e, 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'