and one-third of the whole State. A just Government, like a just man will give in proportion as it receives. Is it then just, that paying the contributions of our blood and treasuree, qually with every other British subject, we alone, of all British subjects, should be deprived of our portion of the protection, and security, and honours, of the British Empire? Is it right that one-third of the population of any country should be held in comparative degradation for the gratification of the other two? Is such a country free-and is it fitting that such degradation and such injustice should endure for three centuries, against millions and generations, without any real or sufficient cause?

It is not from our enemies, whose interest it is to calumniate, that they may more safely oppress us, that an estimate should be taken of our principles or conduct. Of our principles we ourselves are the best interpreters-of our conduct, the public at large. We leave to reasonable and thinking men, the decision on both. We ask them fearlessly to examine, and then to judge according to that examination, between the People of Ireland, and their Opponents.

There is no real or sufficient cause in our principles or conduct to exclude us from a full participation in all the privileges of a free state. There is nothing in the tenets of the Catholic, to disqualify him from enjoying freedom. Portugal is free-France is free-South America is free-and Portugal, France, and South America profess the tenets of the Catholics of Ireland. There is nothing in the tenets of British Catholics to disqualify them from a full enjoyment of British freedom. The British Constitution was founded by Catholics-can Catholics be indifferent to its support? We yield to no class in obedience to the laws, in attachment to the Sovereign, in honourable anxiety for the power, glory, and prosperity of the British Empire. In every public and private situation, civil and military, of confidence and honour, we have equalled if not surpassed our professions. The very earnestness with which we now seek a re-admission into the Constitution, is the best proof how strongly we are attached to its principles, how deeply we appreciate its advantages and rights.

We have been accused of divided allegiance, subversive of the power of a Protestant Government, and of the rights of a Protestant people, of violating or equivocating on the sacred engagements of an oath, of preserving unchanged the spirit of persecution, which tainted all nations till the present enlightened era. We have disclaimed, and do disclaim each and all of these allegations-we disclaimed them in 1757, again in 1792-the six leading Universities of the Catholic world in 1788 disclaimed them-the chief of our Church Pope Pius VI. in 1791, disclaimed them our Bishops and Archbishops, on their solemn oaths before the Imperial Parliament, have emphatically and recently disclaimed them; and we cannot dispose of our property or execute any public trust, without, in each instance disclaiming them. We have sworn, and do swear as follows:

[Here follows the Oath of Allegiance.]

We have been accused of a divided allegiance.. Why is not the same accusation pleaded against the Catholic of Prussia and Hanover? We

have denied the calumny, and the conduct of our ancestors justifies the denial. The Catholics of Ireland stood firm to the Protestant House of Brunswick in 1745, against the Catholic Pretender and the Roman Pontiff. Our oaths are regarded in the ordinary intercourse of life, as inviolate. Why are they not equally so by our country? Why should there be a different measure for us in and out of Parliament? If this accusation were grounded on fact, what would prevent many of our body at this moment, from legislating with, instead of supplicating the justice of either House of Parliament.

The spirit of persecution is not the spirit or doctrine, but the perversion of the spirit and the doctrine of the Catholic Religion. In bad times, it has unfortunately tainted, more or less, every Christian denomination. If the Catholic persecuted the Protestant, the Protestant persecuted the Catholic-it was attack and retaliation, and if the Catholic persecuted longer than the Protestant, it was only because the Catholic was much longer in possession of power. Nor do we instance this from any desire or feeling of recrimination, but from a deep conviction that it is not to any form of religion that blame is to be attached, but lust of power, rousing and wielding the bad passions of the human heert, and which in all countries, we confidently trust, must sooner or later disappear before the progress of freedom, which, is the due sense of mutuel interest and the gradual advance of civilization through all parts of the Globe.

In our own land, we are a prescribed people. We are excluded from all participation of the government, constituting, as we do, virtually and essentially, the Nation-we pay taxes which we have not imposed; we contribute to the upholding of establishments in which we can have no share; we pay double tithes, double church-rates, double cess; we are judged by tribunals in which we can have little control. Englishmen rebelled against the Ship Money and the Star Chamber. Would the Englishman of the present day submit to this? Would Canada submit to it-would Hanover? And is Ireland to be worse governed than a foreign kingdom or a distant settlement? Would it not have been better for her to have been a Colony, than as she is, a vital portion of this free Empire ?

