14 The Catholics of Ireland. [JAN. 



we scarcely believe that, if they had the right to elect Catholics 

 to-morrow, the voters of Ireland would displace all the Protestants who 

 have supported their cause in the House of Commons. And, for those 

 Protestants who have opposed their claims there, they obviously stand in 

 still less danger ; because, if there had been any earthly power to ex- 

 clude them, they would all have been turned out long ago. 



The real probability is, that the number of Catholic members returned 

 by Ireland would never exceed thirty or forty ; the number returned 

 in England would proceed only from the holders of a few close boroughs, 

 perhaps there might be a dozen, probably not so many. But, even sup- 

 pose every member returned by Ireland to be a Catholic what are their 

 numbers ? one hundred not quite a sixth, of the whole strength, or 

 number, of the House. Added to the systematic " Opposition," it is 

 said, the force of these new members would be overpowering ! It would 

 amount in a House composed of six hundred members to a hundred 

 and thirty, or to a hundred and fifty at most. But, even set aside the 

 comparative strength or weakness these terrors are founded on a fear of 

 what the Catholics could do, united with the " Opposition ?" Does any 

 man out of Bedlam believe, that the " Opposition " in the House of 

 Commons that is to say, the monied and aristocratic party out of office 

 for the time being would join the Catholics of Ireland to overturn the 

 Protestant religion, and pull down the State ? Of what would such per- 

 sons suppose the House of Commons to be composed that assembly 

 which governs and protects the interests of the whole people of Great 

 Britain ? Of what do they take it to be made, who suppose that, by the 

 influence of forty, or fifty, or sixty fresh members of a particular persua- 

 sion, it can be brow-beaten, or persuaded into acts contrary to the well- 

 doing of the community ? What a particularly imbecile, as well as 

 disloyal, " six hundred," we must have contrived to select from the 

 whole mass of the British population, if such could be the case ! Such 

 a House ought not to be " reformed," but to be " turned out of 

 window." We would venture to pronounce, that there is not a common 

 club of journeymen carpenters, sitting at the sign of the " The Three 

 Compasses," in any street between Hyde Park Corner and Ratcliff High- 

 way, who would not laugh at the notion that their measures were likely 

 to be influenced by the admission of a tythe of Catholic joiners within 

 their pale. It is unnecessary for us to labour a point so clear as this ; but 

 the real fact, we strongly suspect, would be that, to the weight of the 

 Opposition, the Catholics would, for a long time, add nothing. Every 

 body knows that the strength of the Parliamentary Opposition does not 

 lie in its numbers, but in its character not in the vote of Mr. Moore or 

 of Mr. Harvey : but in the voices of Mr. Brougham, of Mr. Tierney, of 

 Sir Francis Burdett, and of some dozen other individuals, whose talents 

 or honour (as the quality may be) give confidence to the country in 

 the opinions which they support.* Now, from these persons, the great 

 odds are, that the enrage Catholics first elected would receive, after the 

 first half session, little or no countenance at all. Mr. O'Connell, as 



* Again, we may refer to the events which have occurred since this paper was 

 written. The support of the " Opposition " leaders to the course pursued by Ministers 

 with respect to Portugal, was not merely constitutional and ample it was instantaneous 

 enthusiastic. 



