other the chief governor or governors of Ireland." The exceptions in the bill went no further than these offices: but Mr. Plunkett remarked, it would be perfectly open for any member on the committee to propose other exceptions if he thought proper. With respect to the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the bill provided, that all their existing institutions should remain in exactly the same situation, as that in which they stood at present. The test laws were left as they stood, and liable only to the operation of the annual indemnity act.

Mr. Plunkett then went on to explain the purport of his second bill, the title of which was, "to regulate the intercourse of persons in holy orders, professing the Roman Catholic religion, with the see of Rome." It set out with declaring, that it was fit to regulate the intercourse and correspondence between the subjects of this realm and the see of Rome, and "that it was expedient that such precautions should be taken in respect to persons in holy orders professing the Roman Catholic religion, who might at any time thereafter be elected, nominated, or appointed to the exercise or discharge of episcopal duties, or functions of a dean, in the said church, within any part of the United Kingdom, as that no such person should at any time thereafter assume the exercise or discharge of any such duties or functions within the United Kingdom or any part thereof, whose loyalty and peaceable conduct should not have been previously ascertained to the satisfaction of his majesty, his heirs, or succes

sors." On the subject of the intercourse between the Catholic clergy and the see of Rome, Mr. Plunkett said, he was entitled to assert, that it had long been carried on merely for spiritual purposes, and that in no single instance was it found to have been carried on for any factious or party purposes. With respect to the appointment of the Roman Catholic bishops by the pope, the nomination was formally made in that manner, but not practically; so that in making any provision respecting the appointment of the Catholic bishops by the pope, he was providing a theoretical remedy against a theoretical danger. As to the actual nomination of the Catholic bishops in Ireland, there had been a series of disputes and a variety of claims. It was first contended among the Catholics, that the bishops of the province should elect one to fill the vacant see; then, that the dean and chapter should; and, lastly, the parish priests put in a claim to the right of election. In all these instances, the nomination by the pope was practically excluded. The pope had, therefore, practically, as little to do with originating the nomination of the Catholic bishops in Ireland, as he had with the nomination of the Protestant bishops in England. But to give satisfaction to particular scruples, he had introduced a proviso into his bill, which stipulated that an oath in the following terms should be taken by every Roman Catholic individual, who was admitted as a clergyman into holy orders, for the purpose of satisfying the state, that their intercourse with the see of Rome should be confined ex

clusively to ecclesiastical matters. The proposed oath was as follows:

"I, A. B., do swear, that I will never concur in or consent to the appointment or consecration of any Roman Catholic bishop, or dean, or vicar-apostolic, in the Roman Catholic church in the United Kingdom, but such as I shall conscientiously deem to be of unimpeachable loyalty and peaceable conduct; and I do swear, that I have not and will not have any correspondence or com. munication with the pope or sec of Rome, or with any court or tribunal established or to be established by the pope or see of Rome, or by the authority of the same, or with any person or persons authorized or pretending to be authorized by the pope or see of Rome, tending directly or indirectly to overthrow or disturb the Protestant government, or the Protestant church of Great Britain and Ireland, or the Protestant church of Scotland, as by law established; and that I will not correspond or communicate with the pope or see of Rome, or with any tribunal established or to be established by the pope or see of Rome, or by the authority of the same, or with any person or persons authorized or pretending to be authorized by the pope or see of Rome, or with any other foreign ecclesiastical authority, on any matter or thing which may interfere with or affect the civil duty and allegiance which is due to his majesty, his heirs and successors, from all his subjects."

Mr. Plunkett next assigned the reasons why he did not, as in the bill of 1813, consolidate the ecclesiastical and civil arrangements

of the question, and why he pre ferred that they should be kept distinct, and made the subject of two specific bills. The one bill did not necessarily arise out of the other as cause and effect, for the Catholic layman was entitled to his civil rights, without any connexion with the ecclesiastical rules of his communion. In drawing this distinction, he admitted the propriety of legislating upon both points at the same time. They were now, he hoped, about to place his majesty's Roman Catholics upon the same footing as the rest of the people, and to put an end for ever to these impolitic and jealous distinctions. When performing this great work, he thought it expedient to embrace the whole of the question in one comprehensive view, and to legislate for it at once. In so doing, they were justified in guarding against the possible abuse of the control of a foreign potentate over a clergy in our own dominions, who had naturally considerable influ ence over one class of our subjects. But he thought it right, that the ecclesiastical parts of the measure should be separated from those which related to the laity. The clergy might feel disposed to assist in carrying the ecclesiastical arrangements into effect, and yet might not wish to do so at the very time when the parti cular question of the laity was at issue; they might have some delicacy in seeing the two matters mixed up together, lest the one should appear like a compromise or a barter for the other. At the same time, both he and the gentlemen who had assisted him in preparing the bill, were perfectly ready to admit, that if the first

bill were passed, the second must go on. Indeed, if the first bill went in its present shape through a committee, he was ready to say that there might arise no objection to the consolidation of the two bills in the committee. Of course he made this observation with reference to the event of the main principles of the first bill being adopted. That bill consisted of various provisions, and it might be granted in toto or in part. If only in a trifling part (which he could not possibly anticipate), the concession might not justify the House in calling upon the Catholics for these ecclesiastical arrangements.

