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We have seen the commercial fabric of Britain shaken to its very base; we have seen thousands of families driven from affluence and Independence to the lowest depths of poverty and wretchedness; we have seen thousands of industrious mechanics forced from their labours and from their homes, either to fill the workhouses, to wander about as outcast beggars, or to people the shores of foreign and perhaps hostile nations, -Applause.) The petition, Sir, which I hold in my hand, and which I shall move for your adoption, (a document which does honour to its author) contains a lucid exposition of the causes which have conspired to plunge this country in misery; but if reflection is carried a single step farther, it will be seen, that the grand cause if causes is no other than the corrupt state of the British House of Commons.-(Great applause.) The Corn Laws, which starve the workmen while they prevent him from obtaining a foreign market for the produce of his labour and ingenuity; all the murderous and expensive wars into which the country has been plunged for the last 150 years; the weight of nine hundred millions of pounds of debt, and sixty millions of pounds of taxes under which the country groans; the paper currency which can be annihilated by a single bankruptcy, which can overthrow the mercantile and manufacturing interests of Britain in a day, and which has already done incalculable mischief to England; the whole host of unmerited places, pensions and sinecures; with the swarms of state-leeches and courtsycophants who fatten on the vitals and feast on the ruin of their country: all these, Sir, and a thousand other evils following in the train of bad legislation have had their origin in the measurses of a Parliament which seemed to triumph in the misery which it has caused us to suffer. (Applause.) When petitions from all parts of the country were pouring in upon the table of the House of Commons, praying for a diminution of the national expenditure and a reduction of taxation, and stating the absolutely starving condition of the petitioners; when the weaving population is but one dense mass of paupers, and thousands of industrious mechanics reduced to live on the food of hogs ;-(shame! shame!) when the old cast off clothing of the soldiery was sent to cover the naked labourers of Lancashire: in the midst of all this suffering and distress, did this House of Commons, adding insult to injury, vote away tens of thousands of pounds on gold snuff-boxes and diamond-hilted swords, for French Madames and bearded Cossacks.-(Great indignation.)

But, Sir, not only has a corrupt House of Commons ruined the country, pillaged ourselves, and shackled our posterity with taxes, but it has arrogated to itself the atrributes of the Great Eternal. It has decreed, in the plentitude of its power and infallibility, that all who shall not fall down and worship the church created and supported by acts of Parliament and the bayonets of soldiers, shall be denounced as aliens to the Constiution, and be denied the advantges enjoyed by the meanest member of the church established by law.—(Loud applause.) This House of Commons, Sir, has not only impoverished the nation and destroyed its energies, but it recently rejected the prayers of seven millions of as brave and loyal subjects as ever supported the throne of a monarch, for a removal of the degrading disabilities under which labour. That rejection was followed up by the distribution of five millions of ball cartridges among the Irish garrisons to silence the murmurs of the insulted Irish. The brave and loyal Catholics when asking for a removal of civil disqualifications, were answered with a present of ball cartridges, bayonets, and gunpowder. That House, in the fulness of its wisdom, has declared the Catholics utterly incapable of filling any office under Government, or occupying a seat in Parliament, because, forsooth, they do not keep faith with heretics, when the only barrier which prevents Catholics from holding any situation under the British Crown is their regard to the sacredness of an oath. The Deist, the Atheist, the Infidel, the rogue, and the knave, may obtain seats in the Honourable House, while the Ca

tholic for a few peculiarities in his creed, and which all the blandishnients held out by a corrupt government cannot induce him to forego, is deprived of all the advantages which flow from an equal administration of the laws, and has the finger of scorn pointed at him by a constitution which his blood and his treasure have contributed largely to support.(Long continued cheers.) In taking an extended view of the question, we need not be at any loss to account for the vast sums of money annually squandered away on court parasites, special ambassadors, and the esta blished Clergy, when we consider that nine-tenths of the House of Commons are connected by some means or other with the state cormorants, and the taxeater. Sir, there is no cure left for the evils which afflict the body politic, but a radical reform of the Legislature on the principles of annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and vote by ballot. Obtain but this, and the emancipation of Catholics from the galling yoke of persecution will follow as a matter of course.-(Great rpplause.)

Mr. Hammond then read the petition, which is similar to the one agreed to at the meeting of the Friends of Civil and Religious Liberty in February last, with an additional clause, which we will give next week. After reading it, he moved that it be adopted, which motion was seconded by Mr. Witherington, and passed unanimously.

