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“nal neutrality, when such a Candidate as Lord George Beres-
. TRUTH IS POWERFUL,
VOL. H.
: IRELANS—ELECTIONS.
A most numerous and highly respectable assemblage of the
frieuds of Messrs. Power and Stuart, took place at the Par-
“ish Chapel in Dungarvan on Sunday Jast.. Most of the respec-
table inhabitants and freehoiders ot Dungarvan were present,
and tok a deep interest in the object of the meeting. About
j balf past two o’clock the Very Rev. Dr. Connoury, P. P. was
ealled to the Chair, and a Committee was appointed to prepare
sesolutions to he submitted to the consideration of the Free-
holders assembled. ;
On the first Resolution being put—
Mr. WYSE spoke as follows.—Mr. Chairman, and you Ca-
tholic Freeholders of Dungarvan: e Resolution just read is
an almost self-evident proposition; for who hears me in this
crowded meeting but must know from his own personal expe-
rience, without asking for the melancholy traditions of his Fa-
thers, how much every man in this wasted and wretched land
stands in need of that first of all national remedies Catholic
Emancipation. I should not now address you on such a top-
Jc, graven as it ought to be on. the heart of every Catholic in
the Country, had I not heard of several late attempts on the
part of our enemies, to distort it from its real signification.—
‘You are not only denied your rights, but you are taunted with
the assertion, that you know wot what. your rights meau; in
the midst of your sufferings, you are told that you are happy—
an the midst of your chaias, that you are free—that you cannot
alistinguish between benefits and injuries—that Emancipation
is a mere shadow—tbat Petition is a senseless outcry, and that
seven millions of your fellow-countrymen: have been till this
hour engaged ina petty struggle of seli-interest for the person-
al and exclusive advantage of a few, They ask you, why voté
for Mr. Stuart; why not vote for Lord George Beresford; are
they not doth Protestants, and what has one Protestant more
than another to claim or meritthe support ofa Catholic? ‘This,
indeed, is monstrous, and adds insult to wrong; but what are
sve not to expect from men who have had the audacity to join
such things together as Lord George Beresford and Catholic
Emancipation! The time is come to answer them ; listen, and
earn your interests, fellow-countrymen, from other authority
than an anti-Catholic Faction, whose existence depends on your
apathy only, and who if you feit but half what other Nations
feel for your oppression, would long since have. disappeared
before your united efforts and indignation.
Why vote for Mr: Stuart, and why not vote for Lord George
Beresford 7? I will answer them ; not because they are Catholic
or Protestant—for what care I for the religious opinions of an,
man, when they do not injure the community—but because one
is a liberal Protestant, and the other an illiheral one; because
Mr, Stuart would admit, and Lord George would do, ‘and has
done, every thing in his power to exclude me from the pale of
the Constitution. man is'so besotted as to hate his friend
* and love his enemy ; but when this is not a matter between one
aman and another, but between one and thousands; when it is
known that Lord George has pledged himself to vote against
our Emancipation, against the Emancipation of seven millions
of his fellow-countrymen, and Mr, Stuart has pledged himself
to do all that a Member of Parliament can do to achieve. it, I
then say, that for a man who feels the slightest touch of affec-
tion for his Country, no question can exist; all hesitation
. should be at an end; the duty ia a positive one—the Catholic
ifhe feels asa man and an Irishman, if he be not a hireling,
2 mere bondsman, a slave in heart and head, cannot degrade
himself so far as to tender his support, or even rest in a crimi-
ford stands before him, — It is against intolerance, against Big-
etry, against Exclusion, that I vote, and not against this man,
or against that man, _ Were Mr, Stuart to avow the same prin-
ciples, he would and ought to find us the same enemies, Noth-
ing can redeem a profession of hatred to our Creed and Coun-
try ; that man is our enemy, who is an enemy to our Country,
_and no man can love our Country, who consents to keep seven-
eights of its inhabitants in bondage. ee
Yes—our present state is bondage—Emancipation would be
Hbderty.» It is an insulting outrage to common sense to say, that
it is of no consequence or of no utility to us all. Ifit be indif-
ferent, why refuse it? Why, whenit is mentioned in the North
the whole Orange Ascendancy bustles up in arms against it.—
“umancipation of no utility 2. And of whom have they learned
that? Ofthe Catholics? No. And who has better right to
< it? Of the liberal Protestant ?‘ No. ‘The sixty-nine Peers,
with the Duke of Devonshire at their head ; the principal land-
‘ed proprietors in Ireland ; they who above all others have had
the greatest experience on this important question ; Wey in the
face of the whole country have declared, that it was essential to
the prosperity, to the very existence of the Empire. Who then
are the men who dare insult you with this assertion ?. Men who
live upon your oppression; who, if it ceased, would’ certainly
cease also; men who hate your causé and afiect to contemn it;
, and who fear you too much, slaves, ever to allow you to be free.
‘Fhey know too weil how. much it would benefit you, even to
advocate it within or without of Parliament. Are they not
strangers to every thing Irish, and how can they love the Ca-
lholic? But whatis this Emancipation? - Do they know tven
tse meaning of the word? They say it is the elevation of a few (
NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1826.