Mr. Banks and Mr Peel opposed the bill: Mr. Wilberforce and sir James Mackintosh supported it. Mr. Canning spoke on the same side, and with more than his usual fervour and eloquence. He said, that the argument against the question now was, as if the connection of the Catholics with a foreign state had always been merely a spiritual one. On the contrary, a connexion of a totally different nature formed the ground of the enact ment of the penal laws. The right hon. gentleman entered into an history of the penal laws, and a recapitulation of their enactments; and concluded it by arguing, that if the danger which called for them had ceased, or if no danger had ever existed, it was full time to revoke them. Suppose a murder was said to have been committed by a person wearing a wig and spectacles, still, if it appeared no murder had been committed, was every man wearing a wig and spectacles to be punished? He asked, was it the Roman Catholics who brought Charles the First to the block? He then alluded to

a bill having been sent up from the House of Commons to the House of Lords, in 1641, for excluding the bishops from seats in parliament. The bill was rejected in the Lords by a small majority, and in that majority every one of the Catholic peers had voted. In a few years after, those very bishops voted for the exclusion of the Roman Catholics from parliament. He trusted, as one good turn deserved another, that the passing of the bills then before the House would afford the present bishops an opportunity to pay the debt. He contended that, from the moment of passing the repeal laws in 1793, the conviction on every man's mind was, that a total repeal should follow. To give the Catholic the elective franchise, at the same time that you denied him every thing else; to make him an elector, at the same time that you rendered him incapable of being elected; to attract to your sides the lowest orders of the community, at the same time that you repelled from it the highest orders of the gentry, was not the way to bind Ireland to the rest of the empire in ties of affection. What was there to prevent the union from being drawn more closely than at present? Was there any moral, was there any physical obstacle? Opposuit natura? We had already abridged the channel. Ireland now sat in the representative assembly of the empire; and when she was allowed to come there, why was she not also allowed to elect members for it from her Catholic children? For three centuries we had been erecting mounds, not to assert or improve, but to thwart nature; we had raised them high above the

waters; and they had stood for many a year frowning proud defiance upon all that attempted to cross them; in the course of ages, they had been nearly broken down, and the narrow isthmus, which they now formed, stood between two kindred seas; the fountains saw each other, and fain would meet. Shall we fortify the mounds, which are now almost in ruins, or shall we leave them to moulder away by time and acci. dent-an event which, though distant, was certain to happen, and which, when it did happen, would only confer a thankless favour? Or shall we, as has been advised, cut away at once the isthmus that remains, and float upon the mingling wave the ark of our common constitution? But some were afraid, that when this was done, those persons who had stood by the constitution when they only enjoyed its benefits partially, would rise up against it, if they were admitted to the full participation of it. This was not likely. At present the constitution was to them negative and repulsive. Then it would be positive and full of advantage.

With the established religion of the country the Roman Catholics would of course have nothing to do. This must be a first and fundamental principle both of all that was yielded and all that was retained. None but those, who professed the established religion of the state, ought to pretend to the exercise of any functions immediately connected with that religion, or with the ecclesiastical system in which it was embodied. They had already provided liberally for diffusing the benefits of education in Ireland; and God forbid that any sect of Christians

should, on account of their faith, be deprived of the means of obtaining knowledge. God forbid, he should also say at the same time, that the means of education should not, wherever it was possible, be conferred under the auspices of our national church. If he made these observations, it was chiefly for the purpose of accounting for those provisions of the bill, which went still to exclude Roman Catholics from the universities, and from the spiritual courts. He could perceive no difficulty in carrying the provisions into effect, nor did he therefore feel any in supporting this measure, and in considering it as a final adjustment. The exclusion was in its nature perpetual; an indispensible condition of the new compact, which, he trusted, we were on the point of ratifying. He relied for the observance of that condition on the nature of the thing itself, as well as on the millions of hands and hearts, which would be put in motion and were ready to defend it,in case of an attempt to abrogate or repeal it. Suppose for a moment the case of a certain number of these much-dreaded Catholics possessing seats in that House, what was it that they could combine to accomplish or to repeal? They must necessarily be objects of private or local interest: for with regard to political designs, with regard to all that appertained to the advancement of their faith or spiritual interests, suspicion was alive, and the attempt must be defeated, as soon as it was made. Such a combination, if directed to general purposes, must be as notorious as the sun at noon; and if the objection were, on the other hand, that there was danger