1828.] Notes for the Month. 175 



pies of free trade where the interests of the landownersor any other 

 very wealthy and extensive interests are not concerned. He will be 

 anxious for general improvement where it is quite clear that no indivi- 

 dual advantage is endangered by it; for the free agency of the poor- 

 where it does not militate against the authority of the rich. And we have 

 no doubt that he would advocate economy and retrenchment to-morrow, 

 if he saw either that the necessity was vital, or that the thing could be 

 done without putting a great many very genteel people to inconve- 

 nience. But he will be a slow exterminator of those abuses which 

 have time and precedent to sanction them. In all disputes between the 

 rights of freedom and the claims of power,, he will be a modest pleader 

 on the weak side, or his opinions will carry him to the strong. He will 

 neither betray the liberties of the people, nor obstruct the progress of 

 intelligence ; but neither cause will gain any advancement in his hands ; 

 and he is the opponent of Parliamentary Reform, and the sworn enemy 

 of Catholic Emancipation. 



Upon this last point alone and it is an objection applicable to both the 

 parties equally we should see sufficient cause to regret the accession 

 either of the Duke of Wellington or Mr. Peel to power. Our own 

 opinions upon the subject of Catholic Emancipation have been declared : 

 we have no affection for the cause, and an infinite distrust of the pre- 

 tenders who assume to " lead" it ; but it is a cause which must prevail. 

 Catholicism, we believe to be the greatest moral curse that can afflict a 

 people. In Italy, Spain, Portugal in every country where it flourishes 

 ignorance, poverty, and degradation are its allies. In France, the 

 wealthy and industrious provinces, in the proportion of three to two, 

 are those which are Protestant beyond the Catholic. In Ireland, it is 

 only necessary to find any symptom of a peaceful and prosperous com- 

 munity, to determine that you are in a district where Catholicism does 

 not prevail. Our first wish would be that the faith and every recollec- 

 tion of it, should be lost for ever ; but penalties and privations will not 

 effect that object : in every country where it is the established religion, 

 it is losing ground and decaying ; but in Ireland, where it is resisted, 

 zeal lights her torch at the fires of persecution ; and each successive 

 defeat serves only to increase the virulence and determination of its fol- 

 lowers. For the last ten years, indeed, the policy of England upon the 

 Catholic Question seems little short of insanity. There is a right set up, 

 which must eventually succeed ; and we endanger the unity of the two 

 countries, and make the fortunes of mountebanks and disturbers, by, 

 for a season, resisting it ! If a war with the Continent were to arise to- 

 morrow, the Catholics of Ireland must be emancipated. No man doubts 

 this. The Catholics themselves know it. Those who are the loudest 

 agitators in their party so well know it, that they would rather wait for 

 that event, to force their claims from the necessity of England, than 

 accept them if they had their choice this moment from her justice. 

 We see all this : and yet we coolly allow the thing to go on ; and rather 

 seem voluntarily to assist it ! We tolerate the institution of Catholic 

 Associations. We see these bodies corresponding and communicating by 

 their agents all over Ireland. We allow them to raise money to or- 

 ganize communication to acquire every day fresh command over a 

 population, whose ignorance renders them capable of being enlisted in 

 any enterprise while their distresses unhappily in any event leave 

 them little worth to lose. And we do all this, absolutely, as if rebellion or 



