bishops of Ireland to his Holiness, that the clause here mentioned

gave great offence to many persons, who through ignorance or malice misinterpreted (as they said) the same; it was ordered to be omitted, and the same form of oath to be taken as was used at the inauguration of the Archbishop of Mohilow. I cannot think that these concessions were a mere artifice of the Roman Conclave to gain and retain something, when they could not gain and retain every thing; I attribute them to the liberality of sentiment which is beginning to pervade the deliberations of that body.

I have now troubled you, Brethren, at great length, on a very nice and important subject; and I have done this, not with any view of directing your judgment, but in compliance with my sense of duty in delivering my own. Other men may form a better, but none can form a more impartial judgment, on a subject of acknowledged difficulty.

I wish not to be misunderstood by you;

after

after an experience of your candour for twenty-three years, I have no fear of being misrepresented by you; and I trust that I shall be believed by you when I declare— that if I foresaw any Increase of Popery in Christendom; any Danger to the Protestant Church in general; or to that distinguished part of it established in these Kingdoms, from granting the Catholics of Ireland what they petition for; I would have wished that my hand had been stiffened by the stroke of death, before it had written what I have now read to you.

But believing, as I do, that the number of Catholics in Ireland will be lessened, as the liberality with which they are treated is increased-- thinking, as I do, that Popery is every where succumbing under the general diffusion of knowledge —and abhorring, as I do, from my heart, all theological rancour, all unchristian contention about non-essentials, all persecution for diversity of opinion even in what are generally esteemed essential parts

of

of Christianity, and convinced, as I am, that Ireland cannot be united to this Kingdom as She ought to be, without a removal of the chief disabilities under which she now labours ;-and persuaded, as I am, that the permanent safety of the whole Empire depends on such an Union;-I have no hesitation in professing that I contemplate, with singular satisfaction, the enlightened and impartial spirit with which the Petition has been discussed in both Houses of Parliament.It has not, indeed, been granted in either House; but that cannot excite the wonder of any one who has observed, how seldom a point of such great political importance is accomplished at once. I am so far from wishing a measure of this magnitude to be hurried to a decision, that I entirely agree in sentiment with those who think, that it ought never to be accomplished, except with the general uninfluenced concurrence of those, on both sides, who think themselves interested in its decision. Great changes in Church or State are

seldom

seldom well made, till the minds of men are generally disposed to receive them.

The Catholics of Ireland have sustained, perhaps, a disappointment, but they have suffered no injury-no injury, because every Government has a right to provide for its own preservation by any internal regulations consistent with the Law of God, and with the Rights of other Independent States; and if the Government thinks that its preservation cannot be secured, but by the exclusion of certain individuals from certain privileges, it has a right to exclude them. The excluded individuals may contend, that Government judges improperly concerning its own security. But whether it judges properly or improperly, must be decided by a Majority of voices. The Law of the Land is the Will of the Majority of its Inhabitants, virtually promulgated to all, by the concurrent voice of the King and the two Houses of Parliament-If any individual refuses to submit to the general will, it may be a question of some difficulty

to

to decide, whether it ought not to be lawful for him to quit the community; but it can be no question, that, whilst he continues a voluntary member of it, he can have no right to oppose the general will.

Things however may be lawful on both sides, which may not be expedient on either; and it ought ever to be remembered that in all disputes, on national politics or individual concerns, mutual concession is best suited to the imbecility of human intellect, and best adapted to the allaying of intemperate heats, and choking in their birth passions producing disturbance, and ending in desolation.

Pertinacity in opinion more frequently arises from a partial view of a subject than from a full comprehension of it, and certainly is not of itself any proof of rectitude of judgment. I at least am so sensible of the pressure of the arguments on both sides of this great question, and so diffident of my having come to a proper conclusion concerning it, that, though I cannot say as Cicero makes Cotta

say