ROMAN CATHOLIC. , OF BURLIN'. 533
very persons, in the event of your becoming incorporated with them in the state,and embarked in a complete identity of interests, should he so blind to their ownsafety as to weaken the restraints of that religion, to which alone they have totrust for the integrity and good faith of their co-partners, or so wanton as to viti-ate this fountain of your morals at the risk of tainting the w hole atmosphere of theconstitution — to suppose such a perversion of the commonest dictates of policy, isto imagine a mixture of profligacy and bigotry, which I should hesitate in attribut-ing even to Mr, Perceval.
The great Ring of Prussia, whose hatred to all possible creeds * will not hequestioned by the believers in Barruel and Robinson, far from indulging this malig-nity at the expense of his subjects and himself, thus speaks, in justifying the cor-dial protection which he afforded to the Jesuitsin Polish Prussia and Silesia: “1 haveaniillion and a half of Catholics among my subjects, and it is of consequence to methat they should be brought up strictly and uniformly in the religion of their fore-fathers.” — But it is superfluous to refer to such philosophical authority, for apolicy obvious to the least reasoning capacities; the very instinct of self-preservationwould suggest it to the most brainless politician, and I doubt whether even myLord Castlereagh would not lose all the pleasure which he takes in the practice ofcorruption, if he had the slightest suspicion that he endangered himself by it.
When alarmists, therefore, try to persuade you that this concession will befatal to your faith; that it is but a barter of spiritual treasures for a few temporaladvantages, and that, as the eagle took the tortoise into the sky in order to breakit, so your sect is to be elevated only for the purpose of destroying it — tell themthat you have too high a value for liberty, and too strong a reliance upon thestability of your church, to he scared from the proffered enjoyment of the one, byvague or visionary alarms about the other; that y ou are inspired with a manly andwell-grounded confidence, that the character which you have earned, while aliensfrom the state, will insure a respect for your consciences when allied with it; andthat the religion which has made you worthy of the constitution, wilt he eherishedand supported, as the best means of keeping you so. Tell them, that, even shouldthese liberal views be fallacious, you can yet rely for the safety of your faith uponthose ordinary principles of self-interest, which prevent the merchant, who trustshalf his stock to another, from making a knave of his partner, or teaching him tobetray and plunder him. Tell them, in fine, as your best and ultimate security,that you depend upon the strength of the religion itself, which has for ages takenroot in the hearts of Irishmen, which, like our beautiful arbutus, is native to thesoil, and having lived so green through the long winter of persecution, will neitherbe checked in its growth, nor weakened in its stem, by those blossoms which thewarm sun of freedom will bring out on it!
Among the. lesser and more lightly urged objections to the Veto , there is one,which it is really refreshing to meet, after the anile prejudices and terrors which Ihave been combating; because it shows some of that wakeful jealousy of power,which is so becoming in suitors for the fair hand of Liberty, and which your otherarguments against the measure would by no means encourage us in attributing toyon. “The concession of the negative,” we are told, “would increase the powerof the Crown, and that therefore it is the interest of the whole country that it shouldnot he granted.” It does not seem, however, to have been taken into considerationhy the proposers of this objection, that the complete enfranchisement of so large aportion of the empire would so considerably widen the basis of the legislature, asto form more than a counterbalance to this additional weight of the executive; andthat if the constitution were now in its perfect equilibrium (which “no aniculae qui-dem existimant ” ”), such an accession of force to one part of the system would re-piire, perhaps, some proportional control to he vested in the other. But it is notthe power, which comes boldly in the shape of prerogative, that the people of thesecountries have chiefly to dread at present, and the exercise of a Veto would hebo personally the act of the King, so invidiously exposed, and of such undividedresponsibility, that few monarclis would risk an unpopular or arbitrary use of it.
I may he told, indeed, that the constitutional negative of the Crown lias beengot rid of hy the insidious mediation of influence, and that the same pioneer maysmooth the way to the appointment of your hierarchy, by procuring the recom-mendation of such persons only os ore likely to coincide with the politics of theCourt, ’** and thus preventing the ungracious ultimatum of a negative. Against this
* A truly Protestant Prince, according to Bayle’s definition of the term: “Je suis Protes-tant (says tins sceptic), car je proteste centre toutes leg religions.”
" Cicero, de Pivinat. lib. 2. § 15.
**’ This apprehension of a political abuse of the royal interference was felt hy the framersof the 12th canon of the 8th council of Constantinople (m the year 8011), which condemns suchelections of Bishops as have been procured “per versutiam et tyrannidem Principum.” See anable treatise “De Libertat. Eccles. Galiican. by M. C. S. lib. iii. c. 7, p. 121, where a miscon-ception of Dominus de Marca upon this subject is corrected.