Mr. Bankes presented a petition with the same prayer from the clergy of the Archdeaconry of Berks.

Sir G. Shiffner laid upon the table a similar petition from a parish in Sussex.

PETITION OF PROTESTANT CLERGYMEN.

Mr. Coke said, that he held in his hand a petition from 55 clergymen of the Established Church in the diocess of Norwich, praying that the claims of the Roman Catholics might be granted. Last year a petition with the same object, had been presented by him, signed by 48 clergymen, but seven new names had this year been added.

The petition was brought up and read. On the question that it be laid on the table,

Sir Francis Burdett rose, not merely to express his admiration of, and entire concurrence in, the sentiments of the petition, but to state his unqualified disapprobation of the annual farce this night to be performed (bear, hear)—a farce that had been over and over again repeated, never had produced the slightest possible good, but time after time, year after year, had only sowed new seeds of discontent, and augmented the dangers to which the country was exposed. (Hear, hear.) No longer ago than the day before yesterday, had a member of the Cabinet, the former eloquent advocate of the Roman Catholics, declared that there was not the slightest chance of success in the measure He had been well aware of this fact from the beginning, and why had he hitherto lent himself to practise deception upon the house and the country? (Hear.) Why had he employed himself in raising hope that was only to be deferred, and deferred only to be disappointed? (Hear.) Why had he contributed to irritate and excite the warm feelings of a generous people, only to plunge them still lower in the depths of grief and despair? Had he come forward so often upon this subject, merely because it afforded him a happy theme for the display of his rhetoric, or had he endeavoured to catch a breath of the gale of popularity, by affecting in this solitary instance to be the advocate of liberal principles? (Great cheering.) Some motive of this kind must have influenced him, because he well knew at the very moment he was vapouring in the cause of the Catholics, that his exertions must be utterly fruitless-fruitless of all benefit, but the fertile source of irritation and discontent. Notwithstanding this obvious truth-obvious by the event-the house had been repeatedly called upon to waste its time in useless discussion. (Hear, hear.) The people of Ireland had again and again been excited to the utmost pitch of expectation, and again and again they had learned that their feelings had only been trifled with and insulted. Their rights had been enforced by the Right Hon. Secretary in the strongest terms, their wrongs had been painted in the most vivid colours; but to their rights and to their wrongs, that quarter which it was most important to propitiate had been equally deaf. Was it not a little too much, at such a time, and when Ireland was in such a state, for a minister to play with weapons so dangerous? (Hear, hear.) Far better would it have been for the people of Ireland never to have had held out to them the mockery of relief-far

better would it have been for them to have remained subject to the same iron, unbending system, without room to hope that their condition might be changed, than that they should have been eternally subject to these distressing alternations; they might then, at least, have endured with patience and fortitude— quanto quis constantior eidem onus lævior fit. But it appeared that it was impossible their rights should now be acknowledged, even tho' the national peace and security demanded the admission. The right hon. gentleman had obtained office, and that was the real cause of this compromise of public safety. (Hear, hear.) He had understood, that in the administration of Mr. Fox, a majority of the cabinet was decidedly in favour of the measure of concession. A bill had been brought in by the ministers of that day, but they did not find good faith in the quarter where they had had reason to expect it-where, unfortunately, the present cabinet have no reason to doubt it. (Hear.) It was a measure in which all the wisest and ablest men of the country for many years had concurred. They held it necessary for the safety, peace, and unity of the empire; and in the present state of Ireland the house saw the full effects of that impotent and scandalous system of policy which sacrificed public principle to the love of place, and made a despicable compromise between eternal justice and private interest. (Loud cheering.) The same odious motive had induced ministers only two nights ago basely to desert a public officer under accusation, who had attempted conscientiously to discharge his duty to the Catholic population. (Hear.) As to what was or what was not discreet in the particular case, he (Sir F. Burdett) professed himself incompetent to judge. Swift had said long ago, but it was never more true than in our own time, that what might be true of other countries, was not true with respect to Ireland. She was in a peculiar situation-ordinary reasoning would not apply to her; and on this account he could not say whether the Attorney-General of that country had exercised a sound or an unsound discretion. He would assert, however, that that rt. hon. gentleman, in the amendment of his friends, intended to give a triumph to neither party, had not been fairly, handsomely, nor even justly dealt with. (Hear.) If his friends would not hold before him a shield to ward the impending blow, the inference was, that the blow was aimed with justice. lu bringing forward the claims to-night, he thought that the Rt. hon. gentleman (Mr. Plunkett) was not doing a service to the Catholics either of England or Ireland. With ministers, at least such of them as opposed the claims, and with the enemies of concession generally, it was not a question of politics or conscience; it had nothing to do with danger in their view. They looked at it merely as a matter of arithmetic and interest, and these resisted the admission of the Catholics, because they would not have another party come into competition with them, to dispute and share the emoluments of office. (Hear, hear.) Did any man believe, that in the year 1823 there existed any honest prejudices (honest, however stupid) any serious and real apprehensions of danger to the state, from the admission of Catholics? Did any man now fear a great Catholic league or a hostile

