have been suffused with tears of anguish, when he said, "is not this against the laws of God and man; against the rule of reason and jus tice, by which all men ought to be governed? Is not this the surest way in the world to make children become undutiful, and to bring the gay head of the father to the grave with grief and tears? It would be hard from any man-but from a son, a child," (his face must have been covered with tears as he spoke )-" the fruit of my body, whom I have nursed in my bosom, and tendered more dearly than my own life, to become my plunderer, to rob me of my estate, and to take away my bread, is much more grievous than from any other, and enough to make the most flinty of hearts to bleed to think on it ;"(alas, he was speaking to the Scots and the Jenkinsons of the day.) "For God's sake, will you consider, whether this is according to the golden rule, to do as you should be done unto,' and if not, you will not, nay, surely you cannot, without the most manifest injustice, take from us our birth-rights, and invest them in others before our faces." In such language did Sir Theobald Butler, who was a Catholic lawyer of the first eminence, and who had himself been a party to the treaty of Limerick, implore the Irish House of Commons to respect the law of man and of God! But it was in vain. The bill passed, and was succeeded by other enactments of the same character. Nothing was omitted that could be devised by the satanic genius of penal legislation, for the oppres sion and degradation of the people. Session after session new chains were forged until there was not a link left to which a fetter could be attached, and the very power of oppression had been exhausted by its accumulation. It were vain to attempt to describe the measureless villany of that system. This execrable assemblage of atrocity, in which every crime appeared to have been gathered, baffled the genius of Edmund Burke, and defied his power of expression. Its necessary results upon the national character were speedily produced. The action of servitude is reciprocal. The population was divided into thousands of tyrants and millions of slaves. The judges of the land declared that a Papist could not breathe without the connivance of the government. The common air was made a matter of indulgence. It was not until the year 1759, that the first gleam of hope began to dawn on the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and that the government first manifested some attention to the condition of the people. That first faint dawn of hope rose out of the public danger. The Duke of Bedford (the then Lord Lieutenant) stated in the House of Commons, that Mr. Secretary Pitt had apprised him, that France speculated upon the discontent of the people of Ireland. The Catholic merchants, (for like another proscribed people, the Jews, the Catholics had directed their views and their ener gies to commerce,) took advantage of the intimation. They proposed to address the Lord Lieutenant. The nobility and gentry, who had acquired habits of timidity, opposed it. The more democratic party prevailed. The French fleet was on the coast, and a gracious answer was returned. Mr. Mason's motion for allowing Catholics to lend money on mortgages, was lost by a majority of 188 to 151. This was the first motion in our favour. In 1772, by a great stretch of mercy, Catholics

were indulged so far as to be allowed to take leases of bog not exceeding fifty acres. In 1774, America began to manifest a sense of her injuries and of her power, and the Catholics were indulged so far as to be allowed to testify their allegiance by an oath. This was the first legal recognition of their relation as subjects to the state. The air of heaven ceased to be a luxury; and their right to breathe was acknowledged by the law. In 1778, the discontents of America augmented The Volunteers of Ireland (the dragon's teeth) were already springing up in an iron harvest. A new argument for relief was supplied, and Mr. Gardiner's bill passed by only a majority of nine in the Commons. By that hill Catholics were allowed to take leases for 999 years, and their property was made deviseable and descendiole. In 1782, the resolutions of Dungannon were published. The last was in favour of the Roman Catholics, and five days after, the 21st and 22nd of Geo. III. was passed, by which Catholics were allowed to take land without limit, and certain penalties upon their clergy were removed. At length, in 1791, the French Revolution, that great event, which shook the moral world to the centre, extended its influence to Ireland, and on the 11th of February, 1791, the Catholic Committee were summoned. The aristocracy were appalled by the incidents which crowded upon mankind. They were so long habituated to a dungeon of night, that they were dazzled by the full and perfect day, and shrunk back for a moment into the obscurity to which they were accustomed. The address of the ixty-four seceders was timid, but not as it has been represented, s grovelling acquiescence in their sentence. They did not dare to petition for the elective franchise; that audacious supplication was reserved for the aspiring spirit of the Catholic traders of Dublin. Their petition was rejected by a majority of 208 to 23. But the people were not dismayed a great national convention was summoned, and met on the 2nd of December, 1792. Here was the great root of the Catholic Association. Successive branches have been lopped off; but, thank God, the trunk is unwithered still. What was the result? It was pretended that the Catholic delegates were the greatest enemies to their own cause: and Mr. Hobart immediately afterwards moved for liberty to bring in the great Statute of 1793. On the very same night, he announced a war on the part of the French Republic against England.

