§ Petitions against the Catholic Claims were presented from the archdeacon, clergy, and laity, of the archdeaconry of Colchester, the archdeacon and clergy of Essex, the archdeacon and clergy of St. Albans, and the dean and chapter, archdeacon and clergy of the diocese of Worcester by the bishop of London; from the corporation of Chichester by the bishop of Chichester, and from the corporation of Ripon by the earl of Hare wood.
The Duke of Leinsterspoke to the following effect:—I do not rise to oppose the Petitions lying on the table; but I am anxious to seize the first opportunity, lest I should be prevented attending the main question, of expressing my firm conviction of the justice and expediency of admitting our Roman Catholic fellow subjects to all the benefits of the British constitution. I am at a loss to discover what possible interest these petitioners can have, in excluding the great body of my countrymen from all share in the government. I am sure your lordships and the country have a great interest in giving them the same motives of attachment that Englishmen have. Give them these, and they will not only be loyal subjects, but an attached and grateful people. I live among them, and I am anxious to bear my testimony to their deserving the full enjoyment of those privileges, to which, as subjects of this great and free country, they are entitled by their birth.
§ A Petition to the same effect from the corporation and some of the inhabitants of 499 Guildford was presented by lord Walsingham.
The Duke of Norfolkobserved upon an expression in the Petition, setting forth that the Catholics had repeatedly claimed "the right of enjoying political power," that his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects never had laid claim to political power, but only to the eligibility of attaining it if their merits should be found deserving of it. He could not, therefore, let such an unfounded assertion in the Petition pass without contradicting it.
§ The Petition was ordered to lie on the table.