What answer could we make to the Catholics of Ireland, if they were to rise, and with one
voice, demand their rights as citizens, and as men? What reply justifiable to God, and to
our conscience? None. We prate and babble, and write books, and publish them, filled with
sentiments of freedom, and abhorrence of tyranny, and lofty praises of the Rights of Man!
Yet we are content to hold three millions of our fellow creatures, and fellow subjects, in
degradation and in infamy, and contempt, or to sum up all in one word, in Slavery!
On what chapter of the Rights of Man, do we ground our title to liberty, in the moment
that we are riveting the fetters of the wretched Roman Catholics of Ireland?
Shall they not say to us, 'Are we not men, as ye are, stamped with the image of our maker,
walking erect, beholding the same light, breathing the same air as Protestants: Hath not a
Catholic hands: Hath not a Catholic eyes, dimensions, organs, passions? Fed with the same
food, hurt by the same weapons, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same
summer and winter, as a Protestant is. If ye prick us, do we not bleed? If ye tickle us, do
we not laugh? If ye poison us, do we not die? And if ye injure us, shall we not revenge?
Hath a Catholic the mark of a beast in his forehead that he should wander over his native
soil like the accursed Cain, with his hand against every man, and every man's hand against
him?
God Almighty in his just anger, visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, not
beyond the third or fourth generation, even of those that hate him; and will nothing short
of our eternal slavery satisfy the unmitigable rage of Protestant oppression?
How have we offended? The offence of our ancestors was our property and our power; we have
neither; they are long since sacrificed, and you are in undisputed possession of the spoil.
Do not then grudge us existance, or that for which alone man should exist - liberty: Say
not that we are unprepared; liberty prepares herself: Say not that we are ignorant, lest ye judge yourselves.
Why are we so? Enough has been done and suffered by us to satisfy not only justice and law,
but cowardice, malice and revenge; it is time our persecution should cease.
The nations of Europe are vindicating themselves into freedom; ye talk about it yourselves,
and do ye think that we will be left behind: If ye will join us, we are ready to embrace
you; if you will not, shame and discomforture await you.
For us, whether supported or not, we are prepared for either event. If freedom comes, we
will clasp her to our hearts, and surrender her, but with our last breath; if slavery is
still to be our portion, we have learned by bitter experience to endure, and to the
righteous and just God, who has created and preserves us, we commit our cause, nothing
doubting, but in the fullness of his good time, that he will manifest his glorious mercies,
even unto us; though for wise purposes, he may think fit to continue us a little longer
under the rod of our oppressors, the ministers of his wrath.'
If such an appeal were made What should we answer? Let him that can, devise a reply; I know
of none. The argument now stands thus: To oppose the unconstitutional weight of Government,
subject as that Government is to the still more unconstitutional and unjust bias of English
influence, it is absolutely necessary that the weight of the people's scale should be
increased. This object can only be attained by a Reform in parliament, and no reform is
practicable, that shall not include the Catholics.
These three steps are inseparably connected, and let not any man deceive himself, by
supporting the first attainable without the second, or either without the third.
Is the present Government of Ireland such a one as ought to be opposed?
Every good Irishman will answer, yes!
Have we not sufficient experience, how fruitless all opposition is on the present system?
The people are divided, each party afraid and jealous of the other; they have only the
justice of their cause to support them, and that plea grievously weakened by the
acknowledged exclusion of three quarters of the nation from their rights as men:
Government, a foreign Government, is a small, but a disciplined and compact body, with the
sword, the purse, and the honours of Ireland at their disposal: It is easy to see the
event of such an opposition to such an administration.
It follows, that to oppose it with success, the people must change their plan.
Do we not see the conduct of Government at this hour, and shall we not learn wisdom, even
from our enemies?
They know that the Catholics hold the balance between them and that fraction of the nation,
which we choose to dignify with the name of the people; and, therefore, they court they
Catholics. If they secure them I should be glad to know, what they have to fear with the
immense power and influence attached to office, with the command of the treasury, and with
the whole Catholic party, three quarters of the kingdom, attached by gratitude to them, and
alienated by repeated suspicion, and unremitting ill-usage from their enemies.
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