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A SPEECH

DELIVERED

AN AGGREGATE MEETING

OF

THE ROMAN CATHOLICS

OF THE COUNTY AND CITY OF DUBLIN.

HAVING taken, in the discussions on your question, such humble share as was allotted to my station and capacity, 1 may be permitted to offer my ardent congratulations at the proud pinnacle on which it this day reposes. After having combated calumnies the most atrocious, sophistries the most plausible, and perils the most appalling, that slander could invent, or ingenuity devise, or power array against you, I at length behold the assembled rank and wealth and talent of the Catholic body offering to the legislature that appeal which cannot be rejected, if there be a Power in heaven to redress injury, or a spirit on earth to administer justice. No matter what may be the depreciations of faction or of bigotry; this earth never presented a more ennobling spectacle than that of a Christian country suffering for her religion with the patience of a martyr, and suing for her liberties with the expostulations of a philosopher; reclaiming the bad by her piety; refuting the bigoted by her practice; wielding the Apostle's wea

pons in the patriot's cause, and at length, laden with chains and with laurels, seeking from the country she had saved the Constitution she had shielded! Little did I imagine, that in such a state of your cause, we should be called together to counteract the impediments to its success, created not by its enemies, but by those supposed to be its friends. It is a melancholy occasion; but melancholy as it is, it must be met, and met with the fortitude of men struggling in the sacred cause of liberty. I do not allude to the proclamation of your Board; of that Board I never was a member, so I can speak impartially. It contained much talent, some learning, many virtues. It was valuable on that account; but it was doubly valuable as being a vehicle for the individual sentiments of any Catholie, and for the aggregate sentiments of every Catholic. Those who seceded from it, do not remember that, individually, they are nothing; that as a body, they are every thing. It is not this wealthy slave, or that titled sycophant, whom the bigots dread, or the parliament respects! No, it is the body, the numbers, the rank, the property, the genius, the perseverance, the education, but, above all, the Union of the Catholics. I am far from defending every measure of the Boardperhaps I condemn some of its measures even more than those who have seceded from it; but is it a reason, if a general makes one mistake, that his followers are to desert him, especially when the contest is for all that is dear or. valuable? No doubt the Board had its errors. Show me the human institution which has not. Let the man, then, who denounces it, prove himself superior to humanity, before he triumphs in

his accusation. I am sorry for its suppression. When I consider the animals who are in office around us, the act does not surprise me; but I confess, even from them, the manner did, and the time chosen did, most sensibly. I did not expect it on the very hour when the news of universal peace was first promulgated, and on the anniversary of the only British monarch's birth, who ever gave a boon to this distracted country.

You will excuse this digression, rendered indeed in some degree necessary. I shall now confine myself exclusively to your resolution, which determines on the immediate presentation of your petition, and censures the neglect of any discussion on it by your advocates during the last session of Parliment. You have a right to demand most fully the reasons of any man who dissents from Mr. Grattan. I will give you mine explicitly. But I shall first state the reasons which he has given for the postponement of your question. I shall do so out of respect to him, if Indeed it can be called respect to quote those sentiments, which on their very mention must excite your ridicule. Mr. Grattan presented your petiton, and, on moving that it should lie where so many preceding *ones have lain, namely, on the table, he declared it to be his intention to move for no discussion. Here, in the first place, I think Mr. Grattan wrong; he got that petition, if not on the express, at least on the implied condition of having it immediately discussed. There was not a man at the aggregate meeting at which it was adopted, who did not expect a discussion on the very first opportunity. Mr. Grattan, however, was angry at "suggestions." I do not think Mr. Grattan,

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of all men, had any right to be so angry at receiving that which every English member was willing to receive, and was actually receiving from an English corn-factor. Mr. Grattan was also angry at our "violence." Neither do I think he had any occasion to be 50 squeamish at what he calls our violence. There was a day, when Mr. Grattan would not have spurned our suggestions, and there was also a day when he was fifty-fold more intemperate than any of his oppressed countrymen, whom he now holds up to the English people as so unconstitutionally violent. A pretty way forsooth, for your advocate to commence conciliating a foreign auditory in favour of your petition. Mr. Grattan, however, has fulfilled his own prophecy, that an oak of the forest is too old to be transplanted at fifty," and our fears that an Irish native would soon lose its raciness in an English atmosphere, "It is not my intention," says he," to move for a discussion at present." Why? "Great obstacles have been removed." That's his first reason. "I am, however," says he, still ardent." Ardent! Why it strikes me to be a very novel kind of ardour, which toils till it has removed every impediment, and then pauses at the prospect of its victory! "And I am of opinion," he continues," that any immediate discussion would be the height of precipitation:" that is, after having removed the impediments, he pauses in his path, declaring he is" ardent :" and after centuries of suffering, when you press for a discussion, he protests that he considers you monstrously precipitate! Now is not that a fair translation? Why really if we did not know Mr. Grattan, we should be almost tempted to think

that he was quoting from the ministry. With the exception of one or two plain, downright, sturdy, unblushing bigots, who opposed you because you were Christians, and declared they did so, this was the cant of every man who affected liberality. "Oh, I declare," they say," they may not be cannibals, though they are Catholics, and I would be very glad to vote for them, but this is no time," "Oh no," says Bragge Bathurst, "it's no time. What! in time of war! Why it looks like bullying us!" Very well: next comes the peace, and what say our friends the opposition? "Oh! I declare peace is no time, it looks so like persuading us." For my part, serious as the subject is, it affects me with the very same ridicule with which I see I have so unconciously affected you. I will tell you a story of which it reminds me. It is told of the celebrated Charles Fox. Far be it from me, however, to mention that name with levity. As he was a great man, I revere him; as he was a good man, I love him. He had as wise a head as ever paused to deliberate; he had as sweet a tongue as ever gave the words of wisdom utterance; and he had a heart so stamped with the immediate impress of the Divinity, that its very errors might be traced to the excess of its benevolence. I had almost forgot the story. Fox was a man of genius of course he was poor. Poverty is a reproach to no man; to such a man as Fox, I think it was a pride; for if he chose to traffic with his principles; if he chose to gamble with his conscience, how easily might he have been rich? I guessed your answer. It would be hard, indeed, if you did not believe that in England talents might find a purchaser, who have seen in

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