of Catholic Emancipation."

On his arrival at Kew, he desired Garth to read the Coronation Oath, and
then followed the exclamation,--"Where is that power on earth to absolve
me from the due observance of every sentence of that oath, particularly
the one requiring me to maintain the Protestant religion? Was not my
family seated on the throne for that express purpose? And shall I be the
first to suffer it to be undermined, perhaps overturned? No. I had
rather beg my bread from door to door throughout Europe, than consent to
any such measure."

This was the language of an honest man, and it was also the language of
a wise one. What has the introduction of Papists into parliament
occasioned to England, but political confusion? What benefit has it
produced to Ireland? No country in the wildest portion of the earth has
exhibited a more lamentable picture of insubordination, dissension, and
public misery. The peasantry gradually sinking into the most abject
poverty; the gentry living on loans; the laws set at defiance; the
demand for rents answered by assassination; a fierce faction existing in
the bowels of the land, as if for the express purpose of inflaming every
passion of an ignorant people into frenzy, and deepening every
visitation of nature into national ruin. At this moment, England is
paying for the daily food of two millions of people; employing seven
hundred thousand labourers, simply to keep them alive; and burthening
the most heavily-taxed industry in the world with millions of pounds
more, for the sole object of rescuing Ireland from the last extremities
of famine.

We take our leave of this most distressing subject, by the obvious
remark, that Pitt and the politicians, in treating popery as a political
object, have all alike overlooked the true nature of the question.
Popery is a _religion_, and if that religion be _false_, no crime can be
greater in the sight of Heaven, nor more sure to bring evil on man, than
to give it any assistance in its temptations, progress, or power, by any
means whatever. To propagate a false religion is to declare war against
the Divine will, and in that warfare suffering must follow. But what
Protestant can have a doubt upon the subject? England may regard
herself as signally fortunate, if the just penalty of her weakness is
already paid.

Mr Addington's Ministry began auspiciously, with the peace of Amiens.
The world was weary of war. France had just learned the power of the
B