When you cast your eye on the statute book, you | under excellent orders and regulations, and under will see that no catholick, even in the ferocious the government of a very prudent and learned acts of Queen Anne, was disabled from voting on man (the late Dr. KELLY). This college was account of his religion. The only conditions re- possessed of an annual fixed revenue of more than quired for that privilege, were the oaths of allegi- a thousand pounds a year; the greatest part of ance and abjuration-both oaths relative to a civil | which had arisen from the legacies and benefacconcern. Parliament has since added another tions of persons educated in that college, and ath of the same kind: and yet a house of comm- who had obtained promotions in France, from nons adding to the securities of government, in the emolument of which promotions they made proportion as its danger is confessedly lessened, this grateful return. One in particular I rememand professing both confidence and indulgence, in ber, to the amount of ten thousand livres, annuffect takes away the privilege left by an act full ally, as it is recorded on the donor's monument in f jealousy, and professing persecution. their chapel.

Roman catholick clergymen. He certainly meant it well; but, coming from such a man as he is, it is a strong instance of the danger of suffering any description of men to fall into entire contemptThe charities intended for them are not peceived to be fresh insults; and the true nature of their wants and necessities being unknown, remedies, wholly unsuitable to the nature of their complaint, are provided for them. It is to feed a sick Gentoo with beef broth, and to foment his wounds with brandy. If the other parts of the university were open to them, as well on the foundation as otherwise, the offering of sizerships would be a proportioned part of a general kindness. But when every thing liberal is withheld, and only that which is servile is permitted, it is easy to conceive upon what footing they must be in such a place.

Mr. Hutchinson must well know the regard and honour I have for him; and he cannot think my dissenting from him in this particular arises from a disregard of his opinion: it only shews that I think he has lived in Ireland. To have any respect for the character and person of a popish priest there-oh! 'tis an uphill work indeed. But until we come to respect what stands in a respectable light with others, we are very deficient in the temper which qualifies us to make any laws and regulations about them. It even disqualifies us from being charitable to them with any effect or judgment.

:

When we are to provide for the education of any body of men, we ought seriously to consider the particular functions they are to perform in life. A Roman catholick clergyman is the minister of a very ritual religion and by his profession subject to many restraints. His life is a life full of strict observances, and his duties are of a laborious nature towards himself, and of the highest possible trust towards others. The duty of confession alone is sufficient to set in the strongest light the necessity of his having an appropriated mode of education. The theological opinions and peculiar rights of one religion never can be properly taught in universities, founded for the purposes and on the principles of another, which in many points are directly opposite. If a Roman catholick clergyman, intended for celibacy, and the function of confession, is not strictly bred in a seminary where these things are respected, inculcated, and enforced, as sacred, and not made the subject of derision and obloquy, he will be ill fitted for the former, and the latter will be indeed in his hands a terrible instrument.

civility always call them hieromonachi. In c sequence of this disrespect, which I venture t say, in such a church, must be the consequence c a secular life, a very great degeneracy from repe table christian manners has taken place throug out almost the whole of that great member of the Christian Church.

It was so with the Latin church, before the straint on marriage. Even that restraint gave to the greatest disorders before the council Trent, which, together with the emulation re and the good examples given, by the refor churches, wherever they were in view of ex other, has brought on that happy amend which we see in the Latin communion, both home and abroad.

The council of Trent has wisely introduced discipline of seminaries, by which priests are a trusted for a clerical institution, even to the sese discipline of their colleges; but, after they through them, are frequently, if not for the gre part, obliged to pass through peculiar met having their particular ritual function in view. is in a great measure to this, and to similar thods used in foreign education, that the R catholick clergy of Ireland, miserably prov for, living among low and ill regulated pen, without any discipline of sufficient force to good manners, have been prevented from bec ing an intolerable nuisance to the country, ins of being, as I conceive they generally are, a great service to it.

The ministers of protestant churches req different mode of education, more liberal, and c fit for the ordinary intercourse of life. The ligion having little hold on the minds of peop external ceremonies, and extraordinary o ances, or separate habits of living, the clergyup the deficiency by cultivating their minds all kinds of ornamental learning, which the provision made in England and Ireland is parochial clergy, (to say nothing of the church preferments, with little or no dates nexed,) and the comparative lightness of par duties, enables the greater part of them considerable degree to accomplish.

