sons, as anxious for the removal of the disabilities as the Catholics themselves. These members hold their seats on the sole condition of voting for this remo val, and, therefore, on such a question they can only be regarded as so many Catholics. If we subtract them, we find the majority to be in favour of the disabilities. The opinion of such peo ple, and of those who supported the bill on the ground of abstract right, is perfectly worthless on a question which ought to be decided solely upon its merits.

It certainly required prodigious har dihood to assert, in the face of the petitions which were spontaneously pour ed into Parliament, that the British people were on the side of the Catholics. The British people-not merely the lower orders-but the vast mass of the middle and upper classes, were ne ver more decidedly hostile to the removal of the disabilities, than they are at present; and they never gave more unanswerable evidence that they were actuated by such hostility, than they have done during the present session of Parliament. The Catholics have lost ground fearfully among the Dis senters. The Methodists, many of the Baptists, and some of the Presbyte rians and Independents, petitioned against them; and in spite of the assertions of Mr W. Smith and Mr Brougham, we happen to know that the feeling in favour of the disabilities is very widely entertained among the Presbyterians and Independents. For much of this the Catholics have, no doubt, to thank their connexion with, and the writings of, Cobbett.

As to the "apathy" on which so much has been said, we believe it never existed; as far as our personal observation went, it did not exist in London; and from all the information we have been able to procure, it did not exist in the country. The fact is, every one was prepared to expect, from former experience, and the din which was kept up in the House of Commons in favour of "liberality" and "liberal principles," that the bill would pass this House; but no one believed that it would travel any farther. All felt perfectly confident that it would be rejected by the Peers, and that there was not the least necessity for petitioning. In addition to this, the lead ing Tories of the country were exceedingly reluctant to disturb the existing

harmony, without absolute necessity. But when it was industriously trum petted forth that Lord Liverpool had changed his opinion, that the bill would pass the Lords, and that the Crown was even in its favour, the nation took the field in a moment. As soon as it was thought that petitions were necessary, Parliament was almost overwhelmed with them. Lord Eldon in the one house, and Mr Peel in the other, distinctly declared that they had not taken any steps to procure a single petition the Bishops declared that they had used no influence to procure petitions-the leading opponents of the Catholics were in many places deter red from calling public meetings, by threats of opposition from the Whigs

scarcely any public meetings were held to influence the public mind by inflammatory speeches and by far the greater portion of the press was in favour of the Catholics. The petitions emanated from, and spoke the conscientious opinion of, the nation at large, to a degree almost unexampled.

Our readers have not to be told, that the Upper House did not adopt the opi nion of the lower one, touching the Catholic relief bill. To this bill the Duke of York, with a boldness and honesty worthy of his high station and character, gave the first mortal blow. We need not defend him from the flood of slander which his excellent speech has drawn upon him; we need not comment on the base and dastardly strokes which have been aimed at him from other quarters than Catholic meetings and newspaper offices. The country is acquainted with his character, and it is equally well acquainted with the character of his calumniator. His Royal Highness has long been one of the most popular men in the nation. He has been popular not with one class or party, but with all. He has been popular, not from courting popularity, but from disregarding it not from shifting, trimming, and conceding, from veering about from creed to creed, and system to system, as fashion might dictate, but from his consistency, his stern integrity, his firm attachment to the maxims of his illustrious fatherhis open and determined adherence to the institutions and old principles of the empire. He has been popular, not from being a liberal man, but from being an honest man. The nation has found in him the heart and conduct of

a sterling Englishman of the old school, and it has revered him accordingly.He is now more popular than ever.

Great expectations rested upon the Bishop of Chester, and they were realized. His eloquent and powerful speech has gained him his due place in the estimation of his country. Fortunate it is for the Church of England that she has gained a prelate like him in these her days of danger. Those who, like us, look beyond public character, will find some satisfaction in being told that he bears the highest character as a man and as a minister, in the parish in London which has been under his care. The sound and excellent speech of Lord Longford deserves notice. The venerable Lord Chancellor closed the debate in a manner worthy of his commanding talents and virtues; upon him the confidence of the nation mainly rested, and he proved that he deserved it.

