from serving on Grand Juries is repealed; but Catholics are not
called upon Grand Juries in the proportion in which they are
entitled by their rank and fortune. The Duke of Bedford did all he
could to give them the benefit of those laws which are already
passed in their favour. But power is seldom entrusted in this
country to one of the Duke of Bedford's liberality, and everything
has fallen back in the hands of his successors into the ancient
division of the privileged and degraded castes. We do not mean to
cast any reflection upon the present Secretary for Ireland, whom we
believe to be upon this subject a very liberal politician, and on
all subjects an honourable and excellent man. The Government under
which he serves allows him to indulge in a little harmless
liberality; but it is perfectly understood that nothing is intended
to be done for the Catholics; that no loaves and fishes will be lost
by indulgence in Protestant insolence and tyranny; and, therefore,
among the generality of Irish Protestants, insolence, tyranny, and
exclusion continue to operate. However eligible the Catholic may
be, he is not elected; whatever barriers may be thrown down, he does
not advance a step. He was first kept out by law; he is now kept
out by opinion and habit. They have been so long in chains that
nobody believes they are capable of using their hands and feet.

It is not, however, the only or the worst misfortune of the
Catholics that the relaxations of the law are hitherto of little
benefit to them; the law is not yet sufficiently relaxed. A
Catholic, as everybody knows, cannot be made sheriff; cannot be in
parliament; cannot be a director of the Irish Bank; cannot fill the
great departments of the law, the army, and the navy; is cut off
from all the high objects of human ambition, and treated as a marked
and degraded person.