WHICH motion was feconded by Dr. HALIDAY; but the first claufe of it, for the appointment of a Committee, was afterwards dropt.

DOCTOR WHITE afked, if it was meant by the mover, to extend all privileges to Roman Catholics, as the paper just read feemed to be in fome degree doubtful, from the manner in which it was worded, on that point.

AFTER fome debate, the mover explained, that the repeal of the " RESTRICTIVE ftatutes" was meant to apply to every fpecies of prefent legal difabilities, even to that which deprives them of the elective and other franchises, inclufive;-thefe difabilities to be done away, not inftantaneously, but gradually, from time to time, as the circumftances of the country may warrant.

MR. ROBERT THOMSON, in a deliberate and well-connected fpeech, fraught with that found knowledge and cool difquifition which diftinguish him as a speaker, oppofed the words of the motion.- He expreffed the very great regard he had for the refpectable gentlemen who made and feconded the motion, and his regret in differing from either. He faid his mind had been long made up on the prefent queftion. It was one to which he had paid confiderable attention, and he was clearly of opinion that the Catholic body ought to be reftored fully to all the rights of citizens-but as he knew feveral gentlemen differed from him, and as it had always been his anxious wish to preferve unanimity in the town, and as he thought an application on the present fubject would come with more weight if agreed to without a diffenting voice; he had taken the liberty to draw up a fhort petition, which he hoped would embrace the idea of every man in the houfe; and he hoped the gentleman who hefitated about granting all their rights to Catholics at once, would fee that he had conceded confiderably, in order to take away every ground of objection; with their leave he would read it.

To the Right Honourable and Honourable, &e.
The Humble Petition of, &c.

SHEWETH,

"THAT Petitioners have long lamented the ftate of degradation and flavery in which the great majorities of their countrymen, the Roman Catholics are held, by a multitude of laws, creating incapacities and inflicting penalties numerous and fevere.

"THAT Petitioners conceive it not only unjust in its principle, but in its operation highly injurious to the trade, commerce and industry, and to the general profperity of Ireland, that the great body of the people should longer continue to be thus aggrieved.

PETITIONERS, therefore humbly pray that this Honourable House may take into ferious confideration the cafe of the Roman Catholics, and grant them relief."

AFTER many compliments to the Roman Catholics, and endeavouring to prove that they deferved and were capable of enjoying the bleffings of liberty, as perfons of their perfuafion were thofe who obtained Magna Charta, and who obliged James, when in this kingdom, to give the royal affent to feveral bills of the first importance to the Conftitution of Ireland-he entered into a particular enumeration of the grievances of this long infulted nation. He fhewed the indifpenfible neceflity of an immediate reform in a houfe of nominal reprefentatives, in which the voice of the people was feldom heard, and feldomer attended to. A houfe held under English influence; returned by venal boroughs, and no longer expreffive of, or governed by, the public will. That meafures, replete with every good to the land which it fhould reprefent, were daily propofed to it, and as often fcouted in difdain;

that the juft wishes of the people were treated with contempt-and that without an union of its inhabitants no reform need ever be propofed, as none

without it ever could be effected. He here feemed to glance at the feveral inftances in the laft and former feffions, of rejecting almost every good bill offered by the few who can be faid to have actually conftituents in our Houfe of Commons. The refufal of a place, penfion, and responsibility bill; the refufal of an enquiry into the fale of the peerage, and the purchase of feats in another house with the money which bought thefe honours; the refusal of every bill for amending the reprefentation; and, in fhort, of every other which had for its object the regeneration of the conftitution, now become, thro' the lapfe of time, mutilated, infirm, and calculated by the corruption of the best principles to fap the vital fpirit of free government. After inveighing with much and deferved feverity against the vile trade of rotten boroughs, he remarked that even the virtue of Ireland in 1782, with an armed hoft at its back, might not have effected what was called a free conftitution; without the very fupport of those borough mongers who enslave the land, and who added their force to that of the people, for the mere purpose of enhancing the value of their feats, which they buy and fell like any article of commerce. entered largely into a detail of the deceptions practifed by government to difunite the kingdom; to feparate the Proteftant from the Catholic; the Catholic from the Proteftant Diffenter, whofe religious principles it is well known are at least as tolerant as thofe of any other fect, and whose political ones are those which have repeatedly drawn a worn-out conftitution back to its firft principles, particularly at the Revolution; fhortly prior to which the fun of liberty had fet apparently to rife no more. He told the affembly that it was a fact which had fallen within his own knowledge eight years ago, about the time of the volunteer convention, that for near a century paft, when the Roman Catholics (then weighed down with the vileft restrictions, fince in a confideraC

