How must they regret the act of 1778, which restored to the Roman Catholics the right of property; the act of 1791, which removed many vexatious disabilities, with respect to the exercise of religion, to professions, to civil, and, in several important instances, political rights! How must they deplore the act of 1793, which gave to the Irish Roman Catholics, in many instances, advisedly, distinctly, specifically, in all more remotely, and by sure implication-political power and consequences in giving them the elective franchise! How must their sorrow have been increased by the measure which, five years ago, silently opened the army and the navy to Catholic enterprize, bravery, and ambition!" Mr C. rejoices that these privations are removed, though the relief takes away the ground-work of much impressive eloquence. Another objection coupled with this last is, that the noble persons interested have some disinclination to the introduction, because it does not include all those connected with them in the same religion. He denies having any special commission to be their advocate, and asserts that he undertakes the cause merely on principles of state policy and national benefit; it is, however, untrue that the Catholic Lords have any disinclination to his plan, and he cites the Duke of Norfolk's authority to this effect; but he assures the House that the proposition is spontaneous on his part, without receiving any suggestion from any of those Peers. Another objection is, that there is an impropriety in originating in the House of Commons, a measure which concerns exclusively the rights of the House of Peers. This is completely overturned by precedents; as the very act, the operation of which is now proposed to be corrected, originated in the House of Commons; and also, that of the 5th of Elizabeth, which recognized the right of Peers to hold their seats unquestioned, and undisqualified on account of religious opinions. The act, too, which was brought in by Mr Mitford, (now Lord Redesdale,) in 1791, entirely regarded the House of Peers. It has likewise been remarked, that a proposition for reforming the House of Lords, comes with an ill grace from an adversary to reform in the House of Commons. Mr C., however, contends, that his great objection to schemes of

reform is, that they have always been loose and undefined ;-he aims not at reconstructing the House of Lords, but to bring it back to the state in which it formerly existed, and he points out the precise period of its existence to which he would restore it, viz. the 30th of November 1678, on which day the Royal Assent was given to the Act, by which Roman Catholic Peers were excluded. "The princi ple of my measure," says he, is not innovation, but restoration; and if further questioned as to the extent to which this restoration would go, I reply,-to the immediate admission of six English Catholic Peers, and by possibility, at some future time, to the admission of about the same number of Irish." He proceeds to state," But I will go farther: I will shew that not only my measure is not innovation, but restoration, but that it is a restoration founded upon principles of the strictest justice. I will shew that it restores rights, the suspension of which arose from causes which no longer exist, and was justified on pretences, which were never true." Mr C. divides the legislation affecting the Catholics into three periods;-1st, From the reign of Elizabeth to the Restoration;-2d, From Charles II. to the Revolution ;-3d, From that time to the reign of George III., the auspicious era of the relaxation of the penal code. He very fairly justifies the precautions and the severities of Queen Elizabeth, on account of "the disquietude of one religion not altogether put down, and the instability of another not wholly established; and by those frequent plots against her crown and life, which were instigated by the influence of foreign politics, and connected an opposition to her belief, with a refusal of allegiance to her authority. The security of Elizabeth's throne was identified with the security of the Reformed Religion." In the third period, Mr C. observes that the circumstances of King William inclined his advisers rather to discountenance the religion of the exiled monarch, than to do away laws enacted against the Roman Catholics; and he supposes that some design might have existed of driving the Catholics of England to expatriation, though by a less violent process than that which some years before had driven out the Protestants from France, bythe Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.