e common prosperity, who perform
the common offices of social life, and who obey the laws, to the full as
well as I do? Gentlemen, the danger to the state being out of the
question, (of which, let me tell you, statesmen themselves are apt to
have but too exquisite a sense,) I could assign no one reason of
justice, policy, or feeling, for not concurring most cordially, as most
cordially I did concur, in softening some part of that shameful
servitude under which several of my worthy fellow-citizens were
groaning.

Important effects followed this act of wisdom. They appeared at home and
abroad, to the great benefit of this kingdom, and, let me hope, to the
advantage of mankind at large. It betokened union among ourselves. It
showed soundness, even on the part of the persecuted, which generally is
the weak side of every community. But its most essential operation was
not in England. The act was immediately, though very imperfectly, copied
in Ireland; and this imperfect transcript of an imperfect act, this
first faint sketch of toleration, which did little more than disclose a
principle and mark out a disposition, completed in a most wonderful
manner the reunion to the state of all the Catholics of that country. It
made us what we ought always to have been, one family, one body, one
heart and soul, against the family combination and all other
combinations of our enemies. We have, indeed, obligations to that
people, who received such small benefits with so much gratitude, and for
which gratitude and attachment to us I am afraid they have suffered not
a little in other places.

I dare say you have all hoard of the privileges indulged to the Irish
Catholics residing in Spain. You have likewise heard with what
circumstances of severity they have been lately expelled from the
seaports of that kingdom, driven into the inland cities, and there
detained as a sort of prisoners of state. I have good reason to believe
that it was the zeal to our government and our cause (somewhat
indiscreetly expressed in one of the addresses of the Catholics of
Ireland) which has thus drawn down on their heads the indignation of the
court of Madrid, to the inexpressible loss of several individuals, and,
in future, perhaps to the great detriment of the whole of their body.
Now that our people should be persecuted in Spain for their attachment
to this country, and persecuted in this country for their supposed
enmity to us, is such a jarring reconcilia