344. ANNUAL REGISTER, ISIf. 



«1isabilitles, Incapacities, privations, 

 and penalties, by reason of their 

 conscientious adherence to the reli- 

 gious doctrines of their forefathers. 



For nearly the entire period of 

 the last twenty years, the progress 

 of religious freedom has been ob- 

 structed ; and, whilst other Chris- 

 tian nations have hastened to un- 

 bind the fetters imposed upon 

 religious dissent, the Koman Ca- 

 tholics of Ireland have remained 

 unrelieved. 



The laws, which unequivocally 

 attest our innocence and our merits, 

 continue to load us with the pains 

 of guilt; our own consciences — 

 the voice of mankind — acquit us of 

 crime and offence. Our Protestant 

 fellow-citizens press forward with 

 generous ardour and enlightened 

 benevolence, to testify their earnest 

 wishes for our relief. Yet these 

 penal laws, of which %ve humbly 

 complain, cherish the spirit of hos- 

 tility, and impede the cordial union 

 of the people, which is at all times 

 so desirable, and now so necessary. 



These penal laws operate for no 

 useful or meritorious purpose. Af- 

 fording no aid to the constitution 

 in church or state — not attaching 

 affection to either — they are effici- 

 ent only for objects of disunion and 

 disaffection. 



They separate the Protestant 

 from the Catholic, and withdraw 

 both from the public good ; they 

 irritate man against his fellow crea- 

 ture, alienate the subject from the 

 state, and leave the Roman Catho- 

 lic community but a precarious and 

 imperfect protection as the reward 

 of fixed and unbroken allegiance. 



We forbear to detail the nume- 

 rous incapacities and inconveni- 

 ences inflicted by those laws, di- 

 rectly or indirectly, upon the Ro- 



man Catholic community — or to 

 dwell upon the humiliating and 

 ignominious system of exclusion, 

 reproach, and suspicion, which they 

 generate and keep alive. Perhaps 

 no other age or nation has ever wit- 

 nessed severities more vexatious, 

 or inflictions more taunting, than 

 those which we have long endured ; 

 and of which but too large a por- 

 tion still remains. 



Relief from these disabilities and 

 penalties we have sought through 

 every channel that has appeared to 

 us to be legitimate and eligible. 

 We have never consciously violated, 

 or sought to violate, the known 

 laws of the land; nor have we pur- 

 sued our object in any other man- 

 ner, than such as has been usually 

 adhered to, and apparently the best 

 calculated to collect and communi- 

 cate our united sentiments accu- 

 rately, without tumult, and to ob- 

 viate all pretext for asserting that 

 the Roman Catholic community at 

 large were indifferent to the pur- 

 suit of their freedom. 



We can affirm, with perfect sin- 

 cerity, that we have no latent views 

 to realize — no secret or sinister ob- 

 jects to attain. Any such imputa- 

 tion must be effectually repelled, as 

 we humbly conceive, by tlie consi- 

 deration of our numbers, our pro- 

 pertj', our known principles and 

 character. 



Our object is avowed and direct 

 — earnest, yet natural, it extends 

 to an equal participation of the ci- 

 vil rights of the constitution of our 

 country — equally with our fellow- 

 subjects of all other religious per- 

 suasions : it extends no further. 



We w ould cheerfully concede the 

 enjoyment of civil and religious li- 

 berty to all mankind: we ask no 

 more for ourselves. 



W 



