GENERAL HISTORY. 



[133 



the last harvest, has been the cause 

 of petty riots in various parts of the 

 kingdom, unconnected with the 

 serious commotions above-men- 

 tioned, and which have required no 

 extraordinary exertions for their 

 suppression. It is observable that 

 the metropolis did not participate 

 in any of these popular tumults, 

 though the frequency of burglaries 

 and street robberies proved that a 

 great number of lawless banditti 

 were loose upon the public. 



The catholics of Ireland have 

 continued stedfast in the pursuit of 

 that restoration to the full rights of 

 citizens, which has long been the 

 very natural object of their desires, 

 and to which it will be very diffi- 

 cult to convince them by argument 

 that they have not a well-founded 

 claim. They have, however, dur- 

 ing this year avoided ^ny of those 

 contests with government which, 

 in the opinion of many, threw 

 some discredit on their cause, and 

 subjected them to the imputation 

 of attempting to gain by intimida- 

 tion, what they could not obtain by 

 an appeal to justice. On the other 

 hand, the government of that 

 country, content with asserting the 

 authority of the laws, has treated 

 with great lenity those breaches of 

 them which appeared to proceed 

 rather from inconsiderate ardour, 

 than a spirit of defiance. 



After Mr. Kirwan, in the month 

 of January, had been tried before 

 the King's Bench at Dublin, for 

 acting as a delegate for one of the 

 parishes of that city at a meeting of 

 the catholics, and found gu,ilty, the 

 sentence pronounced upon him 

 was only a fine of one mark, and 

 the attorney-general entered a noli 

 prosequi upon the other* wlio lay 

 under a timilar charge. 



On Feb. 28, the aggregate meet- 

 ing of the eatholics was held at 

 Dublin, in which a petition to the 

 Prince Regent was read and un- 

 animously voted. It was presented 

 to his lloyal Highness in the 

 month of April. This contains, in 

 respectful, but firm and explicit 

 language, a statement of their 

 grievances and their claims. It 

 begins with copying that civil test 

 of allegiance to the established go- 

 vernment and its head, and of re- 

 nunciation of all principles subver- 

 sive of this allegiance, and disa- 

 vowal of any designs hostile to 

 the present church establishment, 

 which they have taken, and are 

 willing to take, on the sanction 

 of a solemn oath, in lieu of spi- 

 ritual tests to which their con- 

 sciences will not suffer them to 

 submit. It remarks, that for nearly 

 the last twenty years the progress 

 of religious freedom has been ob- 

 structed ; and whilst other Christian 

 nations have hastened to unbind 

 the fetters on religious dissent, the 

 Roman catholics of Ireland have 

 remained unrelieved. It refers to 

 the numerous penal laws and in- 

 capacities still in force against 

 them, and from which they seek 

 relief. " Our object (they say) is 

 avowed and direct — earnest, yet 

 natural. It extends to an equal 

 participation of the civil rights of 

 the constitution of our country — 

 equally with our fellow-subjects 

 of all other religious persuasions : 

 it extends no further." It frankly 

 reminds his Royal Highness, that 

 an equal degree of enthusiasm can- 

 not be expected in the defence of 

 their country from men who feel 

 themselvesexcluded from a fair par- 

 ticipation of the benefits of a good 

 con»titution,a» Irom those who fully 



partake 