sovereign? The once terrible triumvirate of the Pope, the Pretender, and the Devil, was at an end. (Hear, and laughter.) No man now disputed the tenure of the House of Brunswick-no man believed that popish plots were now in concoction, or, at least, no one but the hon. member for Somersetshire (Sir T. Lethbridge), who be lieved that a desperate scheme was on foot among the Jesuits. (Hear, and laughter.) The notion seemed so idle and foolish, that it was not wonderful that the Hon. member should be singular in his opinion. The Pope himself was out of the question-he was now considered as harmless as any other old woman in Christendom. (Hear, and laughter.) Any man who now entertained apprehensions on this score would stand a chance of having his fellows laugh in his face, if indeed they did not spit in it. He who could believe in such dangers, must also believe in the long-exploded existence of ghosts and witches --must be ready to sally forth against some unfortunate old woman, to draw blood, in order to defeat a charm, as had been proved in a recent case, which, by the by-and it was a remarkable coincidence -occurred in Somersetshire. This accounted, perhaps, for the dread of the hon. Baronet, on the score of the plotting Jesuits. (Hear, and laughter.) The rt. hon. member for Oxford had a mind too enlightened to be imposed upon by such childish apprehensions, and he (Sir F. Burdett) was ready almost to rest the issue upon this: if the right hon. gentleman would place his hand upon his heart, and solemnly declare that he saw reason for any fear of the kind, he (Sir F. Burdett) would consent to abandon the cause of the Catholics. (Hear.) But was there no danger of a different description? Was there no danger to the state, from having the feelings of nine-tenths of the people of Ireland wrought up to a ferment of anxiety and hope, only to be disappointed. On this ground there was much to answer for, and ample cause had been given to the people of Ireland for all their discontent and irritation. That such had been the intention, he would not say; parliamentary form would not allow him to make the charge, even if he felt it; but the effects spoke unequivocally and loudly for themselves. Year after year redress had been promised, but promised only to be withheld, and the Irish had at last been goaded and driven to acts of violence against those whom they thought their oppressors. He left the Catholics of England out of the question, who had been treated even with greater severity; for to the Irish some concession had been made, for danger had extorted it. To the English Catholics no relief had been given, not an iota of concession had been made. The safety of England could not long continue, if nine-tenths of the population of Ireland were allowed to remain in the same state that they now were, oppressed and beaten down by the remaining one-tenth. The house had been told, that it was a LordLieutenant as rare almost as a black swan; and an Attorney-General still rarer, and whom some part of the cabinet thought a black sheep, (hear, hear) who had excited all the fermentations now existing in Ireland, by their endeavours to protect their fellow-countrymen from the wrongs under which they had groaned for so many years. To those who use such language to the house, he would reply, that the

