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bid they eve * sWsmid eease to feel , the disadvantage of their exclusion from the privileges of their Protestant countrymen , and which they would not experience if they lived under any other Protestant Government . Having said thus
much , he did not think it expedient to do more than to move that the petition be laid on the table ; but he still felt it to be a duty he owed to the petitioners to observe , that , indulgent as he knew the House , and even those of their Lordships who were hostile to the claims of the
Catholics , would always be to any language which might be employed by persons in pursuit of rights of which they conceived themselves to be unjustly deprived , and which , their Lordships would admit proceeded from uo improper or
dishonourable motive ; yet he was happy to say , that in perusing this petition he had found nothing in it which would require the kind of indulgence to which he had alluded — nothing which was unworthy of the petitioners , and nothing which could call for the animadversion
of their Lordships . He was also happy to have the opportunity of stating , that the petitioners had , with great propriety , abstained from any thing like polemical discussion . They had introduced into their petition none of those theological questions which , however proper in the pulpit , or in learned dissertations from
the press , he never wished to see agitated within the walls of that House . They had , with great propriety , corifiued themselves to answering the allegation that they were unfit to enjoy the same
privileges as the other subjects of his Majesty . He meant the allegation that they could not give an undivided allegiance . This incapacity they solemnly disclaimed . To the pledge thus given , he trusted -their Lordships would pay that attention which it deserved at their hands . He would not
trespass farther op their Lordships' time , than to say , that he concurred in the sentiments expressed hy the petitioners , and to express his hope that a period would soon arrive when those sentiments would be more generally adopted by that 1-Jouse . The question was one , the consideration of which could not be avoided , for he was sure it would force itself
again on that House until justice was done to the claims of the petitioners . The petition was read and laid on the table . The Noble Marquis then rose and presented another petition from a great number of the principal Protestapts of Ireland in favour of the Catholic claims . Among the names attached to it were
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those of the Ddke of Leinsfer , the Mar- > quis of \ Downshire , the Earl of Portarlington , and many othep noblemen and great landed proprietors . Their
Lordships , in receiving this petition , would hear from those distinguished persons , in their own words , how deeply they considered themselves and their property to be affected by the existence of those ) laws which excluded their Catholic
fellow-subjects from the participation of the privileges which they themselves enjoyed . Earl Grey had to call their Lordships * attention to a petition from the same body as that with which the first petition presented by his Noble Friend originated , and which could not have been intrusted
to the care of a more zealous and able advocate . His Noble Friend had that day shewn that his zeal for the cause which he espoused was tempered by the soundest discretion , in refraining from doing any thing more than to make the usual motion for laying the petition on the table . It was his intention to follow the
same course as that which had been adopted by his Noble Friend—^ namely , to require of their Lordships nothing more than to permit this petition to be laid on their table ; bus in doing this he also wished , in common with his Noble Friend , to express his opinion that civil disqualification on religious grouuds , if
not founded on a paramount public necessity , could not be maintained on any princi ple of policy or justice ; and that upon the accomplishment of the object of the petitioners , the peace and prosperity of Ireland , and therewith the security
and power of the British empire , depended . But , concurring as he did with his Noble Friend that it would at present be inexpedient to trouble their Lordships by calling their immediate attention to these topics , he must state , with his Noble
rneua , that this question was or such a nature , so vitally connected with the interests of the nation , that it must , to use his words , force itself' again and again on their consideration . He , therefore , looked forward with an anxious hope to » a time , and that not distant ,
when , unaer his auspices , tms question would be taken up and pursued to a successful issue . Having said thus much , it was now his duty to advert to the partiT cular object of the petition which he had
the honour to present to their Lordships . The petitioners expressed their deep sense of tjie injury they suffered from the disqualifications under which tjiey laboured on account of their religions opinions . They stated that they had endeavoured
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Intelligence . —Parliamentary : M&h Catholic Petitions . 254
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1826, page 251, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2547/page/63/
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