inducement to keep us within bounds, and prevent the retaliation of such indiscriminate charges as are for ever in the mouths of our adversaries. There are, in fact, so many sensible and judicious, as well as conscientious men, who hesitate about the propriety of such a bill, as was lately brought into Parliament, for the purpose of admitting the Catholic subjects of the King to military and naval command, that it is worth while to attempt winning them over, by somewhat a more legitimate sort of logic than the writers on their side are wont to adopt. And though we remember the words of Montesquieu, lorsqu'il s'agit de prouver des choses claires, on est sûr de ne pas convaincre ;' we are not without hope, that some such men may retire from the discussion with less unfavourable impressions than before.

As we are desirous to address our observations to such men as these only, we assume it as an admitted point, that, provided such relaxation of our laws can be proved not to endanger the established church, it ought, on a double account, to be granted; both for the sake of the individuals, to whose industry and fair ambition it gives encouragement; and for the sake of the nation, whose effectual strength it tends greatly to augment. If any man denies this conditional position, we wish him to read no farther his is insanabile caput, and argument will be of no use to him. Of the advantage which the nation would derive from opening, as it were, a fresh mine of labour and talents, by admitting the Catholics into those stations from which we exclude them, we have said enough in our review of Sir J. Throckmorton; * and, certainly, the military and naval professions would afford the most striking illustrations of our general remarks. And to this, when we join the consideration, that such measures would conciliate many, and probably silence all of those whose disaffection we dread in Ireland, it is inconceivable, that any really temporate man can avoid wishing at least to be persuaded, that no evil would be felt, where so much good would certainly be effected. • Primum ita esse velim,' says an ancient of the soul's immortality; deinde, etiamsi non sit, persuaderi mihi velim.' We do not recommend this anxiety to believe a proposition as very philosophical; yet when we see how the judgement of men is ever cheated by their inclinations, we cannot help suspecting, that those who are so quick of alarm at the Catholic claims, have never appreciated the undeniable benefit of admitting them. It is unlike all we know of the human mind, that men should put the most strained suppositions, and the most improbable cases, to defeat their own wishes, and to withdraw their assent from measures, which they sincerely desire to approve. Let us begin

* Vol. VIII. p. 312.

by

by feeling for the Catholics of Ireland, as for men and fellow citizens, entitled, upon each account, to every benefit which we can securely bestow; and unless we are much deceived, the dan gers with which we are threatened by Lord Hawkesbury and Mr Deputy Birch, will not make much impression on the most anxious and zealous well-wisher of our establishment.

To such zeal and such anxiety, we offer no violence. We readily admit, that the Protestant church is, at all events, to be maintained in every civil right, with which it is invested by law. The que stion is thus reduced within due limits. We have only to inquire whether a certain great improvement can be made in our situa tion, without risking a certain definite mischief, which is agreed to be more than commensurate with it. We have nothing to do with the merits of the Protestant and Catholic persuasions, relatively to their intrinsic truth. We have as little to do with the advantages or disadvantages of a religious establishment. A Protestant establishment is taken for granted in the discussion; as it has been by every eminent person who has taken up the cause of the Catholics; though certain people have not scrupled to borrow from Lord George Gordon the senseless imputation of attempting to bring in Popery, and cast it on the most conspicuous characters of which our country can boast. Nor shall we condescend to answer those, who charge the Catholics with averseness to civil liberty, and with principles of arbitrary power. This calumny is never propagated, but among the populace; not that it is more palpably gross than many others which pass muster; but perhaps, because, in some very anticatholic circles, it might look like panegyric. What then are the arguments, by which the request of one fourth part of the people, to fight the battles of the rest, has hitherto been resisted? It is, of course, unnecessary for us to do more, than to answer the reasons adduced by the opposite side. They have the onus probandi, and let us see how stoutly they undergo it.