fermentation thus excited would not subside so long as the country was governed by an administration of nicely balanced equilibriuman administration which compromised all important public questions (hear) an administration which exposed Ireland to the greatest dangers, by rejecting the claims of nine-tenths of her inhabitants, at the same time that their justice was admitted by those members of it whose talents and abilities gave them the greatest influence with the public (hear), an administration which would be broken up the first moment that the question of Catholic Emancipation was once fairly brought forward by an individual member of it. (Hear.) It appeared that all considerations were minor to that of preserving an equilibri-um in the cabinet; and that the balance of power there was most anxionsly regarded, tho' the balance of power in Europe was entirely lost sight of. (Hear, hear.) Under an administration composed of such discordant materials, it was quite impossible that the country should ever flourish; for tho' there was vigour enough in the country to enable it to struggle through all the difficulties in which it was at present involved; still the imbecility, the blindness, and positive impotence of the existing administration to attempt, much less to execute, any act of generous and manly policy, (hear, hear) if they could not ruin, nevertheless deprived the nation of all the advantage which it would otherwise derive from its great energies, mental, physical and bodily, (hear, hear) clouded all the prospects which the talents and abilities of its inhabitants opened to themselves, and rendered inefficient all its capacities for wealth, power, and happiness, tho' they were superior to those which any other nation had ever possessed. (Great cheering.) Having taken this opportunity to protest against this annually repeated farce (hear), he should now proceed to justify the course which he intended to take that evening by the opinion of a right hon. gentleman, delivered in a tone of eloquence with which he would not pretend to vie, which was far beyond the reach of any humble powers that he possessed, and which, when exercised on a question like the present, was even dangerous on account of the truths which it told, and the injustice which it exposed to public notoriety. He would take the liberty of reading that opinion before he withdrew himself from the discussion of that evening; a discussion which no minister ought to propose to parliament, unless he intended to stake his place on the issue of it, and to say: "Here is a motion, which, if not carried, will be pregnant with the utmost danger to the state, because the ability with which it will be treated, and the eloquence with which the injuries of an oppressed nation will be depicted, cannot fail to produce an excitement, which can receive no mitigation from the arguments of its opponents, since no answer can be given to the case which will be made out, save that which rests on vague fears and groundless apprehensions." (Hear, hear.) The opinion to which he alluded was contained in a speech that was delivered in that house on the Catholic Question by a right hon. gentleman, on Feb. 25, 1813. He had often heard that right hon. gentleman address the house with great power and effect; but he had never heard him address it with greater power and effect than he had

employed upon that occasion. He begged the attention of the house to the words which the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Plunkett) had then employed. They were as follow:-" But how can any honest mind be reconciled to the ambiguity in which the cabinet has conceal ed itself from public view, on this great national question? (hear, hear, from the Opposition); or with what justice can they complain of the madness, which grows out of this fever of their own creating? (Great cries of hear.') This is not one of those questions which may be left to time and chance; the exclusion of these millions from the rights of citizenship is either a flagrant injustice, or its necessity springs out of the sacred fountains of the constitution. This is no subject of compromise. (Great cries of hear' again repeated from the Opposition benches.) Either the claim is forbidden by some imperious principle too sacred to be tampered with, or it is enjoined by a law of reason and justice, which it is oppression to resist. In ordinary cases, it sounds well to say that a question is left to the uubiassed sense of parliament and people, (cheering and laughter); but that a measure of vital importance, and which has been again and again discussed by all his Majesty's ministers, should be left to work. its own course, and suffered to drift along the tide of parliamentary or popular opinion, seems difficult to understand: that Government should be mere spectators of such a process, is novel; but when it is known that they have all considered deeply, and formed their opini ons decidedly, in direct opposition to each other, (bear, hear); that after this they should consult in the same cabinet, (great cheering by the Opposition) and sit on the same bench, (loud cheering for some minutes from the same quarter) professing a decided opinion in point of theory, and a strict neutrality in point of practice; that on this most angry of all questions, they should suffer the population of the country to be committed in mutual hostility, and convulsed with inutual rancour, aggravated by the uncertainty of the event; producing on the one side all the fury of disappointed hope, on the other side malignity and hatred, from the apprehension that the measure may be carried, and insolence, from every circumstance, publie or private, which tends to disappoint or postpone it; one half of the King's Ministers encouraging them to seek, without enabling them to obtain (cheers), the other half subdivided; some holding out an ambiguous hope, others announcing a never ending despair. (Hear, hear.) I ask, is this a state in which the Government of the country has a right to leave it? (Hear, hear.) Some masterpiece of imperial policy must be unfolded, some deep and sacred principle of empire, something far removed from the suspicion of unworthy compromise of principle for power, (hear, hear) to reconcile the feelings of the intelligent public, or to uphold a rational confidence in the honesty (hear, hear) or seriousness of the Government. (Hear, hear.) The consequences of such a conduct are disastrous, not merely in the tumult and discord which they are calculated to excite, but in their effect upon the character of the Government and the times." (Hear, hear.)The hon. bart. after reading this extract, sat down amidst loud and long continued cheering.