Baronets to the peerage, of a few Gentlemen to the Baronetcy,
of a few Commoners to Parliament, a few Lawyers to a silk
gown, of promotion here, pension there, rank in the army, in
the navy, at the bar, and I know not what other mtserable ob-
jects of self-love in which the great mass of the People can
have no share, . These things would not be worth contending
for; and I for one, were not the People, you and each man iv
the County, and in every County in Ireland, to be benefitted,
and essentially benefitted by this great change—I for one would
say, throw away your efforts elsewhere, this is but a little vari-
ety in our slavery, the slavery exists still, the Country is op-
pressed, the People wretched, and I care not whether twenty
omen be happier when seven millions are stillslaves. Bat, as [
contend, and shall to my latest breath, for this great cause, and
as I hope to go down to my grave far other than those: who
went before me, so also I do it, on the perfect conviction that I
am not fighting my own battle, but that of every other man,
peer or peasant, in the country. The way to try these things,
is to try them on our enemies. © Take, for instance, a No-Pope-
ry Englishman of some slavish borough of the West of England
and strip him one by. one of the privileges of which an unjust
and infamous Code has already deprived: his Catholic fellow-
subject. Suppose you tell him, and] here limit myself to
those disqualifications which exist at present, without touching
on that atrocious system of domestic tyranny, which has been
described by our greatest Statesmen as the most perfect sys-
tem of déspotism that ever existed since the Gays of Nero, and
which had been suffered to exist for two centuries, unimpaired
and uncorrected till the year 1793. Suppose you tell him—you
have children; they profess your faith, the faith of their an-
cestors before them; their ancestors have served the State—
they too shall serve it when time and strength shall give them
the power as well as the will; you would do well first to educate
them; it is from want of education, that all the crimes and ex-
cesses ‘of society proceed—but there is no education for you,
unless it be preceded by apostucy ; renounce your religion, and
your children shall have it gratis—if not, rot where you are—
you are unworthy of being taught, though the State expends
thousands, and part of those thousands your own money, taken
out of your own labour, and privations, in the education of
whom, of your avowed hereditary and sworn enemies ? - What
would the Englishman say to this 7’ Why what every man must
say, such a studied plan of brutalizing society, could only be
equalled by the cruelty with which its effects are punished.—
They first deny you education; and they taunt you and: punish
you because you want it, So much for education. ° Let us pro-
ceed farther—were [ also to tell him, you shall not have ‘a
Church built, but from the miserable pittance of your poorest
peasantry ; but not only that, you shall contribute largely to
the Churches of the very sect which most oppress you—you
shall be obliged to contribute to Churches where there are no
Congregations, ahd that too in districts where the Bishops wal-
low in riches, and the poor are in rebellion from starvation—
you shall not be buried but by the permission of an enemy ex-
officio to your belief; you shall run constant risk of encreased
and capricious claims ; you shall have no security against them
but the chance ofa little doubtful mercy mixed up in the habi-.
tualtyranny of your tax-masters; you shall not only support
your own Clergy, but you shall support another Clergy as nu-
merous, and a Clergy too, the first article of whose political
faith is to. oppress the Israelite, lest the Egyptian bondage
should fall, and to trample under foot Christians like them-
selves, that an“ Establishment,” which they call a Church
shou!d not crumble over them. Then if youask for redress,
you may doit, but you shall find on the bench, and in the jury-
room, and in the gaol, judges and accusers, and gaolers in the
same persons; men who will invert all principles of British jus-
tice, to worship at the feet of an intolerant ascendency, not re-
cognised by law or constitution, but daringly, insolently, and
openly opposed to both. Strange then with all this, that in good
time you may be stung by an accumulation of wrong and in-
sult, and in a moment of convulsion and dispair, may infringe
on laws, laws which we make and not you, that you be pun-
ished as you deserve for your miseries, and little by little, ex-
terminated from the land. What, I repeat again, would the
veriest artisan in the most corrupt village iu Protestant England
say tothis? ‘They revolt at the slightest diminution of their
daily meal, because they eat bread instead of pork. ‘This i
ground enough for a sedition; but were one of those disquali-
tying outrageous statutes attempted to be, enforced in any one
district on any one person in that land, what would be their
answer, Petitions on Petitions, clamour on clamour, outcry on
outcry, meeting ou meeting, until the whole country was arm-
ed against the oppression; nor would they cease till one by
one they had. extorted their liberties from the fears or policy
of their oppressors. And what makes the difference of your
case with theics 7 “Is it because the word Catholic differs from
the word Protestant—or have you less of life and blood, a less
sensibility to insult and infamy, because you believe in Trans+
substantion instead of Consubstantiation ? Because you believe
not only ail that a Protestant believes, but something more—is
that areason why your homes shaul be made the dens of out-
casts, and ypu should be condemned to look upon every bless-
ing of the Constitution—through bars ?. In is the case of every
NO.30.0
man in Ireland—I say it emphatically—every man must feel in~’
terested in the education, the rites of sepulture, the taxes, the
tithes, the magistracy of Ireland... The ascendency may tell us
we arehappy. I say—change wretchedness into blessings j—~
then will we believe you, Monopolists! “Ihe face of the whole
land preaches and proves against you ‘I have been in the most
despotic countries of Europe, where the Government was an
avowed despotism, but the People at least had but one oppres~ t
sor—there was no Hydra, no hundred-headed, hundred-hand- vos
ed Orange Tyranny above them. Their houses were large and. e a
well built—they were houses, aud not hovels—they were cloth- .
