I hope to make evident, and that too without any neceffity whatsoever for the promulgation of fuch doctrines; which, fo far from being favourable to an Incorporating Union of Great Britain and Ireland, tend to render the accomplishment of that great measure more difficult, perhaps impracticable: and it is the more to be lamented, when it is confidered, that the meafure can be fupported by irrefragable arguments of fignal public advantage, without reforting to fuch fallacious and pernicious principles and doctrines.

I have been diligent in my inquiries refpe&ting Lord Minto, as I have not the honour of the flightest personal acquaintance with his Lordship. From the information I have received, I find that he is a Scotch gentleman of family, and before his advancement to the Peerage, he was known by the name and title of Sir Gilbert Elliot, Bart. and had been for a time Viceroy of Corfica: he had contracted a great intimacy with Mr. Edmund Burke, the great Irish apostle of Popery already mentioned. He appears by the pamphlet I am now commenting upon, to be a perfon of learning and fagacity: his abilities ftand confeffed by his being intrusted by the British Government with the execution of commiffions of the greatest importance, and with the most honourable embaffies: his fervices to his King and Country have raised him to the British Peerage. In this pamphlet he has collected the moft powerful arguments, which have been urged, either in Great Britain or Ireland, in favour of an Incorporating Union of the two countries, and difpofed them in admirable order: though little is urged in it, which had not been already laid before the public; yet the arguments are digested in fo perfpicuous and connected a feries, and difpofed

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pofed of with fo much judgment, that it may be faid to comprize in itself all the merit of all preceding publications on the fubject: I think it a very valuable performance. With thefe ideas of it, I felt great pain on reading the paffages I have quoted. The rank and ability of the writer, and the excellent reasoning contained in the other parts of it, rendered a refutation of thefe exceptionable paragraphs and their doctrines a work of imperious neceffity. Such are my only reafon, and my only excufe, for entering the lifts of argument with fo great and so refpectable a character as his Lordship, though I am as fincere a friend to the measure of an Incorporating Union as his Lordship.

All his Lordship's arguments in favour of the claims of the Irish Romanifts to political equality are founded on this one pofition, that they are entitled to that equality by common right. Common right, in the ufual acceptation of the word, means the common law of the land: but I perfume his Lordfhip means it in a more extended fenfe, and that he means a right founded on the immutable rules of reafon and juftice. If this pofition is overturned, his Lordship's whole argument falls with it: it therefore demands examination. The rights of mankind in political focieties are twofold, natural and political: the first are born with a man, he becomes entitled to them the moment of his birth; but as man is a focial animal, and as the human race cannot fubfift but in fociety, he becomes entitled to them with this limitation, that the enjoyment of them is to be regulated by that fociety of which he is born a member, whilft he continues one of that fociety. The society may establish certain rules for its own prefervation, and without which it cannot fubfift, reftraining

and

and modifying the full exercife of what are called natural rights, in cafes where the full exercise of natural rights would endanger the existence or fecurity of the fociety; and regulations for the fecure enjoyment of natural rights thus modified. To thefe rules and regulations all members of all political focieties muft fubmit; and all the benefits men enjoy under these laws are their political rights. In fact, mankind's political rights, are their natural rights modified, and their enjoyment fecured, by the laws of fociety. Natural rights are immutable; modifications of them by the laws of fociety are various, in the various focieties of mankind on the face of the globe; and hence they are styled political rights as diftinguished from natural. The laws of each fociety have been originally framed on the confent of the majority of the community, either tacit or exprefs: general acquiefcence implies tacit confent: actual compact, as is the cafe in fome focieties, is express confent. These rules have been altered in societies at times by tyranny and ufurpation. In the British Empire, the common law is that fyftem of law which is established by tacit confent for ages: the ftatute law is that fyftem of law which is established by confent or agree ment of the members. In great or even confiderable empires or governments, it is utterly impracticable to collect the opinions of all the members of the fociety taken by the poll, on any public measure: fuch an attempt would tend to inevitable confufion and diffolution of the fociety; because the great mass of the people in all States, fubsisting by bodily labour,are ignorant,and incapable in general of forming correct opinions on great and momentous political queftions. By the British Conftitution, generally and defervedly esteemed the very effence of political wifdom, the method of collecting the opinions of the majority of

the nation, for the purpose of enacting new laws, or altering or abrogating the old ones, is partly by the votes of the majority of a certain clafs of great and diftinguifhed perfonages eminent for their dignity and property: but chiefly by the votes of the majority of Reprefentatives chofen by the people, and affembled in general Council or Parliament: these Representatives,though they represent the whole body or mafs of the people, yet are not elected by the majority of votes of the people of each diftriet reckoned by the poll, but by their property: and one twentieth part of the people at large are not qualified, by their property, to vote at the elections of their Reprefentatives in Parliament either in England or Ireland.

What Lord Minto ftyles the fovereignty of the Proteftants in Ireland over the Irish Romanifts confifts in this; that Proteftants are capable of fitting in Parliament, and of filling about thirty of the great offices of the State, to which the exercife of the fupreme Executive Power is intrufted and the Romanifts exclude themselves from thefe two capacities by rejecting the Oath of Supremacy and Declaration, as already mentioned: both which the Proteftants take and subscribe on being admitted into Parliament, or into any of thefe offices. In every other particular there is a perfect equality of political privileges at prefent between Irish Proteftants and Romanifts. The Irish Proteftants maintain that the aforefaid exclufion of Irish Romanifts (which his Lordfhip is pleased to style Proteftant Sovereignty and Monopoly ; terms learned in the ScholaBurkeiana)had its origin in political right,and in the very first of political rights, to wit, that of the State to preferve its own existence,and independence of all foreign jurifdictions: and whatever afcendancy (styled by his

Lordship

Lordship Sovereignty) this exclufion has conferred on Irish Proteftants, they claim the fame, not, as his Lordship very erroneously supposes, on the title of conqueft, of acquiefcence or prescription; but on the ftatute law of the land, enacted both in England and Ireland. And I cannot fufficiently exprefs my amazement at this very extraordinary mistake of his Lordship, a great diplomatic character, and supposed to be perfectly well acquainted with the laws of his country!

The exclufion of Romanifts from all public offices in England and Ireland, commences with the operation of the Statute which enacts the Oath of Supremacy, and which was enacted in England in the firft, and in Ireland in the fecond year of Queen Elizabeth: and all access to fuch offices in England has been doubly barred, as against Romanists, by the Teft and Corporation Acts. (See Appendix, No. 3.) In Ireland these two Acts, there alfo enacted, have been with great precipitancy, not to say want of political wifdom, repealed in 1793; except fo far as relates to the great offices of the State already mentioned. The exclufion of Romanists from feats in Parliament, arifing from the Oath of Supremacy and Declaration, took place in England by the operation of the Statute of the 30th of Charles the Second, chap. 2; and the doors of Parliament were further barred against them in England by the Statute of the 1ft of George the First, chap. 13, both which Statutes are yet unrepealed; they were both enacted soon after in Ireland. By thefe Statutes, to prevent crude innovations in Religion and Government, it is enacted, that no Member fhall fit or vote in either Houfe of Parliament, till he hath, in the presence of the House, taken the Oaths of Supremacy,

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