"I have lived a little in the world, but I never happened to hear a single Catholic even suspected of getting into office by violating his oath; the oath which they are accused of violating is an insuperable barrier to them all. Is there a more disgraceful spectacle in the world than that of the Duke of Norfolk hovering round the House of Lords in the execution of his office,[89] which he cannot enter as a peer of the realm? disgraceful to the bigotry and injustice of his country—to his own sense of duty, honourable in the extreme: he is the leader of a band of ancient and high-principled gentlemen, who submit patiently to obscurity and privation rather than do violence to their conscience. In all the fury of party, I never heard the name of a single Catholic mentioned, who was suspected of having gained, or aimed at, any political advantage, by violating his oath. I have never heard so bitter a slander supported by the slightest proof. Every man in the circle of his acquaintance has met with Catholics, and lived with them probably as companions. If this immoral lubricity were their characteristic, it would surely be perceived in common life. Every man's experience would corroborate the imputation; but I can honestly say that some of the best and most excellent men I have ever met with have been Catholics; perfectly alive to the evil and inconvenience of their situation, but thinking themselves bound by the law of God and the law of honour, not to avoid persecution by falsehood and apostasy. I remember hearing the Catholics accused from the Hustings of disregarding oaths, and within an hour of that time I saw five Catholic voters rejected, because they would not take the oath of Supremacy; and these were not men of rank who tendered themselves, but ordinary tradesmen. The accusation was received with loud huzzas, the poor Catholics retired unobserved and in silence. No one praised the conscientious feeling of the constituents; no one rebuked the calumny of the candidate.
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"I beg to remind you, that in talking of the Catholic religion, you must talk of the Catholic religion as it is carried on in Ireland; you have nothing to do with Spain, or France, or Italy: the religion you are to examine is the Irish Catholic religion. You are not to consider what it was, but what it is; not what individuals profess, but what is generally professed; not what individuals do, but what is generally practised. I constantly see, in advertisements from county meetings, all these species of monstrous injustice played off against the Catholics. The Inquisition exists in Spain and Portugal, therefore I confound place, and vote against the Catholics of Ireland, where it never did exist, nor was purposed to be instituted. There have been many cruel persecutions of Protestants by Catholic governments; and, therefore, I will confound time and place, and vote against the Irish, who live centuries after these persecutions, and in a totally different country. Doctor this, or Doctor that, of the Catholic Church has written a very violent and absurd pamphlet; therefore I will confound persons, and vote against the whole Irish Catholic Church, which has neither sanctioned nor expressed any such opinions. I will continue the incapacities of men of this age, because some men, in distant ages, deserved ill of other men in distant ages. They shall expiate the crimes committed, before they were born, in a land they never saw; by individuals they never heard of. I will charge them with every act of folly which they have never sanctioned and cannot control. I will sacrifice space, time, and identity, to my zeal for the Protestant Church. Now, in the midst of all this violence, consider, for a moment, how you are imposed on by words, and what a serious violation of the rights of your fellow-creatures you are committing. Mr. Murphy lives in Limerick, and Mr. Murphy and his son are subjected to a thousand inconveniences and disadvantages because they are Catholics. Murphy is a wealthy, honourable, excellent man; he ought to be in the corporation; he cannot get in because he is a Catholic. His son ought to be King's Counsel for his talents, and his standing at the Bar; he is prevented from reaching this dignity, because he is a Catholic. Why, what reasons do you hear for all this? Because Queen Mary, three hundred years before the natal day of Mr. Murphy, murdered Protestants in Smithfield; because Louis XIV. dragooned his Protestant subjects, when the predecessor of Murphy's predecessor was not in being; because men are confined in prison, in Madrid, twelve degrees more south than Murphy has ever been in his life; all ages, all climates, are ransacked to perpetuate the slavery of Murphy, the ill-fated victim of political anachronisms.
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"When are mercy and justice, in fact, ever to return upon the earth, if the sins of the elders are to be for ever visited on those who are not even their children! Should the first act of liberated Greece be to recommence the Trojan war? Are the French never to forget the Sicilian Vespers; or the Americans the long war waged against their liberties? Is any rule wise, which may set the Irish to recollect what they have suffered?
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"It is no part of my province to defend every error of the Catholic Church; I believe it has many errors, though I am sure these errors are grievously exaggerated and misrepresented…. But, if you will take a long view instead of a confined view, and look generally to the increase of human happiness, the best check upon the increase of Popery, the best security for the establishment of the Protestant Church is, that the British empire shall be preserved in a state of the greatest strength, union, and opulence. My cry then is, No Popery; therefore emancipate the Catholics, that they may not join with foreign Papists in time of war. Church, for ever; therefore emancipate the Catholics, that they may not help to pull it down. King for ever; therefore emancipate the Catholics, that they may become his loyal subjects. Great Britain for ever; therefore emancipate the Catholics, that they may not put an end to its perpetuity. Our Government is essentially Protestant; therefore, by emancipating the Catholics, give up a few circumstances which have nothing to do with the essence. The Catholics are disguised enemies; therefore, by emancipation, turn them into open friends. They have a double allegiance; therefore, by emancipation, make their allegiance to their King so grateful, that they will never confound it with the spiritual allegiance to their Pope. It is very difficult for electors, who are much occupied by other matters, to choose the right path amid the rage and fury of faction: but I give you one mark, vote for a free altar; give what the law compels you to give to the Establishment; (that done,) no chains, no prisons, no bonfires for a man's faith; and, above all, no modern chains and prisons under the names of disqualifications and incapacities, which are only the cruelty and tyranny of a more civilized age; civil offices open to all, a Catholic or a Protestant alderman, a Moravian or a Church of England or a Wesleyan justice, no oppression, no tyranny in belief: a free altar, an open road to heaven; no human insolence, no human narrowness, hallowed by the name of God.
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"Our Government is called essentially Protestant; but, if it be essentially Protestant in the distribution of office, it should be essentially Protestant in the imposition of taxes. The Treasury is open to all religions, Parliament only to one. The tax-gatherer is the most indulgent and liberal of human beings; he excludes no creed, imposes no articles; but counts Catholic cash, pockets Protestant paper, and is candidly and impartially oppressive to every description of the Christian world. Can anything be more base than when you want the blood or the money of Catholics, to forget that they are Catholics, and to remember only that they are British subjects; and, when they ask for the benefits of the British Constitution, to remember only that they are Catholics, and to forget that they are British subjects?
"No Popery was the cry of the great English Revolution, because the increase and prevalence of Popery in England would, at that period, have rendered this island tributary to France. The Irish Catholics were, at that period, broken to pieces by the severity and military execution of Cromwell, and by the Penal Laws. They are since become a great and formidable people. The same dread of foreign influence makes it now necessary that they should be restored to political rights. Must the friends of rational liberty join in a clamour against the Catholics now, because, in a very different state of the world, they excited that clamour a hundred years ago? I remember a house near Battersea Bridge which caught fire, and there was a great cry of 'Water, water!' Ten years after, the Thames rose, and the people of the house were nearly drowned. Would it not have been rather singular to have said to the inhabitants—'I heard you calling for water ten years ago; why don't you call for it now?'"