This learning, which I believe to be pre neral, together with a higher situation, and chastened by the opinion of mankind, forms as ficient security for the morals of the estab clergy, and for their sustaining their cleric racter with dignity. It is not necessary to ot that all these things are, however, collateral There is a great resemblance between the whole function, and that except in preaching, whet frame and constitution of the Greek and Latin be and is supplied, and often best supplied. churches. The secular clergy, in the former, by printed books, little else is necessary for a y being married, living under little restraint, and ant minister, than to be able to read the E having no particular education suited to their language; I mean for the exercise of his ter function, are universally fallen into such contempt, not to the qualification of his admission to that they are never permitted to aspire to the dig- a popish parson in Ireland may do very wel nities of their own church. It is not held respect-out any considerable classical erudition, ful to call them papas, their true and ancient appellation, but those who wish to address them with

It appears that Mr. Hutchinson meant this only as one of the

proficiency in pure or mixed mathematicss knowledge of civil history. Even if the ca

means for their relief in point of education.

lergy should possess those acquisitions, as at first many of them do, they soon lose them in the painal course of professional and parochial duties; but hey must have all the knowledge, and, what is to hein more important than the knowledge, the iscipline, necessary to those duties. All modes of ducation, conducted by those whose minds are ast in another mould, as I may say, and whose riginal ways of thinking are formed upon the verse pattern, must be to them not only useless, ut mischievous. Just as I should suppose the eduation in a popish ecclesiastical seminary would be I fitted for a protestant clergyman. To educate catholick priest in a protestant seminary would e much worse. The protestant educated amongst atholicks has only something to reject: what he eeps may be useful. But a catholick parish priest arns little for his peculiar purpose and duty in a rotestant college.

the first time that the presentation to other people's alms has been desired in any country. If the state provides a suitable maintenance and temporality for the governing members of the Irish Roman catholick church, and for the clergy under them, I should think the project, however improper in other respects, to be by no means unjust. But to deprive a poor people, who maintain a second set of clergy, out of the miserable remains of what is left after taxing and tything to deprive them of the disposition of their own charities among their own communion, would, in my opinion, be an intolerable hardship. Never were the members of one religious sect fit to appoint the pastors to another. Those who have no regard for their welfare, reputation, or internal quiet, will not appoint such as are proper. The seraglio of Constantinople is as equitable as we are, whether catholicks or protestants: and where their own sect is concerned, full as religious. But the sport which they make of the miserable dignities of the Greek church, the little factions of the haram, to which they make them subservient, the continual sale to which they expose and re-expose the same dignity, and by which they squeeze all the inferiour orders of the clergy, is (for I have had particular means of being acquainted with it) nearly equal to all the other oppressions together, exercised by mussulmen over the unhappy members of the Oriental church. It is a great deal to suppose that even the present Castle would nominate bishops for the Roman church of Ireland, with a religious regard for its welfare. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps they dare not, do it.

All this, my lord, I know very well, will pass r nothing with those who wish that the popish ergy should be illiterate, and in a situation to oduce contempt and detestation. Their minds e wholly taken up with party squabbles, and I ve neither leisure nor inclination to apply any art of what I have to say, to those who never ink of religion, or of the commonwealth, in any her light, than as they tend to the prevalence of me faction in either. I speak on a supposition, at there is a disposition to take the state in the ndition in which it is found, and to improve it in at state to the best advantage. Hitherto the in for the government of Ireland has been, to rifice the civil prosperity of the nation to its igious improvement. But if people in power But suppose them to be as well inclined as I at length come to entertain other know that I am, to do the catholicks all kind of Pas, they will consider the good order, decorum, justice, I declare I would not, if it were in my tue, and morality of every description of men power, take that patronage on myself. I know I ong them, as of infinitely greater importance ought not to do it. I belong to another commuin the struggle (for it is nothing better) to nity, and it would be intolerable usurpation for me ange those descriptions by means, which put to affect such authority, where I conferred no behazard objects, which, in my poor opinion, are nefit, or even if I did confer (as in some degree more importance to religion and to the state, the seraglio does) temporal advantages. But, aln all the polemical matter which has been agi-lowing that the present Castle finds itself fit to ed among men from the beginning of the world this hour.

ere are

On this idea, an education fitted to each order division of men, such as they are found, will thought an affair rather to be encouraged than countenanced: and until institutions at home, able to the occasions and necessities of the le, are established, and which are armed, as y are abroad, with authority to coerce the ng men to be formed in them, by a strict and ere discipline,—the means they have, at pre, of a cheap and effectual education in other ntries, should not continue to be prohibited by alties and modes of inquisition, not fit to be tioned to ears that are organized to the chaste ads of equity and justice.

efore I had written thus far, I heard of a me of giving to the Castle the patronage of presiding members of the catholick clergy. At I could scarcely credit it: for I believe it is

administer the government of a church which they solemnly forswear, and forswear with very hard words and many evil epithets, and that as often as they qualify themselves for the power which is to give this very patronage, or to give any thing else that they desire; yet they cannot ensure themselves that a man like the late Lord Chesterfield will not succeed to them. This man, while he was duping the credulity of papists with fine words in private, and commending their good behaviour during a rebellion in Great Britain, (as it well deserved to be commended and rewarded,) was capable of urging penal laws against them in a speech from the throne, and of stimulating with provocatives the wearied and half-exhausted bigotry of the then parliament of Ireland. They set to work, but they were at a loss what to do; for they had already almost gone through every contrivance which could waste the vigour of their country: but after much struggle, they produced a child of their