The Act of 1793 gave us political power, by giving us the elective franchise; it was a moiety of Emancipation. Lord Fitzwilliam arrived with the residue of the nation's liberty in his gift; but the evil genius of the country, in the shape of a Beresford, (mark it well, freeholders of Waterford!) whispered away the freedom of Ireland, and converted the malady of the prince into the degradation of the people. In 1791, the bill to admit Catholics into parliament was lost by a majority of 155 to 84, and, on the 7th of February, 1797, the question was lost, for he last time in Ireland, by 143 to 19. The country was driven into nsurrection, and hurried from rebellion to its anticipated results. The Union passed. Here let me for a moment pause, and ask of any mau who reviews the progress of the Catholic question up to this great epoch, whether any thing was ever won by pusillanimous proceedings

and whether the portion of liberty that was obtained by the Irish CathoL.cs, was not wrung from the apprehensions of the minister by the determination of the people? What produced the Treaty of Limerick?— the fear of France. What produced its violation:-the base confidence in impunity. What produced the series of relaxations from 1792 to 1793-America, Reform, and France. Was any thing ever won by sycophantic turpitude, and by crawling servility? Is it from the past that we should learn to speak in a "bondsman's key," or ask for liberty in the accents of mendicant supplication? Are we to listen to the suggestions of those who teach us, that like dogs we should "lick our wounds, and know no other cure?"—or is there anything in the past that should discourage us for the future? In 1792 there were only twenty-three members of the House of Commons in our favour. The Catholic convention assembled-victory was the vassal of France, and in 1793 a great measure was carried by an immense majority. But let me proceed, for the time which I have already occupied admonishes me to be brief. In 1801 Mr. Pitt resigned upon the ground of his alleged inca pacity to fulfil his pledge. In 1805 our question was first discussed in the Imperial Parliament. It was rejected by a majority of 212. This was appalling, and yet we were not disheartened. Twenty years, (and twenty years, though a vast space in the life of an individual, constitute but a brief period in the history of a nation) have not only melted down that majority, but have produced a majority of twenty-seven in our favour, and have revolutionised the public feeling. Shall we, who were not terrified by a majority of 212 in the Commons, allow ourselves to be beaten back by 49 in the Lords? But mark the steps by which the question advanced: In 1813 there was, for the first time, a majority, on the first reading of the bill, in our favour. At that period Bonaparte was upon his throne, and the Catholic Committee was in the legal exercise of its functions. Not long after the bill, opening the Army and Navy, was passed. England was afraid her Irish officers would be driven, by the law, into the continental service. This concession furnished one argument. Strange, that in a free country the military offices should be thrown open, and the civil should be closed up! Our own dissensions afterwards impeded our advancement. Had we been united, as we now are, and as I trust we shall long continue to be--our question would, perhaps, ere this, have been carried. At length, Mr. Plunkett succeeded in bringing the bill through the House of Commons, although by an inconsiderable majority, and it was rejected in the Lords by only 39. The Catholics were allured into inertness by a false hope. The king arrived, (God knows for what purpose), and we did not even obtrude our wishes upon the royal ear. We gave our opponents reason to think that we could be reconciled to our degradation and our petition was scouted and flung out of the Commons. We derived a useful instruction from this result of moderation. The Catholic Association sprung up. O'Connell devised and executed a noble project. A system of voluntary contribution was established. The Catholic Rent was collected. The proceedings of that great assembly ixed the attention of the empire It was first derided, then drea..ed.

