by violating his oath.  I have never heard so bitter a slander supported by the slightest proof.  Every man in the circle of his acquaintance has met with Catholics, and lived with them probably as companions.  If this immoral lubricity were their characteristic, it would surely be perceived in common life.  Every man’s experience would corroborate the imputation; but I can honestly say that some of the best and most excellent men I have ever met with have been Catholics; perfectly alive to the evil and inconvenience of their situation, but thinking themselves bound by the law of God and the law of honour, not to avoid persecution by falsehood and apostasy.  I remember hearing the Catholics accused from the Hustings of disregarding oaths, and within an hour of that time I saw five Catholic voters rejected, because they would not take the oath of Supremacy; and these were not men of rank who tendered themselves, but ordinary tradesmen.  The accusation was received with loud huzzas, the poor Catholics retired unobserved and in silence.  No one praised the conscientious feeling of the constituents; no one rebuked the calumny of the candidate.

* * * * *

“I beg to remind you, that in talking of the Catholic religion, you must talk of the Catholic religion as it is carried on in Ireland; you have nothing to do with Spain, or France, or Italy:  the religion you are to examine is the Irish Catholic religion.  You are not to consider what it was, but what it is; not what individuals profess, but what is generally professed; not what individuals do, but what is generally practised.  I constantly see, in advertisements from county meetings, all these species of monstrous injustice played off against the Catholics.  The Inquisition exists in Spain and Portugal, therefore I confound place, and vote against the Catholics of Ireland, where it never did exist, nor was purposed to be instituted.  There have been many cruel persecutions of Protestants by Catholic governments; and, therefore, I will confound time and place, and vote against the Irish, who live centuries after these persecutions, and in a totally different country.  Doctor this, or Doctor that, of the Catholic Church has written a very violent and absurd pamphlet; therefore I will confound persons, and vote against the whole Irish Catholic Church, which has neither sanctioned nor expressed any such opinions.  I will continue the incapacities of men of this age, because some men, in distant ages, deserved ill of other men in distant ages.  They shall expiate the crimes committed, before they were born, in a land they never saw; by individuals they never heard of.  I will charge them with every act of folly which they have never sanctioned and cannot control.  I will sacrifice space, time, and identity, to my zeal for the Protestant Church.  Now, in the midst of all this violence, consider, for a moment, how you are imposed on by words, and what a serious