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that no faith is to be kept with Heretics; that it is no article of their faith, and that they renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that Princes, excommunicated by the Pope and Council, or by any authority whatsoever, may be deposed or murdered by their Subjects, or by any person whatsoever; that they do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign Prince, Prelate, State or Potentate, hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence within this Realm; that they firmly believe, that no Act, in itself unjust, immoral or wicked, can ever be justified or excused by, or under pretence or colour, that it was done for the good of the Church, or in obedience to any Ecclesiastical Power whatsoever; and that it is not an article of the Catholic Faith, neither are they thereby required to believe or profess, that the ✓ Pope is infallible, or that they are bound to obey any order, in its own nature immoral, though the Pope or any Ecclesiastical Power should issue or direct any such order; but, that on the contrary, they hold, that it would be sinful in them to pay any respect or obedience thereto: that they do not believe, that any sin whatsoever, committed by them, can be forgiven at the mere will of any Pope or of any Priest, or of any person or persons whatsoever, but that any person who receives absolution for the same, without a sincere sorrow for such sin, and a firm and sincere resolution to avoid future guilt, and to atone to God, so far from obtaining thereby any remission of his sin, incurs the additional guilt of violating a Sacrament; and," by the same solemn obligation, "they are bound and firmly pledged to defend, to the utmost of their power, the settlement and arrangement of property in their country, as established by the laws now in being; that they have disclaimed, disavowed. and solemnly abjured any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment, for the purpose of substituting a Catholic Establishment in

its stead;" and that they have also solemnly sworn, "that

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" that they will not exercise any privilege, to which they are, or may become entitled, to disturb, or weaken the Protestant Religion or Protestant Government of Ireland.

"Your Petitioners most humbly beg leave to shew, that however painful it is to their feelings, that it should still be thought necessary to exact such tests from them, (and from them alone of all his Majesty's subjects) they can with perfect truth affirm, that the political and moral principles which are thereby asserted, are not only conformable to their opinions and habits, but expressly inculcated by the religion which they profess; and your Petitioners most humbly trust, that the religious doctrines, which permit such tests to be taken, will be pronounced by this Hon. House to be entitled to a Toleration, not merely partial but complete, under the happy Constitution and Government of this Realm; and that his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, holding those principles, will be considered as subjects, upon whose fidelity the State may repose the firmest reliance.

"Your Petitioners further most humbly shew, that twenty-six years have now elapsed, since their most gracious Sovereign and the Hon. Houses of Parliament in Ireland, by their public and deliberate Act, declared, that "from the uniform peaceable behaviour of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, for a long series of years, it appeared reasonable and expedient to relax the disabilities and incapacities under which they laboured, and that it must tend not only to the cultivation and improvement of this kingdom, but to the prosperity and strength of all his Majesty's dominions, that his Majesty's subjects of all denominations should enjoy the blessings of a free constitution, and should be bound to each other by mutual interest and mutual affection; a declaration founded upon unerring principles of justice and sound policy, which still remains to be carried into full effect (although your Petitioners are impressed

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impressed with a belief, that the apprehensions, which retarded its beneficial operation previous to the Union, cannot exist in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

"For your Petitioners most humbly shew, that, by virtue of divers statutes now in force, his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, who form so great a proportion of the population of Ireland, and contribute so largely to the resources of the State, do yet labour under many incapacities, restraints, and privations, which affect them with peculiar severity in almost every station of life; that, more especially, they are denied the capacity of sitting or voting in either of the Honourable Houses of Parliament; the manifold evils consequent upon which incapacity they trust it is uunecessary to unfold and enumerate to this Honourable House.

"They are disabled from holding or exercising (unless by a special dispensation) any corporate office whatsoever in the cities or towns in which they reside; they are incapacitated and disqualified from holding or exercising the offices of Sheriffs and Subsheriffs, and various offices of trust, honour, and emolument in the State, in his Majesty's military and naval service, and in the administration of the laws, in this their native land.

"Your Petitioners, declining to enter into the painful detail of the many incapacities and inconveniences avowedly inflicted, by those statutes, upon his Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects, beg leave, however, most earnestly to solicit the attention of this Honourable House to the humiliating and ignominious system of exclusion, reproach and suspicion, which those statutes generate and keep alive.

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For your Petitioners most humbly shew, that in consequence of the hostile spirit thereby sanctioned, their hopes of enjoying even the privileges, which, through the benignity of their most gracious Sovereign, they have been capacitated to enjoy, are nearly altogether frustrated, insomuch that they are, In effect, shut out from almost all the honours, dignities, and offices of trust and emolument in the State, from rank and distinction in his Majesty's Army and Navy, and even from the lowest situations and franchises in the several cities and corporate towns throughout his Majesty's dominions.

And your Petitioners severely feel, that this unqualified interdiction of those of their communion from all municipal stations, from the franchises of all guilds and corporations, and from the patronage and benefits annexed to those situations, is not an evil terminating in itself; for they beg leave to state, that, by giving an advantage over those of their communion to others, by whom such situations are exclusively possessed, it establishes a species of qualified monopoly, universally operating in their disfavour, contrary to the spirit, and highly detrimental to the freedom of trade.

"Your Petitioners likewise severely feel, that his Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects, in consequence of their exclusion from the Offices of Sheriffs and Sub-sheriffs, and of the hostile spirit of those statutes, do not fully enjoy certain other inestimable privileges of the British Constitution, which the law has most jealously maintained and secured to their fellow-subjects.

"Your Petitioners most humbly beg leave to solicit the attention of this Honourable House to the distinction, which has conceded the elective, and denies the representative franchise to one and the same class of His Majesty's subjects, which detaches from property its proportion of political power under a Constitution, whose vital principal is the union of the one with the other-which closes every avenue of legalized ambition, against those who must be presumed to have great credit and influence among the mass of the population of the Country, which refuses to Peers of the Realm all share in the Legislative Representation, either actual or virtual, and renders the liberal profession of the Law to Roman Roman Catholics, a mere object of pecuniary traffic, despoiled of its hopes and of its honours.

"Your Petitioners further most humbly shew that the exclusion of so numerous and efficient a portion of his Majesty's subjects, as the Roman Catholics of this Realm, from civil honours and offices, and from advancement in his Majesty's Army and Navy, actually impairs, in a very material degree, the most valuable resources of the British Empire, by impeding his Majesty's general service, stifling the most honourable and powerful incentives to civil and military merit, and unnecessarily restricting the exercise of that bright prerogative of the Crown which encourages good subjects to promote the public welfare, and excites them to meritorious actions, by a well regulated distribution of public honours and rewards.

"Your Petitioners beg leave most humbly to submit that those manifold incapacities, restraints, and privations are absolutely repugnant to the liberal and comprehensive principles recognized by their most gracious Sovereign and the Parliament of Ireland; that they are impolitic restraints upon his Majesty's royal prerogative; that they are hurtful and vexatious to the feelings of a loyal and generous people, and that the total abolition of them will be found not only compatible with, but highly conducive to, the perfect security of every establishment, religious or political, now existing in this realm.

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For your Petitioners most explicitly declare, that they do not seek or wish, in the remotest degree, to injure or encroach upon "the rights, privileges, immunities, possessions, or revenues appertaining to the Bishops and Clergy of the Protestant Religion, as by law established, or to the Churches committed to their charge, or to any of them." The sole object of your Petitioners being an equal participation, upon equal terms with their fellow-subjects, of the full benefits of the British Laws and Constitution.

"Your

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