He

ble degree done away) applied to government for redrefs, that the common reply, was an expreffion of willingness to grant them relief; but that no petition could be preferred in their behalf from the South, which would not be answered from the North; and that nothing could be conceded to their wishes by the governing powers without producing a general weaknefs of the kingdom, by rifings or rebellions among the Prefbyterians of the North. That this delufive trick was now paft, and that we fhould therefore come forward and form an alliance of power and a community of intereft with our Catholic brethren; as a conceffion to juftice, and as the certain mean of effecting every good purpose which, without them, we have long fought for in vain. He concluded an addrefs which the Editor regrets his not being able to follow thro' all its parts, by moving an expungement of the words affecting the time of the repeal of every penal and every reftrictive ftatute; in order to declare a wifh that the restoration of all the rights of Roman Catholics fhould be IMMEDIATE and UNLIMITED. With much emphafis he asked, to whom were we to fubmit the point of from time to time, when the Catholics were to be liberated ? Was it to Lord Lieutenants and their Secretaries ? Was it to Parliament, in which the voice of the people was raised in vain ?— After a variety of arguments, in which he drew too juft a picture of the wretched ftate of this country, in confequence of our being totally deprived of an adequate reprefentation, founded on innumerable inftances of our being governed by an English influence, his motion was made for the expunging of the following words in the prayer of the petition propofed by Mr. Holmes-" from time to time, and as speedily as the circumftances of the country and "the general welfare of the whole kingdom will "permit."

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DOCTOR WHITE faid, it is now neceffary to go more at large into the fubject, as it appears we are not likely to agree without doing so.

IN difcuffing questions relative to constitutional government, it is neceffary to lay down fome principles, in which we fhall all agree; to reafon and draw conclufions from, and to take strict care that our conclufions or inferences may be legitimate: I therefore proceed to fay that every man contributing by his ingenuity and induftry to the well-being of any ftate, has a right to a voice in the government of his country; and as it would be impoffible that each member of a ftate could be judiciously employed, as a legiflator, that bufinefs must be tranfacted by delegation; he therefore is neceffitated to unite with his diftrict to chufe a reprefentative.

IF fo far I am right, we cannot avoid concluding that no member of any state contributing by his labour, his learning, or his ingenuity, to the fupport and well being of his country, can equitably be debarred from a fhare in the legislation of his country, perfonally, or by a reprefentative.

WHOEVER is deprived of this right, is certainly a flave in a political point of view, and cannot be faid to poffefs any control over, or defence againft, laws, by which his life, liberty, and property may be abridged or taken away.

IF thefe opinions are founded, of which there is no doubt, it would feem extraordinary that a profeffion of any particular fyftem of religion fhould be a fufficient pretext for exclufion from civil privileges; as if a confcientious difcharge of a man's duty to God, (and confcientious muft have been that of the Catholics, as it is in the teeth of their temporal intereft,) was a fit cause of exclufion from civil rights. I should be rather inclined to believe that it was the ftrongest inducement to believe he was highly qualified for the exercife of civil virtues.

IT has been often alleged, and for a long time believed, that the profeffion of the Catholic religion,

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