Epistle Dedicatory, ΤΟ WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ. M. P. SIR, THE condescending and kind manner in which you have always acted towards me, affords encouragement to believe that you will not deem me obtrusive or direspectful in addressing to you the following pages. If I have the unhappiness to differ on this momentous subject from some few friends, to whose judgment I submit on most other occasions, it is a misfortune which I cannot hope to remove, except by mutual explanations. The crisis has at length arrived, Sir, I conceive, when the religious and civil privileges of Protestants in this empire are threatened with imminent danger,-when the augmenting intolerance, activity, and strength of their adversaries inspire them with increasing confidence of success,—when new measures of attack are devised, and dormant Papal institutions are re-established,-when clamorous demands are made on the Legislature for an unconditional repeal of ancient fundamental statutes, essential to the very existence of a Protestant constitution,-when such unconstitutional claims are urged with a pertinacity and renewed vehemence, which no negative voice of the Crown or of Parliament has been able to repress,-and when the obvious design of these annually encroaching demands, is not for obtaining any na A tural right or liberty, but for gaining a large measure of POLITICAL POWER, which may be easily abused, to the irreparable loss or injury of Protestant freedom. - Sir, "a rumour has lately been prevalent, that the Roman Catholics expect to gain admission into Parliament, not by a direct concession of their claims, but by a side-wind"§ -which. if true, shows how one clandestine step inspires the reasonable hope of another being taken! When a late concession was made, under circumstances which surprised the nation, a Roman Catholic Editor of a daily print in London, used the following exulting language: "The road to military fame AND POWER is now thrown open to the Roman Catholics; and in making this GREAT CONCESSION, it would seem as if EVERY point of importance were conceded with it, &c." He then reminds the reader of his newspaper, that if danger be apprehended "from their machinations, you have thereby granted them the means of inflicting a vital injury;" and he confidently asks, "Should they be disposed to turn their swords against the State, COULD A VOTE IN PARLIAMENT DISARM THEM? If the Catholics be enemies to the State, they have obtained roo But, however meritorious the individuals were on whom such Parliamentary honour was justly bestowed, this is a very different thing from granting LEGISLATIVE POWER, and enabling them to guide the HELM of our national vessel. Yet, Sir, this is the POWER which the Roman Catholics now demand, without securities or condition! I do not deem it any reproach on persons whose religious principles are totally different from my own, to believe that they conscientiously § See an advertisement to the Bishop of ST. DAVID'S new publication, in answer to GENERAL THORNTON'S Speech, &c. 8vo. 1819. Hatchard. ^^ British Press: after the passing of an Act "by a side-wind,” in favour of military officers who were Roman Catholics. intend to subvert my principles and destroy my religion, whenever a fair opportunity may offer; nor do I think that any man is seriously attached to his religion, who would act otherwise. Let this mode of reasoning be applied therefore to Roman Catholics acting in Parliament, under the laws of a Protestant constitution," and intimately connected with a Protestant Church Establishment. If they would not strenuously endeavour to subvert these obnoxious laws, I shall disbelieve their religious sincerity and consistency. The love of pre-eminence, wealth, honour, authority, and political influence, is natural; and, therefore, is universal. It is not a feeling peculiar to one class or description of persons, but inheres in all; and cannot be wholly extinguished in any set of men, though it may vary in degree. The teachers of religion, being but men, are infected with this powerful and operative principle of action, at least as much as the Laity: indeed, they are more likely to be ambitious of distinction and rule, because they are usually more learned and capable of governing than mankind in general; and because they have more sure modes of subjugating the conscience and judgment of others, than civil magistrates or lay-rulers possess. Consequently, the Roman Catholic Clergy, without being supposed to act under the impulse of wicked or malignant motives, must naturally endeavour to direct and subjugate the minds of their people; they must be expected to remain steadfast and inflexible, in always supporting their own high notions of Church discipline, implicit faith, spiritual submission, and Papal supremacy. Speaking of the Established Church, Dr. Dromgoole says, "In vain shall Statesmen put their heads together; in vain shall Parliament, in mockery of Omnipotence, declare that it is permanent and inviolate; in vain shall the lazy Churchman cry from the sanctuary to the watchman on the tower, that danger is at hand: it shall fall, for it is human, and liable to force, to accident, and to decay; it shall fall, and nothing but the memory of the mischiefs it has created shall survive: already the marks of approaching ruin are upon it; it has had its time upon earth, a date nearly as long as any other novelty." So exclaimed this orator, in a speech received with general applause, at the Roman Catholic Board, on the 8th of December 1813: and similar predictions might be adduced from other quarters, in England as well as in Ireland, from Priests as well as Laymen!!! Then, Sir, can you doubt whether it be dangerous or not, to concede high political power to the petitioners? Whether or not the Hibernian church will be in jeopardy? Whether or not our Union with Ireland may not soon be shaken, and finally dissolved? The answer will depend on the degree of power you would allow; but, " as when one letteth out water," who can tell the remote consequences of loosening the pins of such a fabric? It now stands firmly, and has always done so under a Protestant ascendancy; but who knows that it will long have a Protestant monarch and Protestant laws, if two branches of the sovereignty become vitiated with Popish elements? and if the advisers of the Crown may be the enemies to Protestantism? Sir, Religious Liberty has ever been dear to Britons. Multitudes have perished in its defence; and our countrymen view with a jealous eye whatever tends, or threatens, to injure it. They well know that our admirable Constitution secures equal liberty and protection to the persons and property of the poor as well as the rich, and that our laws protect every man in the peaceable worship of God, according to the dictates of his own conscience. To this source we trace that strength and happiness, that energy and wisdom, which have extended the power, the influence, and the renown of this realm; and enabled it to withstand all its encmies, however numerous, subtile, and persevering. And it is to this excellent system, under Divine Providence, that the domestic improvements of our country, its benevolent and religious institutions, flourish, and afford a satisfactory proof of great adɣancement in the moral condition of the people. But you may say, "The number of Roman Catholics who will be returned to Parliament cannot be great; they may not be a dozen or twenty, and these will never overturn the Establishment." That, Sir, is a matter of uncertainty. Permit me, however, to answer this and some other excuses in the strong, but just, terms of Mr. PEEL: "And are these the clumsy securities which are offered to us? These-so little in unison with the spirit of that Constitution which we profess to maintain, but which in truth we are about to abandon? If the Roman Catholics entertain no principles and no views hostile to the establishments of the State, admit them to privilege without reference to the number to be admitted; if they entertain such, exclude them, not because their numbers will be limited, but fairly and openly, BECAUSE YOU CANNOT CONFIDE IN THEM. "We are told again, that the Roman Catholics will only be qualified for office,—that they will only have eligibility, and that the Crown may still, if it think fit, continue the exclusion.-Sir, if the Parliament confers eligi bility on the Roman Catholics, the Crown ought not to exclude them from a just proportion of power:-the exclusion will be ten times more mortifying than their present disqualification;-it will be so, because it will be attributed to caprice-to unjust preference-to unfair suspicion. be unsafe to admit the Roman Catholics to a share in the Government proportionate to their numbers and influence in the State, all the branches of the Legislature ought to share in the odium of disqualifying them; it ought not to be transferred to one branch exclusively-to that branch too which is to continue unchangeably Protestant; to that branch which will be the more liable on that very account to If it |