§ Mr. Grattan presented the following Petition:
§ The humble Petition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, whose names are hereunto subscribed, on behalf of themselves, and of others, his majesty's subjects professing the Roman Catholic religion:
490§ Sheweth; "That your Petitioners, as is set forth in their humble Petition, presented to this honourable house on the 25th of March 1805, are, by divers statutes, still of force within this realm, rendered liable to many incapacities and restrictions, not imposed upon any other description of his majesty's subjects: That your petitioners with confidence assert, and the assertion is supported by the testimony of many of the ablest senators and wisest statesmen which the empire could ever boast, that there is nothing in their conduct as subjects, or their tenets as Christians, which ought to disqualify them from enjoying equal privileges with his majesty's other subjects: and they beg leave to state, that they do not yield to any class of persons, in affectionate attachment to his sacred person and family, in due obedience to the laws, and in just predilection for the British Constitution:—That at the present period, which requires all the energies of the state, and the exertions of an united people, your petitioners conceive that they cannot offer a stronger proof of their loyalty, than by humbly representing to this honourable house their earnest wish to be altogether committed with their country, and reinstated in a full and complete enjoyment of the English government and laws:—For your Petitioners beg leave respectfully to submit to this honourable house, that the constitution of England is the great charter of this land, and inheritance of the dutiful and faithful subjects of his majesty. The constitution which the ancestors of some of us accepted, when they submitted to the crown, and on the faith of which the ancestors of others passed over, and effected their settlement in Ireland, was, that they should participate in the laws and liberties of England. Many concessions of his majesty's royal progenitors, and repeated acts of parliament confirmed the invaluable blessing; it has had the sanction of an establishment of six hundred years; whilst the privations, of which we complain, are but the innovation of a century; from that innovation we appeal in this enlightened age, to the wisdom and justice of those august bodies, in whose hands are the fate and fortunes of the Empire: we appeal against acts, repugnant to the sense and habits of Englishmen, and to the genius of the English constitution; against precedents, not entitled, from the circumstances in which they were formed, to be immortal. We were excluded from our franchises, when the tumult of civil 491 wars had scarcely been appeased; whilst the animosities they produced were recent; and at the close of the convulsions incidental to a widely extended revolution of property: we were excluded at a moment, when the settlement was precarious and new, upon which time and habit, the extinction of all other claims, common principles of obedience, and common interests, have now conferred all the validity of unquestioned and immutable establishment:—Your petitioners further beg leave to re cal to the attention of this honourable house, that we do not pay the penalty, neither is the blame imputed to us, of an innovating or capricious temper. We have not revolted from any institutions, which challenged our obedience. We have adhered to the tradition of our fathers, the immemorial usage of the land. We profess a religion compatible with the form of government under which we are placed; accommodated to the spirit, and dear to the feelings of the great and growing majority of our country; a religion which the existing incapacities do not seem calculated, and are probably not expected to suppress; for it has been deemed, in a considerable degree, to merit public encouragement and protection:—Your petitioners do then most humbly state, that they are excluded from many of the most important offices of trust, power, and emolument in their country; whereby they are degraded below the condition of their fellow subjects, even of the meanest class, and stigmatised as aliens and strangers in their native land:—That in the immediate effects of this exclusion, no less than four-fifths of the inhabitants of Ireland are involved, formed into a distinct people, and depressed in all their classes and gradation of rank, of opulence and industry; in every situation of life does this degrading inferiority exist, and its influence reaching to every profession, to even the peaceable pursuits of industry and commerce:—That the remote, but no less sensible consequences, extend to the remaining population of the land, distracting his majesty's people with disquietude and jealousy, and substituting an insiduous system of monopoly on the one hand, and privation on the other for the tried and established orders of society, and for the salutary practise and sound principles of the English Constitution:—And your Petitioners further humbly submit that from the prejudice generated and fostered by this discriminating system, the spirit of the laws outstripping 492 the letter, no degree of rank, virtue, or merit, can exempt an Irish Catholic from being considered an object of suspicion: and several of the most estimable privileges, and advantages of a free Government, to which they ought to consider themselves entitled, are rendered, with respect to them, inoperative:—In calling your attention to their situation, your Petitioners beg leave to assure this honourable house, that they are actuated more as Irishmen, than as Catholics; and less influenced by a partial interest, as a religious description, than by an interest truly public and national, intimately connected with the welfare of this country, and the prosperity of the whole Empire; your Petitioners being fully convinced, both from history and experience, that however religious distinctions may have supplied a pretext, a spirit of political monopoly has been the actuating principle of civil dissension, and of that unhappy national misunderstanding which has so long injured the character and lessened the value of this island:—For your Petitioners are strongly impressed with the conviction, that the continuance of the disqualifying laws is not only incompatible with the freedom and happiness of the great body of the Irish people, and detrimental to the resourses of the State; but as it is calculated to damp the ardour and divert the attention of the nation to partial interests and party dissensions, from measure of general security, may eventually prove injurious to the strength and stability of the Empire:—Your Petitioners, with a deep sense of gratitude, acknowledge that they are indebted to the wisdom and liberality of the parliament of Ireland, and to the paternal interposition of his Majesty, for the removal of many of the disabilities and incapacities under which they laboured; and they refer, with confidence in the justice of their cause, to the solemn and memorable declaration of the Irish legislature; "That from the uniform and peaceable behaviour of the Roman Catholics of Ireland for a long series of years, it appeared reasonable and expedient to relax the disabilities and incapacities under which they labour, and that it must tend not only to the cultivation and improvement of this kingdom, but to the prosperity and strength of all his majesty's dominions, that his majesty's subjects of all denominations should enjoy the blessings of a free constitution, and should be bound to each other by mutual 493 interest and mutual affection. And your Petitioners most solemnly declare, that they do not seek or wish in any way to injure or encroach upon the rights, privileges, possessions, or revenues, appertaining to the bishops and clergy of the Protestant Religion, as by law established, or to the churches committed to their charge, or to any of them; the extent of their humble supplication being, that they be governed by the same laws, and rendered capable of the same civil and military offices, franchises, rewards, and honours, as their fellow subjects of every other religious denomination:—May it therefore please this honourable house to take into its consideration the statutes, penal and restrictive, now affecting the Catholics of Ireland, and to admit them to the full enjoyment of those privileges which every Briton regards as his best inheritance; and which your Petitioners most humbly presume to seek, as the brethren of Englishmen and co-heirs of the Constitution; And your Petitioners will ever pray, &c."
§ Mr. Grattan gave notice that he would, on Wednesday, move for a Committee to take the said Petition into consideration.
§ Mr. Montagu Matthew then presented another Petition to the same effect, from the Catholics of the county of Tipperary, which was also ordered to lie on the table.