office of truft and emolument whatsoever, civil or military; a profcription which difregards capacity or merit, admits of neither qualification nor degree; and refts as an univerfal fligma of diftruft upon the whole body of your Catholic fubjects. We are interdicted from all municipal ftations, and the franchise of all guilds and corporations; and our exclufion from the benefits annexed to those fituations, is not an evil terminating in itself; for, by giving an advantage over us to thofe in whom they are exclufively vefted, they establish throughout the kingdom a species of qualified monopoly, uniformly operating in our disfavour, contrary to the fpirit, and highly detrimental to freedom of trade.

We may not found nor endow any university, college or school, for the education of our children, and we are interdicted from obtaining degrees in the University of Dublin, by the several charters and ftatutes now in force therein.

We are totally prohibited from keeping or ufing weapons for the defence of our houfes, families, or perfons, whereby we are exposed to the violence of burglary, robbery, and affaffination; and to enforce this prohibition, contravening that great original law of nature, which enjoins us to felf-defence, a variety of ftatutes exift, not lefs grievous and oppreffive in their provisions than unjuft in their object; by one of which, enacted fo lately as within these 16 years, every of your Majefty's Catholic fubjects, of whatever rank or degree, peer or peafant, is compellable by any magiftrate to come forward and convict himself of what may be thought a fingular offence in a country profeffing to be free-keeping arms for his defence; or, if he fhall refufe fo to do, may incur not only fine and imprisonment, but the vile and ignominious punishments of the pillory and. whipping s

whipping ;-penalties appropriated to the most infamous malefactors, and more terrible to a liberal mind than death itself No Catholic whatsoever, as we apprehend, has his personal property fecure. The law allows and encourages the difobedient and unnatural child to deprive him of it the unhappy father does not, even by the furrender of his all, purchase his repofe; he may be attacked by new bills, if his future induftry be fuccefsful, and again be plundered by due process of law.

We are excluded, or may be excluded from all Petit Juries, in civil actions, where one of the parties is a Proteftant; and we are further excluded from all Petit Juries in trials by information or indictment founded on any of the Popery laws, by which law we most humbly submit to your Majefty, that your loyal fubjects, the Catholics of Ireland, are in this their native land, in a worse situation than that of Aliens, for they may demand an equitable privilege denied to us, of having half their Jury Aliens like themselves.

We may not ferve on Grand Juries unless, which it is fcarcely poffible can ever happen, there fhould not be found a fufficiency of Proteftants to complete the pannel, contrary to that humane and equitable principle of the law, which fays that no maa fhall be convicted of any capital offence, unless by the concurring verdicts of two juries of his neighbours and equals, whereby, and to this we humbly prefume more particularly to implore your Royal attention, we are deprived of the great Paladium of the Conflitution, Trial by our Peers, independent of the manifeft injuftice of our property being taxed in affeffments by a body, from which we are formally excluded.

We avoid a further enumeration of inferior grievances, but may it please your Majefty, there remains

remains one incapacity, which your loyal fubjects the Catholics of Ireland, feel with moft poignant anguifh of mind, as being the badge of unmerited difgrace and ignominy, and the caufe and bitter aggravation of all other calamities; we are deprived of the elective franchife, to the manifest perverfion of the fpirit of the Conftitution, in as much as your faithful subjects are thereby taxed where they are not reprefented, actually or virtually, and bound by laws, in the framing of which they have no power to give or withhold their asfent; and we moft humbly implore your Majefty to believe, that this our prime and heavy grievance is not an evil merely fpeculative, but is attended with great diftrefs to all ranks, and in many inftances, with the total ruin and deftruction of the lower orders of your Majefty's faithful and loyal fubjects the Catholics of Ireland; for may it please your Majefty, not to mention the infinite variety of advantages in point of protection and otherwise, which the enjoyment of the elective franchise gives to those who poffefs it, nor the confequent inconveniencies to which thofe who are deprived thereof are liable, not to mention the difgrace to three-fourths of your loyal subjects of Ireland, of living the only body of men incapable of franchise in a nation poffeffing a free conftitution, it continually happens and of neceffity from the malignant nature of the law, muft happen, that multitudes of the Catholic tenantry in divers counties in this kingdom are, at the expiration of their leafes, expelled from their tenements and farms to make room for Proteftant freeholders, who, by their votes, may contribute to the weight and importance of their landlords. Acircumftance which renders the recurrence of a general election, that period which is the boaft and laudable triumph of our proteftant brethern-a vifitation and heavy

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curse to us, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal fubjects. And may it please your Majefty, this uncertainty of poffeffion to your Majefty's Catholic fubjects operates as a perpetual reftraint and difcouragement on induftry and the spirit of cultivation, whereby it happens, that this your Majefty's kingdom of Ireland, poffeffing many and great natural advantages of foil and climate, fo as to be exceeded therein by few, if any, countries on the earth, as yet prevented from availing herfelf thereof fo fully as the otherwise might, to the furtherance of your majesty's honour, and the more effectual fupport of your fervice.

And, may it please your Majefty, the evil does not even reft here;-for many of your Majefty's Catholic fubjects, to preserve their families from total deftruction, fubmit to nominal conformity against their conviction and their confcience; and, preferring perjury to famine, take oaths which they utterly disbelieve—a circumftance which, we doubt not, will shock your Majesty's well known and exemplary piety, not lefs than the misery which drives thofe unhappy wretches desperate a measure, muft diftrefs and wound your Royal clemency and commiferation.

to fo

And may it please your Majefty, though we might here reft our cafe, on its own merit, juftice, and expediency, yet we further prefume, humbly to fubmit to your majefty, that the right of franchife was, with divers other rights, enjoyed by the Catholics of this Kingdom, from the firft adoption of the English Conftitution by our forefathers, was fecured to at leaft a great part of our body by the treaty of Limerick, in 1691, guaranteed by your Majefty's Royal Predeceffor's, King William and Queen Mary, and finally confirmed and ratified by Parliament; notwithstanding which, and in direct breach of the public faith of the

nation thus folemnly pledged, for which our ancestors paid a valuable confideration, in a furrender of their arms, and a great part of this kingdom, and notwithstanding the moft fcrupulous adherence, on our part, to the terms of the faid treaty, and our unremitting loyalty from that day to the prefent, the faid right of elective franThife was finally and univerfally taken away from the Catholics of Ireland, fo lately as the first year of his Majefty King George the Second.

And when we thus prefume to fubmit this infraction of the treaty of Limerick to your Majefty's Royal notice it is not that we ourfelves confider it to be the ftrong part of our cafe; for though our rights were recognized, they were by no means created by that treaty; and we do with all humility conceive, that if no fuch event as the faid treaty had ever taken place, your Majesty's Catholic fubjects, from their unvarying loyalty, and dutiful fubmiflion to the laws, and from the great fupport afforded by them to your Majefty's Government in this country, as well as in their perfonal fervice in your Majefty's fleets and armies, as from the taxes and revenues levied on their property, are fully competent, and juftly entitled to participate and enjoy the bleffings of. the Conftitution of their country.

And now that we have, with all humility, fubmitted our grievances to your Majefty, permit us, Moft gracious Sovereign, again to reprefent our fincere attachment to the Conflitution, as eftáblifhed in three eflares of Kings, Lords, and Commons, our uninterrupted loyalty, peaceable demeanor, and fubmiffion to the laws for one hundred years, and our determination to persevere in the fame dutiful conduct, which has, under your Majefty's happy aufpices, procured us thofe relaxations of the penal ftatutes, which the wifdom of

the