We mention the Earl of Liverpool last, not to give him the lowest place in our panegyric. He was, on this occasion, again himself. His speech was exactly what might have been expected from a man of his powerful understanding and great experience and reputation from the Prime Minister of England-from the Head of that Ministry which had conducted the country through unexampled difficulties and dangers, to unexampled glory and prosperity. He did not tamper with the innocuous extremities of the question, but he grasped it by the vitals; he did not whimper and whine, and sing eulogies over the creature he meant to destroy, but he treated it with the firm hostility of a manly enemy. He laid his hand at once upon the foul ulcers of the Catholic church, and pinched them until she shrieked out in agony. No speech has been abused like that of Lord Liverpool, and this proves decisively that no speech has told so tremendously against the demerits of Catholicism as that of Lord Liverpool. This speech has been shuddered at, and snarled at, and wept over ;-the Catholics have railed against it, the newspapers have lavished on it their choicest Billingsgate, the House of Commons have sat upon it, Mr Canning himself has tried his hand at its refutation, and yet it remains uninjured, unanswered, and unanswerable. It will yield prodigious benefit to the country; it will fix the eyes of the na

tfon where they ought to be fixed, upon the real merits of the Catholic Question-upon the effects of the present system of the Catholic church upon society.

This speech has been called an intemperate one; it is a sufficient refu→ tation of this, that no one has ventured to cite any portions of it to prove its intemperance. Lord Liverpool kept aloof from personalities and matters purely theological; he was called upon to say whether there was anything in the system and conduct of the Catholic church to justify the exclusion of its members from Parliament and the Ministry, and he pointed out that in both, in a temperate but firm manner, which, in his judgment, justified such exclusion. It has been said, that he placed before the Catholics the alternative of conversion or perpetual subjection to the disabilities. He did no such thing; he only, in effect, called for such an alteration in the laws and conduct of the Catholic church, as would harmonize it with the constitution and laws of the empire. The calumnies which have been cast upon this most virtuous man, and most upright and able Minister, have only done him service. He now occupies that place in the affections of his country which might even content the most unscrupulous worshipper of popularity.

His Majesty was placed by this question, and the conduct of the Catholics and their advocates, in the most delicate, difficult, and trying situation imaginable; his conduct displayed consummate temper and prudence, and it is duly appreciated by the nation.

Whether the Peers did wisely, or unwisely, in rejecting the bill, is a question which we are not called upon to discuss. Our opinion touching this matter is known to our readers. But there is a question on which we must say something, and this is-Can anything whatsoever be found to justify the present words and conduct of the Catholics, and their parliamentary and other advocates?

We have already said, that however the question of right and expediency may be-however just or unjust the disabilities may be there is but one tribunal that can, and that ought to, remove these disabilities. Before this tribunal the Catholics have appeared -their case has been fully investigated -they have had a fair trial-all the

advantages have been in their favour -they cannot say that any just means were denied them, or that any improper ones were employed against them. Yet the decision has been for the continuance of the disabilities.

If this decision had resulted from form and technicality, rather than evidence and deliberate judgment-if it had been that of the Peers against the sense of the country, or of the Crown against the vote of Parliament-if it had been in any way doubtful-the Catholics might then have quarrelled with it, although it would then have been perfectly legal and constitutional. But what are the facts? With regard to the nation, it is abundantly proved that the vast majority of all classes were against the Catholics; with regard to the House of Commons, the actual majority was very small; and the real majority, putting out of sight those who voted on grounds foreign to the merits of the question, was against them. With regard to the Peers, the majority against them was large, and perfectly free from suspicion of being obtained by undue means. With regard to the Ministry, one-half of it was against them. And with regard to the Crown, it is just as likely that its sentiments were against, as for, them.

Again, to decide upon this question, our great political parties were dissolved for the moment. The influence of the Ministry was destroyed in effect, in and out of Parliament, for each halfneutralized that of the other. The influence of the Crown, in so far as it was used, was used by the Catholics and their friends in their favour.

Now, granting it to be probable that this decision may have been an erroneous one, who is to decide it to have been so, and to reverse it? Where is the court of appeal? In so far as the opinion of the nation goes, this opinion is decidedly in favour of the de cision; and there is no legal and constitutional authority in the realm that can take cognizance of the question, save the one by which the decision has been made. No matter how the Catholics may be aggrieved, there is nothing in the nation that can at present afford them a lawful remedy. There is no power here, or in any other part of the earth, that can compel the British people to change their opinions that can compel Lord LiVOL. XVIII.

verpool and his friends to support their claims that can compel the majority of the Peers to vote in their favour. They must be quite as well aware of this as ourselves.

What conduct, then, ought the Catholics to pursue to do the best for their own interests? They should submit to the decision of Parliament and the country in a manner becoming good subjects. They should reform the obnoxious parts of their conduct. They should abolish the objectionable laws of their church, and submit to be placed on a level with the Protestants as a body. Instead of this, they are to reform and change nothing-they are to array themselves as far as possible against the laws-they are heaping the most foul and unwarrantable abuse upon all who have felt it to be their duty to oppose them. The reason is, because that is not done which is a downright, palpable impossibility.