ed, and not in rags—they ate, and were satlsfied—they did not |
starve annually, that they might perish annually—there was‘
no inquisition about their grates and hearths, they lived free at \
feast at home, and were too farfrom their masters to feel them. ~
In Papal Rome the peasant is happier ten thousand times than
in this English Ireland, . I had rather serve there than be free
here, after the manner of Irish Freedom. ‘The Constitution is +
an admirable one, “ the envy of surrounding nations,” though
that cant is dying fast, the consummation of human wisdom, ,. 3
(witness its anti-social Catholic Cede.) What care we for this, °
when we do not enjoy it. It is quit as sensitle a thing as to tell
us, there was or is a good Constitution ia China, What I want
is the, Enjoyment. 2! h
The gaoler, no doubt, admires gaol, so do not the prisoners
within them.” And as we know the constitution but by bonds, ‘
fetters, pains and penalties, and every thing prison-like, and.
tyrannic, I must’ think like a prisoner, and thinking so, must
actasT think. The constitution may’ be good; but what is the
administration ?—detestable. There lies ure injury—there also
nuust be applied the remedy. “he laws aré good, if we had . .
them-and we must have them, if we know, ourselyes as we; Mas
know our enemies. There are two means: the first, violence—
and we are becoming too enlightened to take the first—itisa |, .
circuitous route to freedom; the other,, the means which the
constitution has vested in us, and the first of thase is the elec’,
tive franchise.—If we properly had exercised this right, we 59 +”
should long since have been emancipated; for the Catholic
Freehoiders of Ireland béar the saihe proportion as the other
inhabitants to the Protestants. | In this county, they are on the
books, and 502. Freeholders comprehended as $2102. “Nowit'
is obvious, that if these 22 would only feel as every Catholic
ought to feel, we should have an immense majority over our
opponents, and could consequently return any person, whether
Mr. Stuart, Mr. Power, or any person we thought fit. On the’
other side, it is not less true, that if these men are not returned, *
the fault is wholly and entirely in the Catholics; in other words,
the Catholics have been base enough to put into Patliament, a
man who has kept them what they are, whose family is the chief ce
cause of their degradation, and who, so far from retracting his * :
steps, says openly to Catholics—to Catholics themselves (the
most audacious insult that can be offered to mea) that if they c
choose him again, as price of that choice, he will add as many a
new votes as he can to the hundreds that he and his family have
given before against them. That is—elect me, that I may wrong ; ,
you; place me above you, that I may trample on you; bend your :
backs that you may help me to my seat; and give me the lash |.
that I may scourge you. This is the matter-of-fact simple trans«
lation into the language of common sense of Lord George Bex
resford’s Anti-Irish, aud Anti-Catholic Address. But of what
matter is his voice; of what matter, then, is the vote of any
man. Of those votes, one by one, is made up the representation
of the county, and itis this representation which gives us laws.
Now, should every one reason thus, or a large proportion of the
country, not a year would pass without seeing a despotism on
the throne of England, and the House of Parliament converted
into a Russian Senate. Every one’is bound to give what he
can; and if all felt this duty, as 1 am sure you do, there is no
power on earth, no bishop majorities in the House of Lords, no
Duca! oaths, or Royal Vetoes which could oppose us, For how
does the case stand?—The Lords must yield to the Commons
—they have always gone so—and the Euglish portion of the |
Commons must ultimately yield to the Irish. If unanimous, the
Irish members must prevail; and why should they not at length |
be unanimous? . Have we not 75 members; and may we not.
have 80 or 90 or 1007. Many of the-counties of Ireland have’. +
been altogether neutralized—they have lost their votes by the” :
opposition of different interests. But what county hag suffered ‘
more than our own? By the oppesition of Lord George, Mr.
Power has no vote. We are as if we were not; our voice is not
heard in the Imperial Parliament. How is this to be remedied ¢
By giving Mr. Power a colleague, whose sentiments are like’
Mr. Power's, and both of whom are your representatives and
not that of a few, and of @ faction; you not only gain an existe
ence in the legislature, but you gain a powerfal’one ; you have’
two votes where you till this hour had none, And is not this’
worth ambition—and is not this ambition holy—and is not every,
effort to be strained, for what is worthy of the exertion of a
whole people? Nor does the victory rest there; we are not con.
tending against an isolated bigot—he is Lut one head of the
mighty serpent; strike there, and you strike at all, Orangeisra :
trembles through all her nerves, and the secret of her strength ~
is wrapt up in the-strength of the Beresfords. What will the
Eldous, and the Peels, and the Goutburns of the Ascendancy
s ' + a,
>