Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/82

 of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the King consented to acknowledge the Archbishop of Cologne.

Our best course in the United Kingdom is rather to rely on our own Statutes and those of our ancestors, both before and since the Reformation, than to embarrass ourselves in negotiations with the Pope. Some persons, entertaining a very natural sense of the disinclination of the English people to large measures, are of opinion that it would be enough to propose a clipping of the wings of the Established Church in Ireland, and a provision out of her surplus funds for glebe lands and churches for the Roman Catholics in that country.

But it seems to me that any such half measure, leaving Protestant Ascendancy in full blowing dignity, would not suit the present time. The moment has arrived for equality to be granted or denied. Halting between two opinions will satisfy no party.

I come now, therefore, to what is asked by the Lay Peers and Members of the House of Commons of the Roman Catholic faith. Let us first remark who these are. They belong to the class who have derived the greatest benefit from the Relief Act of 1829. They have been enabled by that Act to bear their part, and exercise their functions in the Legislation of the country. Among them are to be found lawyers who may aspire to the highest ranks of their profession. They now come forward to ask for their humbler countrymen—the priests sprung from the middle classes, the farmers and peasants of their faith—those advantages which are justly their due.