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CHAPTER XXIV.

ON CATHOLICISM.

Contents.

'. I. English Catholics; Act of 1791.-II. Irish Catholics.-III. United Irishmen; Peep of Day Boys.IV. Recall of Earl Fitzwilliam.-V. Maynooth College.-VI. Progress of Discontent.--VII. Orange Party.-VIII. Irish Rebellion.—IX. Union with England.-X. Arrangements for connecting the Popish Clergy with the State.-XI. Arguments in favour of Emancipation.-XII. Arguments against it.—XIII. The King's Scruples.-XIV. Resignation of Pitt; his Death.-XV. Lord Howick's Administration.-XVI. Abolition of the Slave Trade.-XVII. Veto proposed. -XVIII. Repeated Failures in Parliament.-XIX. Dissensions among the Catholics.-XX. New Method of gaining their Object piecemeal.-XXI. Remarks on the Plan for paying Salaries to the Popish Clergy.XXII. Constitution of the English Catholic Church. Konian

I. By the Act of 1791, the ENGLISH CATHOLICS were exempted from penalties on account of doctrines, against which they had protested *. They were now, by law, allowed to hear mass;

Vol. iii. p. 424.

to go five miles from their dwellings; to approach within ten miles of London; to attend the Court. They were not compelled to register their names, nor excluded from practising law or physic; from holding civil offices, or acting as executors, or guardians. They were not liable to prosecution for absence from their parish church; or required to abjure transubstantiation. It is well that old and barbarous Acts, framed for times of bigotry or commotion, should be blotted out from our statute-book; yet if these Acts are obsolete,if they are never put in force, their removal is rather a deliverance of the legislature from disgrace, than an actual improvement in the condition of those to whom their severe enactments related.

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But the four vicars apostolic having condemned, in a letter to all the Catholics, the oath founded on the protestation, the Papists became, from this time, divided. This disunion being prejudicial to their cause, the Bill, 31 Geo. III. chap. 32, passed, with the omission of that clause in the new oath, which had alone been obnoxious to the vicars apostolic.

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II. We have already mentioned the Act of 1778*, which enabled the Irish, in common with other Catholics, to hold lands, either by pur

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chase or inheritance, and relieved them from other disfranchisements.

III. But no partial concession can satisfy the Irish Catholics. On the rise of the French Revolution, they combined with the Protestant malcontents, in societies of United Irishmen; blending Jacobinism with religious discontent; and Government, taking alarm, thought to win them with some further indulgences. The Bill of 1793 admitted them to the practice of the law, to intermarriage with Protestants, and to unrestricted education. But these favours, designed to conciliate, had not the effect of tranquillizing the internal tumults of Ireland. The Presbyterians distressed the Papists by night, and these two parties were styled Peep of Day Boys, and Defenders.

IV. A necessity was now felt for mingling energy with indulgence. The plan of Earl Fitzwilliam, for effecting a complete union, being looked upon with jealousy by Government, he was recalled from the Lord Lieutenancy in 1795. At the same time, an Irish Militia Bill, and the arrest of several United Irishmen, inflamed the popular

commotion.

V. In searching for the springs of Catholic dissatisfaction, it was thought that a priesthood, educated abroad, introduced improper principles and foreign partialities. On this account, the

Catholic College of Maynooth was established and endowed in 1795, while Catholic students were received into the University of Dublin. An attachment, it was hoped, would thus be excited, among the Catholic clergy, towards the Government which fostered and protected them.

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VI. But the tumultuous agitations of this unhappy country were not so easily to be calmed. Some among the higher orders claimed sessions, in the alleged right of their ancestors; while the poorer Catholics were ripe for any revolution by which advantages might be gained. The United Irishmen, acting on these materials, endeavoured to combine different parties in opposition to Government, and in seeking foreign assistance for the establishment of a republic.

It was, consequently, deemed prudent to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, that Government might be enabled to seize persons under suspicion.

VII. And now, fired by a prospect of power, and incited by designing persons, the lower Catholics became the aggressors; and the Protestants of Armagh, coalescing with the Peep of Day Boys, assumed the new name of Orangemen, in allusion to William the Third. This league drove into Connaught fourteen thousand Popish families.

VIII. Discontent now rose into treason. The malcontents called in the assistance of the French,. which led to the discomfiture at Bantry Bay.

But all Ireland was, by this time, in commotion, and in Ulster alone one hundred thousand men were numbered among the disaffected. The Protestants formed Orange-lodges, as counter associations; but the flame of insurrection was blown up, and the breach between Catholics and Protestants widened, by the intemperate zeal of Dr. Hussey, the titular bishop of Waterford, who loaded the Orange party with calumnies.

Rebellion, in 1798, stalked throughout the country, attended by her horrid train of conflagration, assassination, and brutal violence. But what might not be expected from democracy, banded with fanaticism; from civil insurgents, led on by a priesthood, whose device was "utter destruction to the heathens?" In Wexford, the rebels were led on by one Murphy, an ecclesiastic. They suffered a defeat at Vinegar Hill; though taught, like Saracens, that to die in the war was a sure passport to paradise.

IX. A descent was subsequently made by Humbert; but after a brief success, he surrendered to Lord Cornwallis. The First of January 1801, was celebrated by an union of the kingdoms and churches of England and Ireland.

X. To the constitution of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, as dependent on foreign authority, the evils were mainly to be ascribed. The policy of connecting the Popish clergy with the state, by every tie which might not be at variance

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