We do not desire power, but we claim elegibility. We desire that a Protestant Sovereign might have the means to avail himself of the services of all his people. We desire to enlarge the resources of the British Empire, to consolidate the liberties of the entire British nation. Is he an enemy to England, who desires this? Is he a friend to England who opposes this desire ?

If there were any danger likely to accrue by the admission of the Catholics of Ireland into the Constitution, that danger already exists amongst us. By the Act of 1793, we have already the natural elements of a first political influence-means of acquiring wealth-education to employ it-the elective franchise to render both available. Have we abused these powers-has the noble struggle of our Freeholders in aught liminished the sum of British liberty? Have the real interests of the country suffered? At home we have shown we are capable of uphold

ing, not of injuring, British freedom; abroad, who could distinguish in the field of battle between the Protestant or Catholic soldier? Not the Frenchman, who yielded to our arms, nor the German or Spaniard, who fought beside us.

Why should the Protestant be alarmed at the admission of the Catholic into the Constitution? Does he apprehend in his own religion any principle of weakness, which will yield in a fair and equal struggle? Does England dread that one third of her Empire should absorb the other two, or that by the introduction into the Houses of Parliament of a few additional Members, the Religion, Crown, and Legislature of these realms will cease to be essentially and constantly Protestant ?

The real danger is in things as they are, not in things as they may be; the Protestant suffers where the Catholic is aggrieved. England is endangered by the oppression and danger of Ireland. It has been stated before the Imperial Legislature that this country is one great mass of discontent. It is-we do not affect to conceal it; and though we will not alledge as motives for better systems, the extreme cases, feared by all good men in either country, we cannot disguise the many intermediate states of injury to which Protestant and Catholic are equally ,exposed. Is it nothing that the Empire should be taxed for our divisions, or that an enormous military force should not only consume the natural resources of the country, but by a circle the most vicious, draw even for assistance upon the contributions of England? Is it nothing for England, for the English and Protestant proprietor, to find his revenues decreased, his security diminished, his tenantry impoverished? Is it nothing for the Protestant, as well as Catholic merchant, to find the avenues of industry. closed, the springs of national wealth dried up; capital, which is cast to every other quarter of the Globe, refused to us, and the British Empire altogether paralysed in one of its most important members? Of the sufferings of our People, privation, penury, starvation, fever, plague, and death, we say nothing, but we are too close to England not to spread in time the contagion of our misery. Our population already overflows upon her, so also will our wretchedness. We shall lower her, unless she can raise us. Is she prepared for this visitation; is she disposed to risk it for a theological difference, or to stand up, ere it be too late, and, by a just appreciation of her interests, as well as ours, to vindicate both by a single act of justice and generosity.

People of England—place yourselves, therefore, in our position, and reason with us. Look round to the rest of Europe, and judge for us. Is not every other Country but this, Catholic as well as Protestant, throwing aside its sectarian animosities, and, by a removal of all unequal laws, combining against the day of trial, which assuredly must come, all their subjects into one Free People. Shall England, the eldest born of European liberty, the centre of European civilization, cede the station which she held for so many centuries before mankind, to nations, whom, till this hour, she deemed, and justly deemed, her inferiors ? We are in that critical moment when the danger of innovation has passed away, and the advantage of change is not yet too late. Let Ireland be indeed, as in word, the sister, but not the handmaid, of England; so shall we be united by a better bond than that of fear; by common li

berties, mutual happiness, and the throne of these realms be fixed on the only lasting security for any throne-the spontaneous attachments and well-deserved loyalty of a combined and prosperous People.".

The motion was seconded by Mr. Dillon, and carried.

It was then agreed, that 300 copies of the Morning Register, The Irishman, the Dublin Evening Post, and the Freeman's Journal, containing the Address, should be ordered for circulation in England.

Not one of the London papers has thought it worth its while to give publicity to this document. So much for the attention of the "best public instructers" to the interests of ill-fated Ireland. We shall put it in the form of a Tract, and we call upon every son of Erin to exert him-' self in the circulation of it among his English neighbours, and especially those who differ from his creed.

ENEAS MACDONNELL, ESQ.

The following Letter from the Most Rev. Dr. Kelly, Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, on the appointment of Mr. Macdonnell as Agent in London of the Irish Catholics, was read by Mr. O'Connell at the New Catholic Association on Saturday, the 9th inst.

"Tuam, Dec. 1, 1826.

