Supremacy, Allegiance, and Abjuration; and repeated and fubfcribed the Declaration against Tranfubftantiation, Invocation of Saints, and Sacrifice of the Mass. (See English Statutes, and 1ft Blackftone's Commentaries, p. 158, octavo edition.) By the 22nd article of the Union of England and Scotland, all Scotch Members are obliged to take the fame Qaths, and fubfcribe the fame Declaration and in the Act ratifying the Treaty of Union of England and Scotland two Acts of the refpective Parliaments of the two nations are recited, the one providing for the perpetual establishment and maintenance of the Prefbyterian Church in Scotland, the other for the perpetual establishment and maintenance of the Church of England, in England, Wales, Ireland, and the town of Berwick upon Tweed; and these two Acts are therein declared to be fundamental and effential conditions of that Union. (See Defoe's Hiftory of the Union of England and Scotland, from page 557 to 562, and the English Statutes.) How then can his Lordfhip maintain that the exclufion of Irish Romanifts from Parliament, and the aforefaid offices, which he, adopting the phrafeology of his Gamaliel, Mr. Edmund Burke, is pleased to style Proteftant Sovereignty, Afcendancy, and Monopoly, is a wrong; and its continuance a continuance of wrong? He muft mean, that it is a restriction of the natural rights of man, which is not required by that firft of political objects, the fafety and prefervation of the State; or that it is not conformable to the opinions of the majority of the members of the community, and therefore unjuft. As to the firft, I have already proved, that Romanifts, from their religious doctrines, ought not to be admitted to the enjoyment of any portion of the Sovereignty of a Proteftant State; and that they fhould fhould be excluded from the Houfes of Lords and Commons, both in Great Britain and Ireland, because it would be highly injurious, and perhaps, in Ireland, deftructive to the State to admit them; and confequently that it is no wrong to exclude them. If their exclufion is a wrong in Ireland, it must be a wrong in Great Britain; for the principles of natural juftice are immutable, and not variable by the circumftance of their being more numerous in Ireland than in Great Britain. What is right or wrong in this particular in the one country, muft be right or wrong in the other. Their exclufion in Ireland is more requifite than in Great Britain, on account of their greater numbers in the former country, and their claims to all the landed property in the hands of Proteftants, the poffeffion of which, his Lordship ftates, they confider as ufurpation: and Dr. Troy, as before mentioned, ftates, that they confider the Proteftant Establishment an ufurpation. These circumftances render their elevation in Ireland more dangerous than in Great Britain, and their exclufion in the former country more juft and reasonable, If his Lordfhip thinks the exclufion of Romanists from Parliament and the great offices of the State a wrong, he muft think that all the great ftatesmen in Britain and Ireland, fince the commencement of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, were workers of iniquity; and all the Statutes enacted fince, refpecting Romanifts, public wrongs; he must think King James the Second was perfectly juftifiable in endeavouring to remedy this wrong; the glorious King William the Third an ufurper ; and all who affifted in the Revolution of 1688. Rebels. His Lordfhip declares it to be his warmeft wifh wifh to establish Irish Romanifts in an equality of civil right with Irifh Proteftants; King James the Second profeffed nothing more. He profeffed fimilar defigns in England. His attempts to carry these designs into execution, both in England and Ireland, coft him his crown, and configned him and his luckless progeny to perpetual exile. His Lordfhip cannot arraign the aforefaid Statutes of injuftice in excluding Romanifts, on the principle that they are not conformable to the opinion of the majority of the Irish nation: for, waving the argument of the fuperior number by the poll of the Proteftants in Great Britain and Ireland, taken together, over the Romanists, and confidering Ireland a diftinct and independent nation (which it is not), let his Lordship's principle be examined by the principles of the Conftitution: by that conftitution, the Reprefentatives of the people are elected by the People, reckoned, not by their numbers by the poll, but by their property: thirty-nine parts out of forty of Irifh property are in the hands of Irifh Proteftants, confequently the conftitutional power of election is poffeffed by the Irish Proteftants, though Romanists now enjoy the elective franchife, as well as Proteftants: the House of Commons, fo elected, together with the Lords and the Monarch, have enacted thefe Statutes, by the operation of which Romanifts are excluded; that is, they were enacted by the true legitimate Sovereign Power of the State. The very capacity of fitting in Parliament and enjoying public offices is a political right, merely arising from the inftitutions of civil fociety, and may juftly, be withheld or abridged by the fupreme conftitutional power of that fociety, when it deems deems the exertion of its authority in fuch particulars conducive to the well-being of the State. With what propriety or truth can his Lordship then maintain, that the exclufion of Romanists from certain political fituations, effected by the operation of Statutes enacted by Parliament, affembled purfuant to the principles of the Conftitution, is a wrong, and an unjust invasion of their natural rights? It is a pofition not to be fupported by reafon or argument! I truft I have fairly lopped off the firft horn of his Lordfhip's dilemma, to wit, that exclufion of Irish Romanifts cannot be fupported, and confequent Proteftant afcendancy maintained, without violation of the natural rights of the Irish Romanifts, and continuation of the injuftice. I have reduced his two-horned bugbear to an unicorn; and I will preferve the remaining horn, to wit, that the exclufion of Irish Romanifts cannot be repealed, and their claims acceded to, without detriment to the Proteftant Establishment in Ireland, to gore and lacerate (to ufe his own words) the remainder of his Lordfhip's argument with: nay more, I will fharpen this horn, and prove, that the admiffion of Irifh Romanifts into Parliament and the great offices of the State, would, in the event of an Incorporating Union of Great Britain and Ireland taking place, be fubverfive of the Constitution of the Empire in general; and that the publication and fupport of fuch a project by great Minifters of State are very likely to difincline the real friends of the Conftitution in Church and State, as well in Great Britain as Ireland, to the measure of an Union. However, However, before I begin to use the horn, it is not improper to take notice, that his Lordship has infinuated that Irish Proteftants hold their eftates under the titles of Conqueft or Prescription. Conqueft is in general a title founded on wrong; and the title by prefcription his Lordfhip endeavours to difcredit. I am extremely forry to be obliged to observe, that his Lordship here manifefts much want of knowledge of the real fituation and circumstances of Ireland, and that his Gamaliel has led him again into a grofs error. If any eftates in Ireland can at this day be faid to be enjoyed under the title of Conqueft, they must be such as were acquired by the first British adventurers in Ireland in the reign of Henry the Second. His acquifition of Ireland cannot properly be called a Conqueft; for thoughh he arrived in Ireland at the head of an army, the whole Irish nation, as I before obferved, submitted, and fwore fealty to him, aud chofe him for their Monarch, without putting him to the neceffity of striking a blow. Of the great eftates acquired by his followers, fome were gained, not by force, but by lawful conveyance and fucceffion : fuch was that of Richard de Clare, Earl of Chepftow, furnamed Strongbow, who married the only daughter and child of the King of Leinfter, and became in her right entitled to a vaft territory in that province, in which he fettled a great number of his vaffals; and which always, till the reign of Elizabeth, was the most confiderable feat of the English Colony in Ireland, and great part of it was called the Pale, or the Territory governed by English Laws. However, whether the firft English adventurers gained their eftates by the fword, or otherwife, I apprehend to be at this day of little confequence, for there is fcarce remaining a single estate in this king dom |