shut out from the privileged opportunity of doing us harm, but simply who they are who have an obvious tendency to do it. It is hasty language to say that measures ought to be taken to give them power: it might have been expected from the considerate man, that he would have begun by shewing that such measures can be taken: for this is no knot of yesterday, but one which the most skilful hands have found to be drawn tighter the more they have endeavoured to loose it.

We cannot yet pronounce, each our own opinion, whether the measures now proposed for reforming what Mr. Davison calls an 'anomaly' be prudent and well combined, even on the part of the proposers: for Mr. Peel himself stated in the House of Commons on the 18th of March, according to the Times and Morning Journal, that "the time had not then arrived when all the difficulties and obstructions which stood in the way of the adjustment of this question could be disclosed. When the time should arrive, at which he could fully explain those difficulties, he was sure justice would be done to his Majesty's Ministers, and that their conduct would be appreciated."

Supposing there existed an obvious anomaly in the State, that one man was put on a hill, while another man was left in the plain, and fenced out from the hill which he wished to ascend, it would not therefore follow that such an anomaly was wrong: and so far from needing reform, it might be found a wise exception among other wise exceptions, and to have been made upon due consideration of the character and influence of the parties preferred to power. The want of property is accounted a reason for a system which works like an exclusion of the poor; but is, in fact, a preference of the rich, because they have every reason the poor man has for loyalty, and one more, that is, their property; which property, until an abuse is proved in any individual, must also be considered as giving him, what it gives him the means of, a better acquaintance with his duties.

But the assumption of an anomaly, without any qualifying epithet, is unfair, and tends to beg the question: it implies,

"that all men have an equal right to be called, according to their personal merits, to Civil office; that no man ought to be in a worse condition than his neighbour, in respect to such eligibility; and all disabilities, therefore, which fetter it, are an injury to the State, and a tyranny to the people. Sir, what may be the facts in other countries I will not stop to inquire, nor will I here discuss the general reasoning. The principle, as applied to England, I deny on the authority of all the analogies of our Constitution. Until there shall be no distinction of Civil rights between the copyholder and the freeholder; until there shall be no inequality in political power, as electors, or as candidates, between the freeholder of 39s. a year and the freeholder of 40s.; between the freeholder of 2907. per annum and the freeholder of 3007.; (I say nothing of the anomalies of Scotland: I say nothing of the caste of the Clergy;") "until there shall be no difference between the legal infancy of twenty years, and the legal manhood of twenty-one (a distinction as artificial as any of the others); until there shall be no inferiority in the alien-born and the native inhabitants of these countries, both paying the same taxes and liable to the same personal burthens; until, in the progress of universal suffrage, there shall be no difference between the political rights of rich and poor, of boyhood and age, of male and female, I shall not cease to maintain that the Constitution has never vested in any of the inhabitants of England, as inhabitants, any political power whatever, or, even in the abstract, any eligibility to power; and, consequently, that no man, and no class of men, are entitled to demand here, as natural rights, any political power over their fellow-men; or, indeed, even the capacity of such power in this country. The whole is a question not of right but of expediency; and, as such, may be decided, either way, without injustice."-p. 69. Inglis.

"I am yet to learn, why, in a question of the probabilities of human conduct, I ought not to have regard to the opinion also of the party to whom I am to give power; particularly when he tells me, that he will not regard my king in the light in which

the Constitution has placed him, viz. "as over all persons, Ecclesiastical as well as Civil, in these his dominions, supreme;" but that he will regard another person, and him a foreign prince, as in these dominions, and over one-half of human affairs, supreme." "If I could consider these claims of the Roman Catholics as claims of justice, founded either in abstract natural rights or in specific convention, whether Treaty of Limeric or Articles of Union, I should be ashamed to resist such claims on any pretence of expediency. I feel it painful, as it is, on many grounds of private regard and of public respect, to resist these demands. I feel this to be painful; but I hope that I should feel it to be intolerable, if I believed that the claims, so long urged, were founded in justice, and in abstract right: but, Sir, protection is the right of every member in Civil society; power is the right of no man. No man has an abstract right to possess power in any community; it is the free gift of each community to each person, to each class; and on the principle on which the Constitution of England, consisting indivisibly of Church and State, has refused to give power, except to those who support it so undivided, I entirely concur."-p. 59.

