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the Catholic aristocracy , as they ar < p called , since the Penal Laws \ verb relaxed , have gradually withdrawn themselves from the people ; they have shewn on some occasions an overweening anxiety for
emancipation , at the expense of what the priesthood and the other classes deemed the interests , if not the principles , of their religion ; hence they are looked on with suspicion , and can no loader wield the public mind . The men who have purchased properties in land , who have lent their money ,
acquired by industry , on mortgages ; those who are engaged in -commercei or in the liberal professions , are , with a few silly exceptions , on the side of the people . These are men of literature or of trade ; and therefore , if
history and experience can be credited , they are bold , ambitious , fond of justice and of freedom : from such men the Government , should it persist in its present course , has only to expect defiance or open hostility . ' *
. Such is the view which this , country must present to the eye of a British Statesman ; and when he turns from it and says he knows hot what to do ^ he professes his incompetency to guide the public councils . ^ < ;
In such a state of things it behoves Parliament to apply to itself what the Roman Senate used to say to the Consul or Dictator in times of peril s Curet , ne qvid respublica detrimenti patiatur ; and I have little doubt , if your sentiments , were adopted by it , but that Ireland could be tranquillized , the union of the countries cemented ,
peace and prosperity diffused , and the empire rendered invulnerable . These results cannot be attained by Catholic Emancipation alone , still less by those futile measures which are now in progress . If the mind of the
nation be not well-directed , and the public will made to co-operate with the Legislature , the disease may be repressed or shifted , but no renovating principle of health will be infused into the frame of societv .
Catholic emancipation will not remedy the evils of the tithe system ; it will not allay the fervour of religious zeal—the perpetual clashing of two churches , one elevated , the other fallen , poth high-minded , perhaps intolerant ; it will n 6 t check the rancorous animosities with which different sects as-
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sail each other ; it will not remove all suspicion of partiality in the government , were Antoainus himself the
Viceroy ; it will not create that sympathy between the different orders in the state which is ever mainly dependant on religion , nor produce that unlimited confidence between man and
man which is the strongest foundation on which public welfare can repose , as well as the most certain pledge of a nation ' s prosperity . Withal , Catholic emancipation is a great public
measure , and of itself not only would effect much , but open a passage tQ ulterior measures , which a provident Legislature could without difficulty effect .
The union of the Churches , however , which you have had the singular merit of suggesting to the Commons of the United Kingdom , would
together and at once effect a total change in the dispositions of men ; it would bring all classes to co-operate i zealously in promoting the prosperity of Ireland , and in securing her allegiance for ever to the British Throne . The
question of- emancipation would be swallowed up in the great inquiry , how Ireland ¦) could be enriched and strengthened ; and in place of the Prime Minister devising arguments to screen an odious oppression , and reconcile an Insurrection Act of five
and twenty years * duration , with the Habeas Corpus Act and Magna Charta , we would find him receiving the plaudits of the Senate , the thanks of his Sovereign ^ and the blessings of millions , for the favours which he could so easily dispense . - This union , on which so much
depends , is not , as you have justly observed , so difficult as it appears to many ; and the present time is peculiarly well calculated for attempting , at least , to carry it into effect . It is not difficult ; for in the discussions which were held , and the
correspondence which occurred on this subject early ia the last century , as wgll that in which Archbishop Tillb ^ bn was engaged , as the others which were carried on between
Bossuet and : beibnitz , it appeared that the points of agreement between the Churches were numerous , those on which the parties hesitated few , and apparently not the most important . The effort ; which was then made , wu *
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Letter from Dr » Doyle , on the State of Ireland and the Irish Church . 387
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1824, page 387, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2526/page/3/
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