§ Mr. Abercrombypresented a petition from the Catholics of Abbeyside, in favour of Catholic Emancipation. The hon. member took that opportunity of expressing his regret at the resolution which the House had lately come to on this subject. The news of that vote had created the greatest dismay in Ireland, and had altogether disheartened the friends to the tranquillity of that- unhappy country; because it precluded them from any longer holding out the hope that the period would ever arrive when the British parliament would consent to do justice to the ill-treated population of Ireland. This unhappy event had occurred at a peculiarly unfortunate time; when Ireland was in a state of the greatest distress; when the little employment which her poor had ever had was considerably diminished; when the horrors of famine stared a large part of the population in the face; when the events of the late election had not only, as had been stated in that House, broken the connexion between landlord and tenant in Ireland, but had shaken the, connexion between the two countries to the very centre. At such a moment, to divest the friends of England of power, and to place that power in the hands of those who cherished no attachment to us, was most alarming. By their late decision, the English parliament had caused the question of the Union to be re-opened, and re-discussed, under circumstances of the most unfavourable nature. What the result might be it was impossible to foresee. For himself, he owned, that he should rejoice if even the present session of parliament were to pass without the 1259 state of Ireland being forced upon the consideration of parliament under circumstances which, while they would be painful to the minority, would be most discreditable to the majority in the late decision.