"MY DEAR SIR,-It is much to be lamented that some members of the Catholic Association, who are so eminently qualified by their talents and influence, to render important services to their suffering country, should fritter away their exertions, and waste their valuable time in idle contention and unmeaning controversy, while their enemies are active and vigilant, and always in readiness to turn the bickerings amongst the Catholics to the disadvantage of their cause, and to use them as a powerful argument against our Emancipation, and to adduce them as a powerful illustration of that favourite assertion that the Irish Catholics are divided and distracted in their own body, and consequently unfit to participate in the blessings of the British Constitution.

"Never, in my humble judgment, have these dissensions been carried to such extravagant excess as in the late unpropitious attack upon Mr. Eneas M'Donnell, at a moment when, to your certain knowledge, he was usefully and actively employed in fanning the flame of patriotism and public exertion throughout the country, reconciling any difference that might have existed among our body, rousing all to the exercise of the privilege of petition, to the collection of the Catholic Rent, and, though last not least, when he was successfully engaged in arresting the progress of fanaticism, detecting and resisting the foul calumnies and false reasoning of the emissaries of the Hibernian Bible Society, whose avowed object was proselytism, and who were zealously engaged in the unhallowed office of exciting children to rebel against their parents, and the faithful to throw off all respect and submission to their legitimate Pastors. With respect to the expediency, I would add the necessity of having an agent from the Catholics of Ireland in London, I do not think there can be a difference of opinion. The summary manner in which Irish questions are disposed of in the Imperial Parliament, the necessity of calling the attention of English members to such questions, their want of accurate local information, and their own expressed wish of having a confi. dential person with whom to commune upon Irish topics, all evince the ne

cessity of having such an officer in London. That Mr. Eneas Macdonnell has established for himself a paramount claim to a continuance in that office, could be most satisfactorily proved. His exertions upon the introduction of the Burial Bill-his services upon the rejection of the Bill for disfranchising the Forty-shilling Freeholders-his detection of the Ipswich calumnies-his successful exposal of the frauds of the Biblicals -his readiness in taking up the pen, and refuting the false statements of the London Orange newspapers-these, and a thousand other useful services on his part, such as his accuracy in stating facts to be used by the members who are friendly to us in the House, have established for him a confideuce which it would take a new agent, were he to succeed him in that office, a considerable time to establish for himself.

"So convinced are the Catholics of this country, that Mr. Macdonnell should be continued in the office, that I have reason to believe that meetings will be held immediately in Ballinasloe, Loughrea, Galway, Castlebar, Westport, Tuam, Ballinrobe, to give expression to their feelings upon this subject. I coufidently hope that when the question comes before an Aggregate Meeting there will be no hesitation about his appointment; otherwise, I fear the consequences would be serious, at least so far as regards this and the adjoining counties.

"For my own part, I am free to confess my partiality for the man, as he has been called, but I am the more ready to acknowledge my partiality, when it is manifestly and exclusively founded upon the grounds of his public services.

"The active and honourable part which the Hon. Gonville Ffrench, Messrs. O'Connor, Lawless, O'Dwyer, and yourself have taken is also a consideration which makes a deep impression upon my mind, and upon many others in this country. I remain, my dear Sir, your obedient and faithful servant, OLIVER Kelly."

Weekly Summary of Events.

We have this week to announce an event of the utmost interest to the Country; but whether we should congratulate or condole with our readers is more than we can decide at present. On Monday a Message from his Majesty, to the following effect, was presented to both Houses of Parliament :

"G. R.

"His Majesty acquaints the House of Lords that his Majesty has received an earnest application from the Princess Regent of Portugal, claiming, in virtue of the ancient obligations of alliance and amity subsisting between his Majesty and the Crown of Portugal, his Majesty's aid against an hostile aggression from Spain.

"His Majesty has exerted himself for some time past, in conjunction with his Majesty's Ally, the King of France, to prevent such an aggression; and repeated assurances have been given by the Court of Madrid of the determination of his Catholic Majesty neither to consent nor to allow to be committed, from his Catholic Majesty's territory, any aggression against Portugal.

"But his Majesty has learnt, with deep concern, that, notwithstanding those assurances, hostile inroads into the territory of Portugal have been concerted in Spain, and have been executed under the eyes of the Spanish Authorities, by Portuguese regiments which had deserted into Spain, and which the Spanish Government had repeatedly and solemnly engaged to disarm and to disperse.

"His Majesty leaves no effort unexhausted to awaken the Spanish