and afterwards oppressed. But where is the man who will say that it achieved little for Ireland? It gave proof of the power, and the vigour of the Catholics-and shook the mind of the English nation. What was the consequence? That the prejudices against the measure have sunk among the dregs of the people. A second time it passed the Commons. It was by a great exertion that the opposition in the Lords was produced, and that opposition, be it remembered, rests upon transitory materials. Is the Duke of York immortal? Is Eldon a Tithonus, or is there any fair sorceress, any Medea, of forty who has undertaken to impart new life, heat, and vigour to the Earl of Liverpool? There is, unfortunately for the church, no "elixir vita" to accomplish this renovation; and if we had no other principle of hope than the calculation of an insurance-office, we should not despair. I should like to see his Royal Highness making his appearance at the Atlas-office to effect a policy, at the instance of his pious and moral associate, the Marquis of Hertford. I should like to observe the eye of inquisitorial inspection with which the appraiser of life would survey the bulky exhibit of which his Royal Highness should make proffer. But let him pass. The progress of the Catholic question depends upon the confederated energies of the Irish people. It is not enough that we should hold occasional meetings, and that strong sentiments should evaporate in steamy phrase. Something practically great and impressive must be accomplished. The resolution which was proposed by the eldest sun of my Lord Gormanstown, contains a powerful recommendation. A census must be taken. Every parish must meet on the same day and a great convention must be summoned. Let the Catholic prelates, the chief of the Catholic clergy, the nobility, the gentry, the great agriculturists, the merchants, and the members of the liberal professions meet. Let the Peers and leading Catholics be invited to unite themselves with this National Assembly. The eyes of the empire would be fixed upon its deliberations. Its sitting may be continued for fourteen successive days. Can any man question the expediency of such a measure, if it can be accomplished; and can any man doubt the facility of its achievement who has seen what has been effected; I, for one, do not; and since I have so far spoken of myself, let me be allowed to tell you why I have come this day amongst you. It is because I feel you are engaged in no local concern, but in a cause in which we all bear a participation, and in the promotion of which it is every man's duty to engage. I knew that your meeting, from the many persons of rank who attend it, would excite no ordinary attention; and as I deemed it not improper that I should intermix my sentiments in your proceedings, and give utterance to the strenuous convictions of my mind, I came here to tell you, that I think you must relinquish all hope of achieving the freedom of Ireland, unless you adopt a bold, determined, and energetic system of action. I came here to rescue your proceedings, as far as it lies in me, from the cant of servility, which disguises itself under the name of moderation. A true and genuine moderation, I do most fervently recommend; but 1 as devoutly deprecate that spurious moderation, which would degenerate into ibertiess, and which derives its

origin from those habits of voluntary servitude which long continued thraldom could not fail to create. But I thank God that the sluggish and apathetic state of political feeling to which I have adverted, has undergone a most salutary change. Thank God! there is scarcely a nan in the great community to which we belong, that does not feel that existence without iberty is scarcely worth keeping. Slavery not ly takes away one half of its virtue from the spirit of man, but deprives life of all its value. Who can be such a sceptic in the power of an united and enthusiastic people, and in the progress of truth, of reason, and of justice, as to think it possible that when liberty is spreading its illuminations to the extremities of the world, this country, which Providence appears to have framed with "a peculiar care," should not catch a reflection of that glorious light; and that while South America is starting into freedom, Ireland should still continue enslaved? Will England withhold from the Irish Roman Catholics that freedom which England has conferred upon the Peruvian Creole? That this great object will be attained I entertain a strong assurance. In all likelihood almost every man that hears me will live to behold the great event which will confer peace, and wealth, and happiness upon Ireland; but if it shall be otherwise-if we are destined to descend into the earth before that great measure shall have been accomplished, it is some consolation to us to reflect, that we shall not entail our vassalage upon those who are to come after us, that if liberty shall not become vested in us, it will be derived through us; and that (where is the father who does not feel the power of that appeal?) the inheritors of our existence shall not be the heirs of our oppression, and that our children shall be free.

CONNAUGHT PROVINCIAL MEETING.

SPEECH AT THE CONNAUGHT PROVINCIAL MEETING, WHICH WAS
ATTENDED BY THE DUKE DE MONTEBELLO.

I HOLD in my hand, a document of no ordinary importance. It was delivered to me by that ardent servant of his country and of his religiou, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Waterford. "I give you," said that lofty-minded prelate, “the result of much labour, and much zeal. I place a document in your hands, which is signed by me, in my episcopal character, and for whose authenticity I can vouch. Take it, and let it be used for the good of Ireland, and the honour of God." He intrusted/ to my care what I consider to be of the utmost consequence to the promotion of our cause, and I have selected this great provincial assembly, as affording the most appropriate occasion for the statement of its contents. It is the certified census, under the sign manual of the bishop, of the comparative Protestant and Catholic population of the united dioceses of Waterford and Lismore It comprehends the returns made