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of the conclave! Was it not a delightful, an heartcheering spectacle, to see that holy band of brothers preferring the chance of martyrdom to the certainty of promotion, and postponing all the gratifications of worldly pride, to the severe but heaven-gaining glories of their poverty? They acted honestly, and they acted wisely also; for I say here, before the largest assembly I ever saw in any countryand I believe you are almost all CatholicsI say here, that if the see of Rome presumed to impose any temporal mandate directly or indirectly on the Irish people, the Irish bishops should at once abandon it, or their flocks, one and all, would abjure and banish both of them together. History affords us too fatal an example of the perfidious, arrogant, and venal interference of a papal usurper of former days in the temporal jurisdiction of this country; an interference assumed without right, exercised without principle, and followed by calamities apparently without end. Thus, then, has every obstacle vanished; but it has done moreevery obstacle has, as it were, by miracle, produced a powerful argument in your favour! How do I prove it? Follow me in my proofs, and you will see by what links the chain is united. The power of Napoleon was the grand and leading obstacle to your emancipation. That power led him to the menace of an Irish invasion. What did that prove? Only the sincerity of Irish allegiance. On the very threat, we poured forth our volunteers, our yeomen, and our militia; and the country became encircled with an armed and a loyal popu

lation. Thus, then, the calumny of your disaffection vanished. That power next led him to the invasion of Portugal. What did it prove? Only the good faith of Catholic allegiance. Every field in the Peninsula saw the Catholic Portuguese hail the English Protestant as a brother and a friend joined in the same pride and the same peril. Thus, then, vanished the slander that you could not keep faith with heretics. That power next led him to the imprisonment of the Pontiff, so long suspected of being quite ready to sacrifice every thing to his interest and his dominion. Wha did that prove? २. The strength of his principles, tue purity of his faith, the disinterestedness of his practice. It proved a life spent in the study of the saints, and ready to be closed by an imitation of the martyrs. Thus, also, was the head of your religion vindicated to Europe. There remained behind but one impediment-your liability to a foreign influence. Now mark! The Pontiff's captivity led to the transmission of Quarantotti's rescript; and, on its arrival, from the priest to the peasant, there was not a Catholic in the land, who did not spurn the document of Italian audacity! Thus, then, vanished also the phantom of a foreign influence! Is this conviction? Is not the hand of God in it? Oh yes! for observe what followed. The very moment that power, which was the first and last and leading argument against you, had, by its special operation, banished every obstacle; that power itself, as it were by enchantment, evaporated at once; and peace with Europe took

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away the last pretence for your exclusion. Peace with Europe! alas, alas, there is no peace for Ireland: the universal pacification was but the signal for renewed hostility to us, and the mockery of its preliminaries were tolled through our provinces by the knell of the curfew. I ask, is it not time that this hostility should cease? If ever there was a day when it was necessary, that day undoubtedly exists no longer. The continent is triumphant, the Peninsula is free, France is our ally. The hapless house which gave birth to Jacobitism is extinct for ever. The Pope has been found not only not hostile, but complying. Indeed, if England would recollect the share you had in these sublime events, the very recollection should subsidize her into gratitude. But should she not-should she, with a baseness monstrous and unparalleled, forget our services, she has still to study a tremendous lesson. The ancient order of Europe, it is true, is restored, but what restored it? Coalition after coalition had crumbled away before the might of the conqueror; crowns were but ephemeral; monarchs only the tenants of an hour; the descendant of Frederick dwindled into a vassal; the heir of Peter shrunk into the recesses of his frozen desert; the successor of Charles roamed a vagabond, not only throneless but houseless; every evening sun set upon a change; every morning dawned upon some new convulsion: in short, the whole political globe quivered as with an earthquake, and who could tell what venerable monument was next to shiver beneath the splen

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did, frightful, and reposeless heavings of the French volcano! What gave Europe peace and England safety amid this palsy of her Princes? Was it not the Landwehr and the Landsturm and the Levy en Masse? Was it not the PEOPLE?that first and last, and best and noblest, as well as safest security of a virtuous government. It is a glorious lesson; she ought to study it in this hour of safety; but should she not

"Oh wo be to the Prince who rules by fear,
When danger comes upon him!".

She will adopt it. I hope it from her wisdom; I expect it from her policy; I claim it from her justice; I demand it from her gratitude. She must at length see that there is a gross mistake in the management of Ireland. No wise man ever yet imagined injustice to be his interest; and the minister who thinks he serves a state by upholding the most irritating and the most impious of all monopolies, will one day or other find himself miserably mistaken. This system of persecution is not the way to govern this country; at least to govern it with any happiness to itself, or advantage to its rulers. Centuries have proved its total inefficiency, and if it be continued for centuries, the proofs will be but multiplied. Why, however, should I blame the English people, when I see our own representatives so shamefully negligent of our interests? The other day, for instance, when Mr. Peele introduced, aye, and passed too, his three newly-invented penal bills, to the neces

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sity of which, every assizes in Ireland, and as honest a judge as ever dignified or redeemed the ermine, has given the refutation; why was it that no Irish member rose in his place to vindicate his country? Where were the nominal representatives of Ireland? Where were the renegade revilers of the demagogue? Where were the noisy proclaimers of the board? What, was there not one voice to own the country? Was the patriot of 1782 an assenting auditor? Were our hundred itinerants mute and motionless-" quite chopfallen?" or is it only when Ireland is slandered and her motives misrepresented, and her oppressions are basely and falsely denied, that their venal throats are ready to echo the chorus of ministerial calumny? Oh, I should not have to ask those questions, if in the late contest for this city, you had prevailed, and sent HUTCHINSON into Parliament: he would have risen, though alone, as I have often seen him-richer not less in hereditary fame, than in personal accomplishments; the ornament of Ireland as she is, the solitary remnant of what she was. If slander dare asperse her, it would not have done so with impunity. He would have encouraged the timid; he would have shamed the recreant; and though he could not save us from chains, he would at least have shielded us from calumny. Let me hope that his absence shall be but of short duration, and that this city will earn an additional claim to the gratitude of the country, by electing him her representative. I scarcely know him but as a public

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