Suppose an atheist, playing the part of a bigot, should be in power again in that country, do you believe that he would faithfully and religiously administer the trust of appointing pastors to a church, which, wanting every other support, stands in tenfold need of ministers who will be dear to the people committed to their charge, and who will exercise a really paternal authority amongst them? But if the superiour power was always in a disposition to dispense conscientiously, and like an upright trustee and guardian of these rights which he holds for those with whom he is at variance, has he the capacity and means of doing it? How can the lord lieutenant form the least judgment of their merits, so as to discern which of the popish priests is fit to be made a bishop? It cannot be : the idea is ridiculous. He will hand them over to lords lieutenants of counties, justices of the peace, and other persons, who for the purpose of vexing and turning to derision this miserable people, will❘ pick out the worst and most obnoxious they can find amongst the clergy to set over the rest. Whoever is complained against by his brother will be considered as persecuted: whoever is censured by his superiour will be looked upon as oppressed: whoever is careless in his opinions, and loose in his morals, will be called a liberal man, and will be supposed to have incurred hatred, because he was not a bigot. Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and obstinate men, flatterers, who turn their back upon their flock, and court the protestant gentlemen of the country, will be the objects of preferment. And then I run no risk in foretelling, that whatever order, quiet, and morality you have in the country, will be lost. A popish clergy, who are not restrained by the most austere subordination, will become a nuisance, a real publick grievance of the heaviest kind, in any country that entertains them and instead of the great benefit which Ireland does and has long derived from them, if they are educated without any idea of discipline and obedience, and then put under bishops, who do not owe their station to their good opinion, and whom they cannot respect, that nation will see disorders, of which, bad as things are, it has yet no idea. I do not say this, as thinking the leading men in Ireland would exercise this trust worse than others. Not at all. No man, no set of men living are fit to administer the affairs, or regulate the interiour economy, church to which they are enemies.

ments, from which, as they stand, they experien no material inconvenience to the repose of the country,-quieta non movere.—I could say a g deal more; but I am tired; and am afraid yo lordship is tired too. I have not sat to this let a single quarter of an hour without interrupta It has grown long, and probably contains mat repetitions, from my total want of leisure to d and consolidate my thoughts; and as to my pressions, I could wish to be able perhaps to sure them more exactly. But my intentions & fair, and I certainly mean to offend nobody.

Thinking over this matter more maturely, I no reason for altering my opinion in any pa The act, as far as it goes, is good undoubte It amounts, I think, very nearly to a tolera with respect to religious ceremonies; but it p a new bolt on civil rights, and rivets it to the one, in such a manner, that neither, I fear, wi easily loosened. What I could have wished w be, to see the civil advantages take the lead; : other, of a religious toleration, I conceive, w.. follow (in a manner) of course. From what have observed, it is pride, arrogance, and a of domination, and not a bigotted spirit of gion, that has caused and kept up those oppres statutes. I am sure I have known those who oppressed papists in their civil rights, exceech: indulgent to them in their religious cereme: | and who really wished them to continue ~22licks, in order to furnish pretences for oppress These persons never saw a man (by conver escape out of their power, but with grudgu regret. I have known men, to whom I an: uncharitable in saying, (though they are d that they would have become papists in ord oppress protestants; if, being protestants, tr not in their power to oppress papists. It is 27 tice, and not a mistaken conscience, that has be the principle of persecution, at least as far as 3fallen under my observation. However, as !~ gan, so I end. I do not know the map of country. Mr. Gardiner, who conducts this and difficult work, and those who support are better judges of the business than I can tend to be, who have not set my foot in Ireland tsixteen years. I have been given to unders that I am not considered as a friend to that c try: and I know that pains have been takes * lessen the credit that I might have had there

I am so convinced of the weakness of interter in any business, without the opinion of the pes in whose business I interfere, that I do not " how to acquit myself of what I have now deeI have the honour to be, with high regards of a esteem,

As to government, if I might recommend a prudent caution to them,-it would be, to innovate as little as possible, upon speculation, in establish

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient.
And humble servant, år.

EDMUND BURKI

A LETTER

SIR H. LANGRISHE, BART. M. P.

ON THE SUBJECT OF THE

ROMAN CATHOLICKS OF IRELAND,

AND

THE PROPRIETY OF ADMITTING THEM TO THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE,

CONSISTENTLY WITH THE

PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION AS ESTABLISHED AT THE REVOLUTION.

1792.

YOUR remembrance of me, with sentiments I should be still more pleased if they had been more so much kindness, has given me the most sin- your own. What you hint, I believe, to be the re satisfaction. It perfectly agrees with the case; that if you had not deferred to the judgiendly and hospitable reception which my son ment of others, our opinions would not differ id I received from you, some time since, when, more materially at this day, than they did when ter an absence of twenty-two years, I had the we used to confer on the same subject, so many ppiness of embracing you, among my few sur-years ago. If I still persevere in my old opinions, ving friends.