Several others addressed the Chair in very able speeches, and towards the close of the evening, Mr. Dewhurst, who suffered 120 weeks imprisonment in cause of Reform, in 1819, which was then called sedition, spoke in nearly the following terms:

Mr. Chairman, It was not my intention to have intruded myself to your notice, but the observations which the preceding speakers have made Induce me to say a few words. I have often heard mention of your society, but have not had assurance enough to atttend any of your meetings; but through the pressing invitation of our friend, Mr. Hammond, I have overcome my bashful diffidence. Your society has for its object the cementing together in social union the Friends of Civil and Religious Liberty, in order to make an impression upon the Legislature. This Society owes it origin to Catholics, and no better proof of their sincerity in the good cause need be adduced than their regular attendance at these meetings, their disinterested advocacy of general liberty, and their abhorrence of the present system of misrule." But, Mr. Chairman, I think that the Catholics have hitherto acted very wrong in not petitioning the Legislature for a thorough Reform in the Commons house of Parliament. Had they done this, they would have enlisted the whole of the Friends of Civil Liberty on their side, and would have proved to the world, that you still retain in your breasts the principles of your forefathers, in wishing to give liberty to every Englishman. I do not believe that in the days of our ancestors every man possessed the right to vote. No; but still the right of voting was extended to most towns of any note; and from that it follows that representation was equally distributed. Since the last two centuries many large and populous towns have gone almost to decay, and hundreds of large towns have risen to opulence and population equal to what London was formerly; therefore, for our modern Legislators to be moderately just, representation ought to have kept pace with the alteration in population. Gentlemen, you complain very justly that your best endeavours to be placed upon an equality with other sectarians are of no avail : ́to me it appears very reasonable when we consider who are the persons most opposed to our claims. I am no Catholic; on the contrary, I was always taught in my infancy to hate a Catholic-persuaded that they were blood thirsty-bid to read Fox's Book of Martyrs -had rehearsed in my presence the horrid conspiracy of Guy Fawkes and his associates—and taught to believe that the Catholics only wanted power to murder all us Protestants. Such tales are not soon erased from the human mind. It requires some little resolution to divest oneself of

such impressions made in our boyish days. But, I say, when we consider who are the persons most opposed to the Catholic claims, our wonder ceases. The Clergy know well that their present possession of right belongs to the Catholic Church, all the wealth, all the consequence and importance which they assume in society are at the expense of your Church. It is that wealth which makes them such persevering opponents to you. One would reasonably believe that all being Christians, and only one remove in their mode of worship from their fellow Christians; I say one would reasonably believe that their opposition would abate-but no; while they have or possess that which does not of right belong to them, they will bully and blacken and calumniate all those from whom it has been taken. If that Church property were taken for national purposes, they would be as silent as mice. Gentlemen, I would advise you to make common cause with the Friends of Liberty. While you continue petitioning to be allowed to send a dozen or two Members to that house, you create little sympathy with the rest of our Countrymen; but if you would petition for the Church property to be appropriated to the purposes to which it was originally applied, then the whole of the useful classes of society would pull with you, and with a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether-something that would shake the present system would undoubtedly be the result. If the Irish could be brought to be as unanimous in demanding a Reform as they are in demanding seats for a few ambitious leaders, they would not only have a chance of getting those leaders into the House, but they would likewise enjoy themselves those rights which alone can give to life any value. If they would make common cause with the English Reformers, not a million of soldiers would be able to crush their spirits. Ireland is differently situated to England, nine-tenths of her population are degraded, but are not distracted with religious dissensions. If the demand for Reform were once set on foot by the Irish leaders, it would move (backed by the English Reformers) like a mighty torrent, bearing down all that op posed it. To that point, then, should all our efforts be directed; we should strive to form an union with those petitioning bodies who have petitioned for a mere participation of civil rights without ever making a demand for all to be equally represented. While the present mode of returning members to Parliament is continued, you will not only be branded in a more peculiar manner than I am, but you will contiune to be the slave of a faction, and be robbed of four fifths of your earnings, to enable them to continue their robbery. Therefore, Gentlemen, cease to petition for Emancipation, which is only a tub thrown out to the whale, to divert you from petitioning for a Reform iu Parliament.

A vote of thenks was passed to the worthy Chairman, and the other Protestant Gentlemen, for their attendance and able services, and the meeting terminated.

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A MEETING of the GENERAL COMMITTEE of the BRITISH CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION will be held at the ASSOCIATION ROOMS, No. 1, Thorney-street, Bloomsbury, on MONDAY, the 9th inst, t TWO o'Clock. EDWARD BLOUNT, SECRETARY,

Printed by W. E. Andrews, Chapterhouse-court, St. Paul's, London.