disabilities. Proofs, therefore, to show that they were no longer actuated by such hostility, were essential for giving success to their application. Now, what proofs did they offer ? For some time previously to the assembling of Parliament, they were occupied in putting down, by the instrumentality of ferocious mobs, the Bible, Missionary, and School Meetings, of the members of the Established Church, and the other Protestants. They petitioned Parliament for a revision of the property of the Irish church, the meaning of which, according to their open declarations, was, that this church should be robbed of a large part of its possessions. One of their priests declared at a meeting of the Catholic Association, that their priesthood did not admit the established clergy to have any religious character. A member of this Association expressed a wish at two of its meetings, that the Protestant Church might long be the established church of Ireland, and it was received with murmurs and disapprobation. They linked themselves to Cobbett, who was striking with all his might at the foundations of British Protestantism, and they circulated among the ignorant people the most foul and diabolical slanders, touching the religion of the state and its ministers. Everything that could goad the people into a determination to pay no tithes—everything that could exasperate the people against the Established Church—everything that could manifest a wish for the ruin of this church and of Protestantism, was said or done by their leaders, and solemnly sanctioned by the body at large.
Even after the Catholic deputation arrived in London ; after its members had assumed the mask of peace, and at the critical moment when their case was before Parliament, they could not refrain from displaying their animosity towards Protestantism. Lawless entered a London Bible Meeting, and attempted to get up an uproar, but not having an Irish mob to aid him, he was put down. O'Connell straggled into a Whig School Meeting, and made such insinuations against the Protestants, that he was hissed out of it.
Setting aside some empty professions which were only calculated to impose upon children, this constituted the only evidence that the Catholics had to offer, to prove that the hostility to the national church establishment, which had been mainly instrumental in placing them under the disabilities, no longer existed.
From the greatness of the number of the Catholics, and their perfect organization as a body, it was of the first importance for them to convince the tribunal which had to decide on their case, that their political principles were at least harmless—were in no respect inconsistent with, and hostile to, the constitution. Now, what evidence did they tender to produce this conviction ? Their question, so far as regards parties, is not a party one ; men of all parties support it, and men of all parties oppose it. Some of the most eloquent and influential of the Ministers, and the flower of the Opposition, stood before them ready to become their advisers and advocates. Now, no one would have quarrelled with them for keeping at a distance from the Tories—for passing by Mr Canning and Mr Plunkett for their Toryism ; but it was natural for every one to expect that they would not go beyond the genuine and constitutional Whigs ; it was natural for every one to expect that they would from policy, if not from principle, scrupulously avoid all connexion with faction, and more especially with those who advocated schemes involving the ruin of the constitution. We have already men- tioned Cobbett ; we need not give his history ; we need not repeat what he has at various times published touching the King, the Royal Family, the Aristocracy, the Church, the Clergy, the Protestant religion, the Constitution, and all our public possessions ; we need not say what character is assigned to this man by every one of our sects and parties. Well, with this Cobbett the Catholic Deputation connected itself immediately on its arrival in London. It was ostentatiously announced in the newspapers, that the Deputation had been to visit Mr Cobbett—it was ostentatiously announced in the newspapers, that Mr O'Connell had been to Mr Cobbett, to obtain his advice for the guidance of the Catholics, and that, in obedience to this advice, they had put their cause into the hands of Sir F. Burdett.
Our readers are no strangers to the history of the Radical Baronet ; we,
