FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130  
131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   >>   >|  
from superfluous blood and perilous affection, was, after much difficulty, restored to life. There is an argument brought forward with some appearance of plausibility in the House of Commons, which certainly merits an answer: You know that the Catholics now vote for members of parliament in Ireland, and that they outnumber the Protestants in a very great proportion; if you allow Catholics to sit in parliament, religion will be found to influence votes more than property, and the greater part of the 100 Irish members who are returned to parliament will be Catholics. Add to these the Catholic members who are returned in England, and you will have a phalanx of heretical strength which every minister will be compelled to respect, and occasionally to conciliate by concessions incompatible with the interests of the Protestant Church. The fact is, however, that you are at this moment subjected to every danger of this kind which you can possibly apprehend hereafter. If the spiritual interests of the voters are more powerful than their temporal interests, they can bind down their representatives to support any measures favourable to the Catholic religion, and they can change the objects of their choice till they have found Protestant members (as they easily may do) perfectly obedient to their wishes. If the superior possessions of the Protestants prevent the Catholics from uniting for a common political object, then danger you fear cannot exist: if zeal, on the contrary, gets the better of acres, then the danger at present exists, from the right of voting already given to the Catholics, and it will not be increased by allowing them to sit in parliament. There are, as nearly as I can recollect, thirty seats in Ireland for cities and counties, where the Protestants are the most numerous, and where the members returned must of course be Protestants. In the other seventy representations the wealth of the Protestants is opposed to the number of the Catholics; and if all the seventy members returned were of the Catholic persuasion, they must still plot the destruction of our religion in the midst of 588 Protestants. Such terrors would disgrace a cook-maid, or a toothless aunt--when they fall from the lips of bearded and senatorial men, they are nauseous, antiperistaltic, and emetical. How can you for a moment doubt of the rapid effects which would be produced by the emancipation? In the first place, to my certain knowledge the Ca
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130  
131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

members

 
Catholics
 

Protestants

 

returned

 

parliament

 

Catholic

 
religion
 
interests
 

danger

 

moment


Ireland

 

Protestant

 

seventy

 

numerous

 

cities

 
counties
 

thirty

 
common
 

voting

 

contrary


present

 

exists

 

increased

 
object
 

political

 

allowing

 

recollect

 

destruction

 
nauseous
 

antiperistaltic


emetical

 

senatorial

 
bearded
 

knowledge

 

effects

 

produced

 
emancipation
 
toothless
 

persuasion

 

number


opposed
 

representations

 

wealth

 

uniting

 

disgrace

 

terrors

 

voters

 
proportion
 

outnumber

 
influence