1827.] The Catholic Resolutions. 389 



elation language such as, used from one individual to another, would 

 compel a man to refuse the very object which he might be about, even unhe- 

 sitatingly, to concede. We will not say any thing of the unworthiness of 

 that system of equivocation and misrepresentation which has brought men 

 at last in this country to distrust every assertion coming from the heads 

 of the Irish Catholic church, until they have themselves absolutely com- 

 pared and examined it. We will not make any comment upon the decency 

 of raising a " rent " from the poor peasantry of Ireland that peasantry for 

 whom charity, not three years back, was begged from door to door at the 

 hands of the people of England and proposing to apply a portion of the 

 money so collected to examining the titles of those opponents to Catholic 

 claims who may choose to exert even their common law and common reason 

 right to eject unprofitable tenants from their estates. But we will ask Is the 

 policy of this conduct no matter what its morality any thing less than 

 ruin to a cause, which must depend for its success upon the good-will and 

 conviction of the Protestant interest, both in Ireland and in England ? 



Mr. O'Connell and his friends we are afraid have talked until, at 

 last, they really believe that which they utter. They are accustomed to 

 knock down all opposition with big words and thundering sentences, in 

 their Catholic debates and tavern speeches ; and they get a wild fancy that 

 the same thing can be done in the business of life. All their opponents must 

 be fools ! perhaps there is hardly a man who could make a seven hours' 

 speech (without a new point from beginning to end of it) among them. 

 As fools will pretty necessarily be cowards an odd word or two about 

 "blood" and " foreign enemy" and " nine millions in arms" may 

 come in pretty well, as the utterer fancies, now and then, by way of sea- 

 soning ; as a " damme" in a coffee-house quarrel is esteemed to empha- 

 sise the discourse. And then the House of Commons receives petitions 

 for Emancipation very attentively and civilly as it does all petitions on any 

 subject which are worded in civil language. And the people do not petition 

 of late very much against the measure because they feel certain that 

 (under its present management) it is perfectly impossible it should be car- 

 ried. And then we start in our debate quite secure in the wisdom of a 

 " new parliament " making such an outcry about our triumph before it 

 happens, that we have not leisure to notice any little quiet remark that any 

 body makes about its being likely not to happen at all. We get a speech 

 of six columns from Sir Francis Burdett ; another, of six more, from Mr. 

 Plunkett; twice as much again from Mr. Brougham and Mr. Canning; 

 and a cut-up of all the review and magazine politics of the last three 

 months (to the tune of about sixty columns) from the minor Catholic sup- 

 porters. And then comes a speech from Mr. Peel very plain, and, to 

 our view, of course, very clumsy ; and a speech from the Master of the 

 Rolls altogether a sad failure ; and a neat little episode of " facts " 

 about our extreme madness, from Mr. George Dawson ; which as we 

 cannot very well answer the whole of it it is better to clamour at than 

 to listen to. And then comes the DIVISION at the beginning of which- 

 though not a word worth a farthing has been said to our disparagement 

 we don't feel quite so bold as we thought we should do. And then comes 

 the majority AGAINST us : which does not even give us the privilege of 

 wasting two nights more in talking in the House of Lords. And then we 

 discover that " there must be a rebellion !" and that "we will petition no 

 more!'* and that, in fact, we have been floundering, when we thought 

 that we were flying. And so, away, pell-mell, again to Ireland, to rant, 