Do these people than soiously think that we are a nation to be driven from our opinions by their guilt and madness? Do they expect to compel our Peers to vote for them by sedition and slander? Do they believe, that calumniating such men as Lord Eldon, the Earl of Liverpool, and the Bishop of Chester, will gain our friendship? Do they imagine, that the change of feeling which can alone remove the disabilities, is to be wrought among us by threat and insult-by hatred and outrage ?If they do, we will assure them they are mistaken-we will assure them that they have formed a prodigiously erroneous estimate of our character. Alas! Alas! Is there not one Catholic in the whole body who is blessed with common sense, and who will step forward to save Catholic interests and hopes from utter ruin?

O'Connell and the Catholics generally, for reasons which may be easily imagined, discourse without ceasing in favour of liberty. The worthy counsellor, who led his mobs to crush as far as possible the religious and civil liberty of the Irish Protestants, who declares that the peasantry ought not to be suffered to read the Bible, to enter a Protestant place of worship, and to send their children to such schools as they may think fit-who defends the detestable penal code of the Catholic Church, and who praises to the skies the conduct of the Catholie clergy of Spain and France, this C

man cants in favour of liberty and liberal opinions with all the volubility of an English Radical. Were we to believe the Catholics, the men who dare not alter the laws of their church from the fear of the Pope and their priests, the men who assist in keeping their poor brethren in the most galling bondage, they are the most fierce enemies of slavery in existence. All this is lost upon us in England. It is not for them to give us instructions touching liberty. We want no such liberty as they worship; we enjoy a far better kind already. When we see them as free from priestly tyranny. as we are ourselves, when we see them enjoy, and suffer their poor brethren to enjoy, the liberty, civil and religious, which the laws and constitution place within their reach, we shall then think they have some affection for liberty, but not before. O'Connell will delude the people of this country no more; they now know him; his coming to London has given them his exact measure.

We are pretty sure the Catholic priesthood imagined that their connexion with Sir Francis Burdett and Cobbett would give them a vast portion of our lower orders as proselytes. We were in some alarm touching this, but it is now dissipated; we even now think that this connexion will go very far towards accomplishing the extermination of Radicalism. So oddly do some things sometimes operate. The lower orders of the Irish have not the art of causing themselves to be beloved by the people of this country when they come among them. If an Irish regiment be expected in any of our towns, its arrival is looked for almost with horror; and so long as it may be quartered among the inhabitants, there is generally nothing but quarrelling and ill-blood between them and the soldiers. Our labourers regard the Irish ones as interlopers, who come among them to rob them of bread, and they dislike them from one side of the island to the other. In addition to this, the disposition and conduct of the Irish labourers are calculated to do anything rather than to gain the friendship of the English ones.

It is a

nost remarkable fact, that, notwithstanding the labours of Cobbett and the radical Baronet, the petitions against the Catholic bill that were the most numerously signed, came from

those places which a few years ago were the hot-beds of radicalismfrom Manchester, Glasgow, Oldham, Westminster, &c. In these places the Irish labourers are the most numerous. If the radical teachers only persevere in favour of the Catholics, we are pretty sure that a few years will make our lower orders once more loyal, once more King and Church people. Burdett's popularity among the Westminster electors is gone; were an election to take place in the present summer, he would lose his seat, if opposed.

We must now say a word touching the conduct of the Parliamentary and other advocates of the Catholics. These people actually speak as though the late decision had been directly at variance with the laws and constitution. With them it seems the majority is to bind the minority no longer; the voice of the nation is to be rated as nothing. They cannot see that the Catholic question is one on which the wisest and greatest of men may differ-they cannot perceive that it presents any difficulties and perplexities they can only discover that it is quite impossible for themselves to be in error, and that all who differ from them are the most simple and ignorant persons in existence. They are not content with charging us with being utterly destitute of knowledge and understanding; we are, it appears, brim-full of all kinds of bad feeling. The modesty of this is amazing, and the liberality of it, considering that it proceeds from the exclusively "liberal" people, is still more amazing.

Well, before we concede that these are the only people in the empire who are capable of sitting in judgment on the Catholic question-that these are the only people in the empire who are capable of managing public affairs that these are the only people in the empire who possess any talent, knowledge, and wisdom-that these are the only people in the empire who are not fools, dunces, and knaves, let us see on what grounds we must make the concession.

Two of the most distinguished advocates of the Catholics-two of the leaders-maintained that the diffe rence between the Catholic Church and the Church of England was trifling and unimportant. Did this prove that these individuals possessed suffi