On the 18th of May, Mr Grattan brought forward a new motion for the emancipation of the Irish Roman Catholics. We have noticed, in a former part of the history, how strong a prospect (a prospect corning near, if it did not amount to, an absolute pledge) of Catholic emancipation had been held out at the time of the union, to conciliate a larger portion of the Irish to that mea sure. Two years after the union, Mr Pitt, when leav ing office, had declared his opinion, that an extension of the rights of Protestants to Catholics, was as innocent and safe after the union, as it had been dangerous be fore it.
Of the cause, it has been truly said, that there is not one name which has been loved in our own times, or will be revered hereafter, by any sect or school of politicians, which is not ranked among its supporters. In times when Popery was still formidable, Locke and Judge Blackstone had anticipated the time and circum stances for enlarging the bounds of toleration, which time and circumstances were now arrived. In latter times, Adam Smith had pleaded in their favour ; and Dr Johnson, thirty years ago, had pronounced, that those who would cry, No Popery, in these days, would have cried, Fire, in the time of the deluge. Pitt, Fox, Grenville, and Windham himself, men who differed in their views of all other reforms, coincided in this one. Within the pale of the English church, the cause of Catholic emancipation had been approved by no less authorities than a Watson, a Paley, and a Bathurst. It was not indeed easy to answer the arguments which abstract justice had to plead in favour of the Catholics ; and arguments, too, which the dangers of the country, and considerations of policy, every day multiplied and confirmed. The exclusion of a fifth part of our whole population from the possibility of rising to high and im portant situations in the country, is an injury to the empire, which is thus deprived of the talents which might spring from such a mass of population. It is an insult to that ekcluded population, which extends still wider than the injury. It saps the foundation of their loyalty and patriotism, or, at least, gives us a weaker right to expect them. It turns the heart and the eye of the degraded Catholics towards that Catholic enemy of the country, who has an interest and pretext to offer his aid for obtaining to them all the rights which their own government denies. It deprives Protestantism itself of the surest triumph over Catholicism—of reformation.
It keeps the Catholic more suspected, consequently more degraded, and consequently more bigotted and averse to the purer creed of Christianity.
The opponents of emancipation answer, that the Catholics have full toleration for their religion ; they are not punished for going to mass, nor obstructed in the performance of it. To this, it is replied, that a penal law against Catholics, is still a penal law, whether it enjoins the punishment of death or of fine for their religion ; and in what respects is the exclusion of the Catholics from the most honourable offices in the law, the army, the corporations, and the universities, dif ferent from a penalty ?* The right of aspiring to such offices is inherent in the free subject ; it is not confer red by acts of parliament ; but the statute which takes it away, is as essentially penal as if it deprived the sub ject of his personal liberty, or of any other right. The third objection to the measure is, that the Catholics would demand more than mere right, and would aim at religious supremacy in Ireland, if their present demands were granted. If it were even fair to deny what is due for fear of more being demanded, it could be easily proved, in answer to this objection, that the Catholics have not the power as legislators to sway the British parliament, and their attempting it by force, could only end in their defeat. But it is pretended, that the prin ciples of the Catholics unlit them for trusts in society ; they are bound to persecute ; they are freed from the obligation of an oath, and can purchase absolution from all offences done or intended, from the lowest larceny up to regicide. This assertion is completely without foundation. At Mr Pitt's desire, in 1789 and 1790, the six Catholic universities of Europe were consulted upon the tenets of the Catholic Church, with respect to the faith that is to be kept with heretics, and allegiance to heretic sovereigns. The university of Douay, the Doc tors of the Sorbonne, the university of Louvaine, those of Alcala, Salamanca, and Valladolid, expressed their astonishment at the imputation of such principles, and the dispensing power of the Pope, gave exactly such answers as Protestant universities would have given, had they been consulted by Catholics on the Protestant opinions respecting murder, treason, and perjury.