a ■ 36, • r THE NATIONAL Pithritt) Ark. 'Pt itosital AT No. SUND Ay, POLITICAL I)ISQi rISITION. No. 176. IRISH CATHOLIC QUESTION. Many attempts have lately been made to-excite a degree of unfounded alarm respecting the state of Ireland. That it is highly critical no one can pretend to deny ; but that it is most alarming, is an assertion totally unjustifiable. It is critical, be cause it must shortly bring to an issue the legality of the Catholic proceedings and of the counter acting measures of Government. It is not alarm ing, 'because the parties engaged in the present cause are too enlightened, and have too great an interest irt the maintenance of order and tranq to carefully abstain from any act by which the har inony of the empire might beendangered. In for ' Iller cues, *hen differences nnfOrtunately prevailed • betw*en Great Britain and her sister island, the natuisa cantsmisau last. to dee l effnalon of 'human blood, and called for the force of arms and a trial of power. Hence sprung the horrors of the re bellion, and the necessary severities by which it was suppressed. A will populace, as violent as unen lightened, inflamed by the seditious arts of deceiv ers, who wore the none, but not the hearts of pa triots ; and led on by the vain cry of liberty, re echoed from a land of slaves, then formed • the antagonists of Government. With such, reason was a feather, and the sword the only argunient they knew. Their numbers, audacity, and despera tion, afforded just grounds for alarm, and required the instant and resistless exertion of a superior force to relieve Ireland from her self-inflicted misetiet. Then, indeed, when in several counties the stand; and of insurrection waved on every hill, and esfery vale poured forth banded rebels ; when the blood of the loyal was shed, and their habitations set in flames ; when towns were pillaged, and the h6if Of native traitors joined by foreign invadets ; then might the state of the country be represented Its awful, and events of the most calamitous nature be expected. But in the present Moment not only the causes of difference are totally altered, but the dif ferences themselves no longer exist between Great Britain and Ireland, but between the heady of a por tion of the Irish people and the whole United Em pire. For notwithstanding the misrepresentations of faction, which vainly attempts to prove Vol. IV. CXC. Our kin ganotituttoi, ant) U N°.190. PH TCE ~~ . REGISTER STRAFE!, NIAR TEMPLE BAR. -* • 15 . trary, it is a fact, that the lower, and by far the most numerous part of the Catholic population of I, eland, take no interest whatever in what is called Catholic Emancipation, whicb, even if fully carried into effect, would still be to them nothing more than a name. Such a measure would revive no right of which they are deprived. Before they could feel its consequences, 'a complete revolution must have taken place in their fortune, rank, habits, and education, which the lapie Of half an age would but partially operate. The still remaining [ilea pacities of the Catholics are so few, and relate to offices and situations of so elevated a na. tare, that none but the noble and wealthy can be aggrieved -at finding some bounds set to their ambition. • These, therefore, who with a Air' show of patriotism and public spirit cc/di nually descant on the pretended state of degra dation and political imbecility to which they re. *iesent the Catholics to be reduced, only act from the impulse of interested motives. Conscious of the indifference of the other classes of their persua sion to the object they long so fervently to attain, they exert every means in their power to inspire them with an equally glowing unanimity of feeling. For this purpose they call frequent meetings; itt which their disabilities are magnified, and supposed grievances inveighed•against, with all the fervour of patty zeal, mistaken for the enthusiasm of pa. .triotism. In all their speeches, they artfully en deavour to spread, or create the belief that all classes of Catholics are equally interested in the success of the measure for which they "contend. Nay, in order to impose still more effectually upon the people, they mimic the sacred forms of our Constitution. Self-invested with an authority hi therto acknowledged by no law, and which they seem determined to , exalt above all rule, they con fer elective franchise on their fellow believers, and by making them elect representatives, under the name of delegates, give them a new political exist. ence formerly unknown in the State, and under the appellation of A Committee, create, in fact, an ltish Catholic Parliament. This monstrous innovation, they pretend to justify by specifying that this blouse of Representives, will dedicate its sittings t' "04tTyl one kind of business, the consideration of a - petitio# to be niesented to the Protestant Pa liarrlfffit of 13 . ut can a restriction on the pi oceed- the pf,*l ~ iii . .'/. i-•' . : ,- ; . ..... 11 ' . . ii'. .