1828. ] The Brunswick Clubs. $65 
But, far from blaming the three noble lords for volunteering in the 
cause of Rome, we rejoice that they have pushed themselves forward 
into the very breach of the time-honoured church of Mary of merciful 
memory. We congratulate the peerage on the line by which those 
heroic patriots have separated themselves from the dull defenders of 
the constitution, and only wish that they may long bring the vigour of 
their imbecility, the resources of their ignorance, and the integrity of 
their financial experience, to the grand alliance of popery. 
So much for the cause of Rome in England. But in Ireland the 
advocacy is of a-sterner nature. It stands forth in the real flesh and 
blood shape of subtle malignity and daring turbulence. It has a 
parliament, foaming out hourly insults against the Constitution, and a 
priesthood, as dark as ever were created by idolatry, as reckless as they can 
be made by sullen ambition, and armed with as fierce a hostility to 
Protestantism and Protestants as can be roused by hatred of a religion 
which puts their superstitions to shame, and by scorn of beings whom 
popery denounces as the victims of eternal fire. 
The first great impediment to peace is the constitution of the Romish 
clergy of Ireland. The whole system was invented with the double 
purpose of alienating the clergy from their native land and lawful king, 
and of transferring their allegiance, in body and soul, in things temporal 
and things spiritual, in the most common relations of life as keenly as in 
the most ostentatious observances of their religion, to a stranger, who, 
___ being an actual potentate, may be at open war with their king, is always 
_ deeply connected with the rival sovereignties of the continent, and is, 
__ by habit and principle, the unceasing and public enemy of the national 
belief. 
To this stranger the oath of allegiance of the popish bishop and priest 
___is couched in the most direct terms that can bind man. 
The popish bishop swears to obey the commands of the pope in all 
things. (No matter whether these commands enjoin him to dethrone 
his king.)—To keep all the secrets communicated to him by the pope. 
(No matter whether they are treason to his king.)—To disclose all 
secrets to the pope, that he thinks may be injurious to his authority, 
temporal or spiritual. (No matter whether the preservation of those 
secrets be of vital importance to his king, or entrusted to himself under 
the most solemn obligations of secrecy—whether received under the 
oath of a privy-councillor, or gathered at the confessional.)—To defend 
the territorial rights of the pope. (No matter whether that pope be at 
open war with his king.)—To exert all his efforts, personal and public, 
to enlarge the powers of the popedom. (No matter whether the imcrease 
of the papal power be in direct opposition to the interests, the policy, 
and the peace of his country, or this obedience may not be the first 
step to treason, the service of the national enemy, and the invasion or 
civil war of the land.) It must be remembered in all this, that if the 
pore be unlikely, from his distance and territorial weakness, to be the 
direct enemy of the British empire, he is the direct ally of France, 
Spain, Austria, the Italian States, and every other popish kingdom of 
Europe ; that he lives on their pensions, is created by their influence, 
_ and is ready to second, by the whole weight of his authority, and the 
means of his perpetual connexion with the priesthood, any project of 
aggression which may be in the mind of the enemies of British freedom 
