* * * * *
"Our Government is called essentially Protestant; but, if it be
essentially Protestant in the distribution of office, it should be
essentially Protestant in the imposition of taxes. The Treasury is
open to all religions, Parliament only to one. The tax-gatherer is the
most indulgent and liberal of human beings; he excludes no creed,
imposes no articles; but counts Catholic cash, pockets Protestant
paper, and is candidly and impartially oppressive to every description
of the Christian world. Can anything be more base than when you want
the blood or the money of Catholics, to forget that they are
Catholics, and to remember only that they are British subjects; and,
when they ask for the benefits of the British Constitution, to
remember only that they are Catholics, and to forget that they are
British subjects?
"_No Popery_ was the cry of the great English Revolution, because the
increase and prevalence of Popery in England would, at that period,
have rendered this island tributary to France. The Irish Catholics
were, at that period, broken to pieces by the severity and military
execution of Cromwell, and by the Penal Laws. They are since become a
great and formidable people. The same dread of foreign influence makes
it now necessary that they should be restored to political rights.
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