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Untitled Article
be easily suppressed and reduced within the bounds of order and dutiful obedience . And if any real weighty grievances are found actually to exist , it is the part of every equitable good government immediately and effectually to redress them . Of all the kinds of tyranny which men infatuated with power have thought of exer , citing over their fellow creatures , that which aims at enslaving the minds and opinions of their subjects is the most irrational irritating and impracticable . Yet every government which
deprives its subjects of all or any of their natural or civil rights , ' as men and citizens , on account of their religious tenets , really ' endeavours to establish that wild and detestable species of tyranny . Whether the Irish laws made by the Protestant part , that is by about one fifth part of the population of the country , in favour of themselves , have really dealt so oppressively with the Roman Catholics , ^ ho Compose the four- fi fths , your Lordship , who must be sup .
posed to have made yourself thoroughly acquainted with all the laws of that island , is without doubt , much better informed than I am . But if they have , and still remain unrepealed , no man , who has but superficially studied human nature can be at a loss to account for the discontent of those people , or for their long " confinued disposition to insurrection and rebellion . When the majority of the people of Scotland had adopted the religious tenets
01 Calvin , if instead of permitting the Presbyterian Kirk to be legally established there , and legal provision to be made for the maintenance of their religious ministers the Stuart Princes had been able to accomplish their favourite scheme of establishing Episcopacy in that northern peninsula of Great Britain , and had enacted laws against the Presbyterian majority similar to those which have been enacted in the neighbouring island against the large majority of the Papists ; does your Lordship think , that in such a case , the Scotch would have shewn themselves better satisfied , more patiently submissive , or less turbulent than their neighbours ? Or if under the present reign , the Roman Catholics of Canada , in *
stead of having all their natural and civil rights confirmed to them , even that of becoming members of the council of state ; ( heir religion legally established , and a proper provision secured by . law for their clergy of every order ; the same policy had been adopted towards them that has so long been practised upon their brethren of Ireland ; can any one believe that Canada would at this day have remained a dutiful ,, loyal province of the
British Km pi re ? To settle the constitution of that colony to the entire satisfaction of the inhabitants previous to the contest that was resolved upon with the other provinces of America was certainly prudent in the administration of that time . And why should not the same political prudence , ( I would rather call it cguitabte justice , ) be extended to so large a member as Ireland is , at least jSQ far as present circumstances will permit ? The sole purpose
Untitled Article
424 Letter of Mr . EvansorCs to Lord Bedesdale ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1807, page 424, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2383/page/28/
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