them for the support of Russo-Austrian despotism
they charge me that I am no friend of Ireland.

I. As to the Catholic religion--I indeed am a Protestant, not only by
birth, but also by conviction; and warmly penetrated by this conviction,
I would delight to see the same shared by the whole world. But before
all, I am mortally opposed to intolerance and to sectarism. I consider
religion to be a matter of conscience which every man has to arrange
between God and himself. And therefore I respect the religious
conviction of every man. I claim religious liberty for myself and my
nation, and must of course respect in others the right I claim for
myself. There is nothing in the world capable to rouse a greater
indignation in my breast than religious oppression. But particularly I
respect the Catholic religion, as the religion of some seven millions of
my countrymen, to whom I am bound in love, in friendship, in home
recollections, in gratitude, and in brotherhood, with the most sacred
ties. And I am proud to say, that as in general it is a pre-eminent
glory of my country, to be attached to the principle of full religious
liberty without any restriction, for all to all, so it is the particular
glory of my Roman Catholic countrymen not to be second to any in the
world, on the one side in attachment to their own religion, and on the
other side in toleration for other religions.

The Austrian dynasty having been continually encroaching upon the
chartered right of Protestantism, who were those who struggled in the
first rank for our rights? Our Roman Catholic countrymen! It was a
glorious sight, almost unparalleled in history, but was also fully
appreciated by the Hungarian Protestants. All of us, man by man, would
rather sacrifice life, and blood, and goods, than to allow that a hair's
breadth should be crushed from the religious liberty of our Roman
Catholic countrymen.

Now, what position took the Roman Catholics of Hungary in our past
struggle? There was not only no difference between them and the
Protestants in their devotion for our country's freedom and
independence, but they, according to the importance of their number,
took in the struggle a very pre-eminent part. The Roman Catholic Bishops
of Hungary protested against the perjurious treachery of the dynasty;
many of them suffer even now for their devotion to justice, liberty, and
right; and who is the Jesuit who dares to affirm that he is more devoted
to the Catholic