Sir F. Burdettsaid, he rose to present a petition, which differed from the last in most of the particulars. It contained no painful references to those sad scenes of anguish and woe which went before, which accompanied, and which followed, the rebellion in, Ireland. It was couched in terms so appropriate; it stated views so accurate; it contained sentiments so correct and. just; that he had no hesitation in saying that the duty of offering it to the consideration of the House was as highly gratifying to him, as the putting it forward was creditable to the petitioners. The petition was signed by a number of gentlemen forming themselves into a Catholic association in Dublin; and they met for the just and laudable purpose, of instituting measures for recovering, by fair, legal, and constitutional means, rights which had, in. his opinion, been only too long and unjustly withheld from the people of that, country. The petitioners complained, that they had been most grossly misrepresented—if not in the speeches of some gentlemen in parliament, at least in those channels which were known generally to convey accurate information to the country of what passed within the walls. And though the petitioners would not pretend to any knowledge of what actually passed in the House, they complained that the representations of it tended in this instance, to injure their characters and feelings, and, what was of more importance to them, those interests of Ireland which it was their chief object to promote. The petitioners greatly desired to partici- 1439 pate in those advantages which the constitution undoubtedly held out to all who were within its protection; and they alleged, that no portion of the community had ever displayed a more firm, unfeigned, disinterested, and persevering loyalty, than had the Catholics of Ireland to the Crown of England. Nothing, on the other hand, could be more unjust, as nothing could be more undeserved, than to charge the Irish Catholics with any deficiency of loyalty; and this charge ought to be received with the more jealousy from parties whose loyalty was interested, and who wished to monopolize to their own advantage all the powers of the state, and to have at their command all the emoluments of government. It was a species of loyalty, which, to say the least, came before their view in a very questionable shape. The party to which the petitioners alluded, and to which, as the Dublin Catholic Association, they were opposed, was that which collected its forces under the name of Orange Societies; and the members of which societies had the confidence to complain to parliament of the Catholic Association; those members who assembled by secret means—whose ties of anion were not revealed to the world'—who used secrecy and hidden symbols—who had refused to make known their signs when called upon by the House—who had, in the person of their champion, baffled and defeated the power and functions of the House, and set it at defiance, and in a measure carried a victory over some part of its privileges—whose institution and purposes were declared by high authority to be illegal—who confessed themselves bound by secret, and therefore illegal, oaths—the members of such an institution—so the petitioners allege—had the confidence to complain to that House of the Catholic Association, which met in the eye of day, every thing being publicly proclaimed—their proceedings not connived at merely, but clearly warranted by law—the object most constitutional—the means resorted to no less constitutional; their end and aim being to recover their civil rights, and to prevent the evils which were likely to ensue from a continued denial of those rights to a brave and generous people. He would not term such conduct bigotry; it did not deserve the name, unworthy as it was; but still more worthy than the real motives which, in his opinion, actuated the parties against whom the petition complained, and who thus sought to colour 1440 over and varnish their purposes with this contemptible pretence, only exceeded in degradation by that which really influenced them, but which they dared not to acknowledge. These gentlemen had met together in Dublin, and formed themselves into an association, for the laudable purpose of directing the attention of their countrymen to constitutional and peaceable modes of obtaining redress—to keep their minds under a course of unmerited suffering and privation from absolute despair, and by fixing their hopes firm on; the constitution and the laws, to preserve themselves from wandering into what had been eloquently termed "the wilderness of natural rights." This was the unhappy condition of Ireland—a condition, which, in the present enlightened state of this country, could not much longer remain as it was; and, whenever the parliament should take the subject in hand, they would have to regret that they had not made just concessions at an earlier period, when fewer of them would have satisfied the Catholics, and when they might have been granted with far less embarrassment to the government.
§ Ordered to be printed.