Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/264

 260 GRATTAN. held out the blessings of the constitution. But now it seems it is the antichrist against whom you place your batteries, the virgin, and the real presence: and in that strain of grave and solemn raving, a right honourable gen tleman proposes to take up arms against the grave of popery, which is shut, and to precipitate into the gulph of republicanism, which is open; perfectly safe for the king, he and those who join him think i t , t o affront the catholic subjects, b y gross suspicions; others have pro ceeded t o the grossest invectives; perfectly safe, they think i t , t o banish them from a l l places a t court and seats i n parliament; t o tell catholic virtue, catholic talents, ca tholic ambition, you must not serve the king; you may have property influence, but you must not act i n consti tuted assemblies, nor i n any rank o r distinction for the crown. Perfectly safe they think i t t o establish a n incom patibility between popery and allegiance. Perfectly safe they think i t t o insulate the throne, and reduce the king o f Ireland, like the pope, t o protestant guards instead o f a people; and then, i t i s proposed, that those protestant guards should monopolise a l l the powers o f government, and privileges o f the constitution, a s a reward for their disinterestedness. I n support o f such policy, i t has been advanced, i n a very idle publication, that Roman catholics, a s long a s they have the feeling o f men, must resist the natural propensities o f the human heart, i f they d o not endeavour t o subvert a protestant king; but I pass that over with the scorn i t deserves. I t has been also said, that his majesty's oath i s a bar. Oaths are serious things. To make them political pretences i s a high crime; t o make a n obligation, taken for the assurance o f liberty, a cove nant against i t t o impose o n conscience a breach o f duty, t o make the piety o f the king the scourge o f his people, i s a n attempt atrocious i n the extreme. Examine the ar gument, and you find the oath was taken three years before the exclusion o f the Irish catholics; the oath i s the first o f William, the tests that exclude them the third; s o that his majesty must have sworn i n the strain and