1. To admit Papifts to hold certain commiffions in the army, is a propofition more inimical to our glorious conftitution, than ever was at, tempted by any minifter to obtain the fanction of parliament: for Po pery, when introduced through a military channel, takes its most tremendous and relentless shape; and, when once introduced, will be irre vocable; it will be impoffible to retrace the fatal and false steps with which it is in this cafe attempted to delude you.' Deputy Birch's Speech, p. 9.

Now, what is it that Deputy Birch is afraid of? Is it that the King (we use the word, of course, generally) may send half a dozen regi ments, commanded by Catholics, to dissolve the Parliament? Ör that these officers may conspire to do the same of their own accord,

and

and turn both King and Parliament out of doors? It is neces sary to come close to the point, if we would avoid being imposed upon by words without meaning: all generalities must be resolved into particulars, before their value can be estimated; and the Protestant alarmists are bound to state precisely what it is they would have us apprehend. One of these two alternatives they must take. And can they seriously conceive, that the constitution can be violently overturned (for any thing but violence is out of the question, when we speak of danger resulting from military command) by a few Catholic officers and privates, while the mass of the army, and of the people, are Protestant? Let us ask, is there no motive but religion, which can lead an offcer to betray his trust, or a king to entertain ambitious views? Yet, which of these alarmists dreams of such a transaction occurring with a Protestant king and a Protestant army? Suppose the army to consist of a hundred regiments, and that ten colonels of these are Catholics, by what process are the smaller number to overbalance the greater? But the king may cashier all the Protestant colonels in a moment, and replace them by Catholic creatures of his own. This is really too ridiculous to be answered; and yet very sensible men have been talking and acting, as if it was their real expectation. For, unless something of this kind be done, it is morally impossible that a Catholic army can set their yoke upon us.

2. It is well known that his Majefty enjoys the Crown in virtue of certain limitations. Shall the Royal Family be the only one in the kingdom liable to fuch reftrictions? Can it be highly reasonable, for the fake of public good, to limit the capacity of fucceeding to the Crown; and highly unreafonable, though there be the like occafion for it, to limit the capacity of private men to be captains and colonels. puty Birch's Speech, p. 11.

De

Not at all unreafonable, if there be the like occafion for it. There is an odd fallacy here, which has mifled more intelligent men than Deputy Birch. It is reprefented as an abfurdity, to leave a reftraint on the King, which we would take off from the fubject, But, on the fame principle, Proteftants and Papifts fhould be prohibited from intermarrying; or at leaft the hufbands of Catholic women should be excluded from offices of trust, which has never been contended. There is, it fhould feem, a very plain reafon for the diftinction. We are not called upon to take off the restriction from the inheritance of the Crown, as we are from the Catholics of Ireland. No benefit is likely to accrue from repealing that part of the Act of Settlement, equivalent to the popular outcry which it would occafion; nor while the fucceffion continues in its prefent course, is it likely that any King of England should de

Lert

fert the fyftem in which he was educated. But we are free to admit, that circumftances may be conceived, in which that conformity to the established church, which the Act of Settlement requires, might be found extremely perplexing. Let us fuppofe that William III., or the Houfe of Hanover, had refused the crown upon thofe terms. Let us fuppofe that all foreign princes had, at that time, been as zealously attached to their own forms, as fome of the church of England are to theirs. Would it have been worth while to have abolished the monarchy, or to have fuffered a civil war among our domestic claimants, for the fake of retaining this provifion? The cafe, we admit, is very improbable; but those who strive to urge us with the most unlikely cafes, must not complain of them in return.

3. • The Catholics refuse the oath of fupremacy to our Moft Gracious Sovereign; this, evidently, would be a palpable contradiction to the oath already taken by them of the fupremacy of the Pope.' Dep. Birch,

P. 10.

There is no oath of fupremacy to our Gracious Sovereign in exiftence; if there were, our Scottish nation would refuse to take it. We acknowledge no earthly head of the Chriftian church. The real oath is merely negative; and only excludes all foreign authority and jurifdiction, ecclefiaftical and spiritual. A French Catholic would refufe fuch an oath; and why fhould a King of England expect more undivided allegiance than Bonaparte?

