182U.] The Forly IShilllng Freeholders. 5 



so far as passion and brutality of mind can be honest, he was honest. 

 He unquestionably told what he knew to be the feelings of his sect, 

 and this is his language : — 



" The cokimns of Catholicity challenge the possession of her ark (the 

 Protestant church) ; and unfurling the oriflamme, (the French standard, 

 declaring that no quarter was to be given) display its glorious motto : — 

 ' In hoc signo vinces.' " The destruction of the Protestant church is then 

 boldly declared, — " In vain shall parliaments, in mockery of Omnipo- 

 tence, declare that it is permanent and inviolate. In vain shall the lazy 

 churchman cry from his sanctuary to the watchman on the tower, that 

 danger is at hand. It shall fall, for it is human ! It shall fall, and 

 nothing but the memory of its mischiefs shall survive !" 



So far goes the spirit of conciliation. So far we are to believe in the 

 sincerity of those political swindlers who have made the bargain on both 

 sides ; and to thank the simplicity of those miserable dupes, who, like 

 my Lord of Westmoreland, and his fellow-fugitives, could believe that 

 from popery any thing could come but evil to the freedom and the faith 

 of England. 



" Already," says this vehement conciliator, " already are the marks of 

 ruin upon the Church of England. It has had its time on earth ! And 

 when the time of its dissolution arrives, shall Catholics be compelled to 

 uphold a system which, they believe, will one day be rejected by the 

 whole earth } Can they be induced to swear that they should oppose 

 even the present Protestants of England if, ceasing to be truants, they 

 thought fit to return to their ancient worship, and have a Catholic king 

 and a Catholic parliament ?" 



Of course, noble dukes, illustrious princes, and still more, illustrious 

 kings, laugh at this ; but men who know what popery is, know that 

 every syllable of this denunciation, fierce, bigotted, and bloody as it is, 

 will be realized. Pass away a few years, and the Duke of Wellington 

 will be in the shroud : the wTetched generation whom he has dragged after 

 him in the chains of ofiSce, as much his slaves as if his collar were about 

 their necks ; the Avhole tribe, whom he has plunged in one common pool 

 of national contempt, will be beyond all but the scorn that pursues the 

 apostate even to his grave ; but the popish prediction will be verified, 

 aye, and to the letter. The Church of England will see the power 

 which her prelacy has suffered to creep upon their slmnber, starting up 

 into sudden vastness : a ferocious lust for supremacy, followed by a 

 tyrannical possession — her revenues confiscated to the pretended 

 necessities of the state, her dignitaries insulted by bitter and grinning 

 malevolence driving them from their place in society, and appealing to 

 tlieir helplessness as an evidence of the unsoundness of their cause. 

 Apostates, too, will start up among themselves. One of those abhorred 

 apostates has already gone^to his account. He has been wrenched from 

 life, before our eyes, like a weed torn up by the roots. His wretched 

 ambition has been darkened on him at the instant, while the words of 

 apostacy had scarcely parted from his lips. Nothing of him remains 

 but the warning of his example. 



The promotion of this man also gives a lesson. He obtained the 

 highest rank of the church ; that whole weight of public influence which 

 belongs to a seat in the legislature, to the title of a British noble, to the 

 disposer of preferment, and to the possessor of opulence. And for what 

 merits, personal or professional .^ What had he ever contributed to the 