"The exclusion of the Catholics from the Legislature is in strict consistency with Constitutional principles. I should rather say, it is the application to a particular case of the great principle which has hitherto preserved us. That it should be objectionable in the opinion of those who desire a radical reform, can excite no surprise: their object is, to effect a change in our political system; and it would be a great step gained, to dispose of that obstinate principle which has hitherto withstood them. But that men, who are sincerely attached to our liberties, and who, if they wish reform, desire only such a reform as will leave the main principles untouched, should advocate this measure, does indeed astonish me; an admirer of liberty, removing the restrictions which maintain it—a friend of the Constitution, lending his assistance to subvert it—are anomalies which I am at a loss to reconcile. At least, if such is

their determination, let them not mislead themselves and others, by representing these concessions as just and reasonable. Let them acknowledge, that, in making them, they are introducing violent changes, and departing altogether from established maxims. They are bound in consistency to sweep away the whole system of our election laws; to adopt universal suffrage; and open the door of Parliament to every class, without qualification and without exception.

"Otherwise observe the consistency of our proceedings. When one class comes up to us, and would vote as electors or legislators, we say to them, you are too poor; you have not the wealth which we require as a qualification: we have no grounds of suspicion against you, but we cannot depend upon you, and we will not confide a place of trust into your hands. And after having sternly driven them from our doors, we turn round and receive into our arms those who avow themselves our enemies : like the parent who should cast off one child because he has had no opportunity of proving his attachment, and receive another whom nothing but want of ability has prevented from being a parricide.”—See p. 49 of a Pamphlet, entitled, "The Admission of the Catholics into the Legislature, inconsistent with Constitutional Principles, and of advantage to none but the Priesthood."-Hatchards, 1827.

"IX. Whether the eulogies pronounced upon our Constitution and Government, so long as the Roman Catholics in Ireland know it only by its disfavour to them, must not operate as so many insults to their feelings, and incitements to their discontent."

ANSWER.-The fault is not in the eulogies, and is in the feelings. We are to respect right, and not wrong. If by their religion the feelings of Papists are insulted, and their discontent incited, let them correct such improper feelings, and know the sin of such discontent. If they leave their souls in the hands

of the Pope, let them leave their bodies and property to the three estates of this realm and our Protestant King.

REMARKS.

Every Constitution and Government, however just, is likely to be disparaged by those whom its rules and discipline offend. And this disparagement will be at its greatest pitch, when the Constitution and Government is so just, that, in confidence of its justice, it wishes to leave the complainers unpunished, while the complainers are ignorant enough, or enough misled, to believe their complaints well founded.

Mr. Davison goes as far as any Papist I have heard, when he implies that the Papists of Ireland know our Constitution only by its disfavour to them and if it were so, the real question would be left untouched, and discontent be raised, by his implication. If disfavour, and only disfavour, be shewn, it does not follow that disfavour is wrong. What the feelings of Papists used to be, before concessions were made that now are made, may be found in a Pamphlet, entitled, "The Expiring Viper embosomed;" Rivingtons, 1829: and on the pages of Sir R. H. Inglis, 127–131.

Mr. Davison must have known, that all the common blessings of a good Government are imparted alike to Protestants and Papists in England: and that the only favour which is wanting, that of becoming governors instead of governed, is, what he states it to be, a favour and not a right; and being a favour, may, by the force of terms, be withheld; and when withheld, would not be deemed an insult to their feelings, or an incitement to their discontent by good subjects. The Laplander is thankful for the sun that makes his summer; and does not forget that warm and happy season, in order to make his heart and tongue more bitter against his long and dreary winter.

"X. Whether it be not known that partial and unequal liberty is more irritating to men than one general condition of