4. The Catholics do not believe the obligation of oaths taken to heretic princes, or, which is the fame thing, they believe that the Pope can dispense with fuch oaths.'

be

Why, then, do they not take every oath you impose? Either they are excluded at present by a system of oaths, or they are not. If they are not, the battle is about repealing a nugatory law; if they are, the imputation is plainly calumnious. But this charge may repelled more directly, as we shall fee, before the close of the article. The Catholics did not tolerate us when they were in power; why fhould we be more indulgent to them? Have we forgotten Guy Faux, and bloody Queen Mary?'

5.

Those who perfecuted Proteftants are not the fame individuals who would derive advantage from repealing the tests; and, if they were, what a mean-fpirited vindictivenefs would there be in retaliation! But, a word more about perfecution. The church of Rome, we admit, in the middle ages, was as intolerant as worldly ambition and religious bigotry could render her; but this was not so much the natural confequence of her tenets, as the refult of the state of the human mind in thofe times. She perfecuted the Albigenfes in the twelfth century, because it was the twelfth century; because toleration had not been proved in theory,

and

and tried in practice, to be the beft means of preferving quiet, and fecuring truth. Proteftants were burned in the reign of Mary, becaufe fhe was furious and fanatical. Elizabeth was wife and temperate, and not difinclined to the Catholics by principle: her restrictions on them, accordingly, though fometimes very fevere, were founded on political confiderations; yet perfecution was not at an end. Are our opponents aware, that two perfons were burned for herefy in the reign of Elizabeth, and two others in that of James I.? However, it must be allowed, that the Roman church has always been more flow to admit principles of toleration than our own. All this, however, is befide the main point, which is, not what are the faults of popery, but what are the dangers of letting in a few Catholic officers, among a great majority of Proteftants, into our army and navy.

6. If this conceffion be made, more will be asked in future; as you recede, they will advance. The penal code was repealed; the civil reftrictions mitigated; the elective franchise granted: All these have been steps to new demands. It is neceffary to ftop fomewhere; and no point can be better than this. '

If

you dispossess a man of his seat in the gallery of the House of Commons, will he be satisfied if you give him back three inches to sit down upon? Will he not naturally encroach, and edge on further and further, till he has got back as much as you took from him? But, having done this, is it so certain that he will proceed further, and become the aggressor in his turn, though by rather a fair retaliation? Whoever has witnessed such a transaction as this, must have observed that peace was sure to be restored by doing full justice to the injured party; but never till then. It is the same in public affairs. We instanced, formerly, the contests of ancient Rome, which were only terminated by a fair partition of privileges between the Patrician and Plebeian orders. An orator, not less eloquent than Deputy Birch or Lord Hawkesbury, has sagaciously remarked with what difference, in point of earnestness, men contend for their rights, and for their ambition. ουχ ὁμοίως οὐδεὶς ὁπερ τε τε πλεονεκτεῖν πολεμήσειεν αν, και των ἑαύλου· αλλ ̓ ὑπερ μεν ών ελαλουνία, μέχρι του δυνατού παντες πολεμέσιν, ύπερ δε του πλεονεκτεῖν, οὐχ οὕτως· αλλ' εφίενται μεν, εαν τις εχ· εαν δε κωλυ θωσιν, ουδεν ηδικηκεναι τες εναντιωθεντας αυτοις ἡγονται. Dem. 7. T. P. ε. P. 193. edit. Reiske.

But, setting this aside, will they be more enabled to obtain further demands, by having gained these? Either these are reasonable in themselves, or they are not. If they are, it is ridiculous to pretend that they can afford a pretext for unreasonable concessions. If they are not, let that be proved, and there is an end of the discussion. Or is it conceived that they will gain.

VOL. X. NO. 19.

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