12 The Catholics of Ireland. [JAX. 



quence is, that it gives birth, not merely to a state of constant discord 

 and of party warfare, but to a warfare of the meanest malevolence, of 

 the most dishonourable fraud and artifice ; of insult slander trea- 

 chery in short, a warfare which brings every baser passion of our 

 nature into play. Thus it is that an Irish political quarrel exhibits fea- 

 tures which fill every man but an Irishman with astonishment : there is a 

 savage ferocity about all its details which shocks him, and always a spirit 

 of low stratagem of falsehood or equivocation from which he recoils. 



It is folly, or wilful sophistry, to speak of these dissensions as agitating 

 the higher classes of Ireland only. The quarrel of the master must 

 become the quarrel of the servant, even where the interests of both 

 were not identified, and the same. Who is there can doubt, that the 

 rich Catholic must have influence with, or over, his poorer neighbour 

 or dependant ? That he will use that influence, by all means law- 

 ful, or unlawful to counteract the power that unjustly galls and presses 

 upon him? That the Catholic peasant, on his part, will think and act 

 in concert with his Catholic landlord, whom he sees shut out from his 

 natural place and birthright, for the maintenance of their common faith ? 

 Our first object then should be ; if we have a thought seriously to benefit 

 Ireland, to cut off that source of eternal feud and quarrel that scourge 

 to all prosperity in the country the distinction and preferment of one 

 class of its inhabitants to another. If that object cannot be obtained 

 entirely, then our aim should be, to obtain it as nearly as possible ; to 

 abolish all preferences, as far as the very boldest policy will permit, so 

 as to give to the Catholics the greatest possible interest (consistent 

 with security) in maintaining our existing system, if we cannot give 

 them a disposition to be entirely content with it. And this is what ive 

 would understand by the term " Emancipation." 



For the extent, then, to which farther concession might be carried, we 

 have already intimated our belief, that to seats in the Privy Council, 

 and to some few situations of high and direct authority in the state, it 

 would be incongruous that Catholics should be admitted. We cannot 

 admit into those particular councils of a State, the very essence of the 

 proceedings of which is secrecy, an individual whose first principles of 

 faith would render the keeping secret those proceedings a spiritual 

 crime.* But to the concession of all the other material immunities 

 demanded the admission to both Houses of Parliament (councils the 

 proceedings of which, however important, are not directly secret) the 

 right to places, generally, of honour and profit in the law and to the 

 privilege and freedom of all corporations ; to all these admissions we are 

 disposed readily to consent, nor can we find any danger capable of arising 

 out of them, even deserving to be mentioned. 



For, admitting all the worst religious tenets ascribed to the Catholics 

 to be founded in fact, and that we have every danger to apprehend as far 

 as concerns their will, we cannot see how these new privileges would 

 give them the power of doing any mischief. 



Catholic barristers, for instance, are excluded from receiving silk 

 gowns; how is it unless a danger is created wherever people have cause 

 given them to be satisfied that the same man is more politically dange- 



* The course which, since this paper went to press, the English government has 

 found it expedient to resolve on with respect to Spain, is one in which the " power" 

 of the Pope is more than likely to stand very seriously " prejudiced." 



