, Alcala, Salamanca, and Valladolid, which had been formally confulted relative to the chief points now at iffue, by the committee of English Catholics, at the express defire of the English minifter, preparatory to the pafling of the English Catholic Bill;-the university of Louvaine, in particular, expreffing its amazement that fuch questions fhould, at the end of the eighteenth century, be propofed by any learned body, by the inhabitants of a kingdom that glories in the talents and difcernment of its natives.*

The English cabinet feemed, in confequence of the alarming and agitated state of the country, to be fully convinced that fome decifive measures of redress must now be adopted in relation to the Catholics; and lord Weftmoreland was inftructed thus, in the course of his fpeech to the two houses at the opening of the prefent feffion, to express himfelf: I have it in particular command from his majefty to recommend it to you to apply yourselves to the 'confideration of fuch measures as may be the most likely to strengthen and cement a general union of fentiment among all claffes and defcriptions of his majefty's Catholic fubjects in fupport of the established conftitution. With

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The Queries tranfmitted to the Foreign Univerfities were as follow: First, Has the pope or cardinals, or any body of men, or any individual of the church of Rome, any civil authority, power, jurifdiction, or preeminence whatever, in the realm of England?

Secondly, Can the pope or cardinals, or any body of men, or any indivi dual of the church of Rome, abfolve or difpenfe with his majesty's fubjects from their oath of allegiance on any pretence whatsoever?

Thirdly, Is there any principle in the tenets of the Catholic faith by which Catholics are juftified in not keeping faith with heretics, or other perfons differing from them in religious opinions, in any transaction either of a public for private nature?

It is fcarcely neceffary to fay, that all the universities confulted answered decidedly, and fome of them indignantly, in the negative, to all these queries.

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