490 The Catholic Association. [MAY, 



induction has been drawn against disturbing an order of things, which, if 

 theoretically not the best possible, yet practically did not work sufficiently 

 ill to require any immediate change. If, on the other hand, they have 

 been goaded into turbulence and faction, they have been accused of rebel- 

 lion, or at least of insolence and menace ; and the English terribly 

 afraid of being afraid * have immediately cried out, " We will not be 

 bullied, and we will not legislate so long as any one can throw in our 

 teeth that we are acting under the influence of fear." By the help of these 

 two sophisms, redress it is evident may be protracted ad grtccas calendas. 

 The weak and the injured are always wrong ; and the opponents of Eman- 

 cipation, like the drum-major, too apt to d n the wretch they lash, 

 because, " strike where they will, there is no pleasing him." No one 

 acquainted with the progress of the Catholic Question will presume to deny 

 that history is altogether against the argument about turbulence. Whatever 

 the Catholics have hitherto gained has not been obtained either from the 

 justice or the generosity of England, but from its fears ;t and, it must be 

 allowed, that if they mean to work out their own emancipation, it will not 

 be by sitting with their hands before them. They have, therefore, two 

 almost incompatible ends to pursue. While they are bound in prudence to 

 conciliate the English, and to persuade them to grant them their liberties, 

 they have to rouse and stimulate their own countrymen to that proud 

 assertion of their rights, which can alone render them respectable in the 

 eyes of Europe, and convince their enemies of the necessity of concession. 

 The formation and development of public opinion, I need not say, always 

 rests with the few. Where these few cannot, or will not, manifest them- 

 selves, nations go on for ages suffering, complaining, but making no ade- 

 quate and effective exertions for redemption. There is not a Catholic in 

 Ireland who does not feel his degradation, and resent it. Yet, without what 

 is called agitation, to lash opinion to its sticking-place, the efforts of the 

 country for redress would never get beyond the nightly enterprises of Cap- 

 tain Rock. The sort of addresses and measures which would flatter the 

 vanity of John Bull, cajole him out of his absurdities, and appease his irrita- 

 bility, would by no means attain the necessary end of awakening the Irish 

 to a wholesome and constitutional activity. A certain degree of asperity is 

 necessary in the leaders, to shew the people that the Association is in 

 earnest ; while a certain degree of impatience is justifiable in an assembly, 

 groaning under centuries of oppression. The English would be most weak, 

 ungenerous, and unjust, if they expected a cringing servility a tranquil 

 submission to a system, whose avowed object is not the good government of 

 Ireland, but the maintenance of institutions there, whose sole advantage is 

 the imagined security of Protestantism in England. <{ Sic vos non vobi's." 

 The injured have a right to complain loudly, and even intemperately : 

 nature demands it, humanity allows it, and policy requires it. Is it, there- 

 fore, less than fair to impute the complaints of the anti-Catholic party con- 

 cerning Irish intemperance to a deliberate intention of withholding all 

 relief ? Let any Englishman make the case his own. Let him suppose 

 the Irish Catholics imposing their religion upon England ; and let him ask 

 himself whether he would be silent whether he would abstain from harsh 

 language nay, even from blows if blows were likely to abate the 



* Rev. Sydney Smith. 



f Perhaps it would scarcely he possible for the most determined enemy of the Catholics 

 to attribute an opinion to them more calculated to prejudice their cause than this. ED. 



