zeal of our united population to secure our very existence? Who can argue upon the continuance of this calm? Have we not seen the labour of ages overthrown, and the whim of a day erected on its ruins; establishments the most solid, withering at a word, and visions the most whimsical realized at a wish? crowns crumbled, discords confederated, kings become vagabonds, and vagabonds made kings at the capricious phrenzy of a village adventurer? Have we not seen the whole political and moral world shaking as with an earthquake, and shapes the most fantastic and formidable and frightful, heaved into life by the quiverings of the convulsion? The storm has passed over us; England has survived it; if she is wise, her present prosperity will be but the handmaid to her justice; if she is pious, the peril she has escaped will be but the herald of her expiation. Thus much have I said in the way of argument to the enemies of your question. Let me offer an humble opinion to its friends. The first and almost the sole request which an advocate would make to you is, to remain united; rely on it, a divided assault can never overcome a consolidated resistance. I allow that an educated aristocracy, are as a head to the people, without which they cannot think: but then the people are as hands to the aristocracy, without which it cannot act. Concede, then, a little to even each other's prejudices; recollect that individual sacrifice is universal strength; and can there be a nobler altar than the altar of your country? This same spirit of conciliation should be extended even to your enemies. If England will not consider that a brow of suspicion is but a bad accompaniment to an act of grace; if she will not allow that kindness may make those friends whom even oppression could not make foes; if she will not confess that the best security she can have from Ireland is by giving Ireland an interest in her constitution; still, since her power is the shield of her prejudices, you should concede where you cannot conquer; it is wisdom to yield, when it has become hopeless to combat.

There is but one concession which I would never advise, and which, were I a Catholic, I would never make. You will perceive that I allude to any interference with your clergy. That was the crime of Mr. Grattan's security bill. It made the patronage of your religion the ransom for your liberties, and bought the favour of the crown by the surrender of the church.

G

It is a vicious principle; it is the cause of all your sorrows. If there had not been a state-establishment, there would not have been a Catholic bondage. By that incestuous conspiracy between the altar and the throne, infidelity has achieved a more extended dominion than by all the sophisms of her philosophy, or all the terrors of her persecution. It makes God's apostle a court-appendage, and God himself a court-purveyor; it carves the cross into a chair of state, where, with grace on his brow, and gold in his hand, the little perishable puppet of this world's vanity makes Omnipotence a menial to its power, and Eternity a pander to its profits. Be not a party to it. As you have spurned the temporal interference of the Pope, resist the spiritual jurisdiction of the crown. As I do not think that you, on the one hand, could surrender the patronage of your religion to the King without the most unconscientious compromise, so, on the other hand, I do not think the King could ever conscientiously receive it. Suppose he receives it; if he exercises it for the advantage of your church, he directly violates the coronation-oath, which binds him to the exclusive interest of the Church of England; and if he does not intend to exercise it for your advantage, to what purpose does he require from you its surrender? But what pretence has England for this interference with your religion? It was the religion of her most glorious era; it was the religion of her most ennobled patriots; it was the religion of the wisdom that framed her constitution; it was the religion of the valour that achieved it; it would have been to this day the religion of her empire, had it not been for the lawless lust of a murderous adulterer. What right has she to suspect your church? When her thousand sects were brandishing the fragments of their faith against each other, and Christ saw his garment without a seam, a piece of patch-work for every mountebank who figured in the pantomime; when her Babel temple rocked at every breath of her Priestleys and her Paynes, Ireland, proof against the menace of her power, was proof also against the perilous impiety of her example. But if as Catholics you should guard it, the palladium of your creed, not less as Irishmen should you prize it, the relic of your country. Deluge after deluge has desolated her provinces. The monuments of art which escaped the barbarism of one invader, fell beneath the still more savage civilization of another. Alone, amid the solitude, your temple stood like some majestic monument amid the desert

of antiquity, just in its proportions, sublime in its associations, rich in the virtue of its saints, cemented by the blood of its martyrs, pouring forth for ages the unbroken series of its venerable hierarchy, and only the more magnificent from the ruins by which it was surrounded. Oh! do not for any temporal boon betray the great principles which are to purchase you an eternity! Here, from your very sanctuary,-here, with my hand on the endangered altars of your faith, in the name of that God, for the freedom of whose worship we are so nobly struggling-I conjure you, let no unholy hand profane the sacred ark of your religion; preserve it inviolate; its light is "light from heaven;" follow it through all the perils of your journey; and, like the fiery pillar of the captive Israel, it will cheer the desert of your bondage, and guide to the land of your liberation!

PETITION

REFERRED TO IN THE PRECEDING SPEECH,

DRAWN BY MR. PHILLIPS,

AT THE REQUEST OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND

To the Honourable the COMMONS of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled:

The humble Petition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, whose Names are undersigned on behalf of themselves, and others, professing the Roman Catholic Religion,—SHOWETH,

THAT We, the Roman Catholic, people of Ireland, again approach the legislature with a statement of the grievances under which we labour, and of which we most respectfully, but at the same time most firmly solicit the effectual redress. Our wrongs are so notorious, and so numerous, that their minute detail is quite unnecessary, and would indeed be impossible, were it deemed expedient. Ages of persecution on the one hand, and of patience on the other, sufficiently attest our sufferings and our submission. Privations have been answered only by petition, indignities by remonstrance, injuries by forgiveness. It has been a misfortune to have suffered for the sake of our religion; but it has also been a pride to have borne the best testimony to the purity of our doctrine, by the meekness of our endurance.

We have sustained the power which spurned us; we have nerved the arm which smote us; we have lavished our strength, our talent, and our treasures, and buoyed up, on the prodigal effusion of our young blood, the triumphant ARK OF BRITISH LIBERTY.

We approach, then, with confidence, an enlightened legislature in the name of Nature, we ask our rights as men; in the name of the Constitution, we ask our privileges as subjects; in

the name of Gon, we ask the sacred protection of unpersecuted piety as Christians.

Are securities required of us? We offer them-the best se curities a throne can have-the affections of a people. We offer faith that was never violated, hearts that were never corrupted, valour that never crouched. Every hour of peril has proved our allegiance, and every field of Europe exhibits its example.

We abjure all temporal authority, except that of our Sovereign; we acknowledge no civil pre-eminence, save that of our constitution; and, for our lavish and voluntary expenditure, we only ask a reciprocity of benefits.

Separating, as we do, our civil rights from our spiritual duties, we humbly desire that they may not be confounded. We "render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," but we must also "render unto God the things that are God's." Our church could not descend to claim a state-authority, nor do we ask for it a state-aggrandizement :-its hopes, its powers, and its pretensions, are of another world; and, when we raise our hands most humbly to the state, our prayer is not, that the fetters may be transferred to the hands which are raised for us to Heaven. We would not erect a splendid shrine, even to Liberty, on the ruins of the Temple.

In behalf, then, of five millions of a brave and loyal people, we call upon the legislature to annihilate the odious bondage which bows down the mental, physical, and moral energies of Ireland; and, in the name of that Gospel which breathes charity towards all, we seek freedom of conscience for all the inhabitants of the British empire.

May it therefore please this honourable House to abolish all penal and disabling laws, which in any manner infringe religious liberty, or restrict the free enjoyment of the sacred rights of conscience, within these realms.

And your petitioners will ever pray.

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