SSHtf J 01XOMOJL dO

3H1 IV

[No. II.]

' .- Hie Superini: ,„„. />,.„/«,„„.

IRELAND; POPERY AND PRIESTCRAFT

THE CAUSE OF HER

MISERY AND CRIME.

BY J. C. COLQUHOUN, ESQ.

OF KII.LERMONT.

THE object of these pages may be briefly stated. I am aware that the atten- tion oft-very reflecting man is now turned to the disorders and m Ireland. We have received, from interested parties, conflicting sum-men; the causes of these. But we have had a large body of facts collect Parliamentary Committees which have sat on the state of Ireland'.-'

Jo, and have published five folio volumes of Evidence. I H that in these the true causes of the present state of Ireland would IK hibired. I have not been disappointed. It has seemed to me, '

f to enumerate the results of this evidence to my countrymen. T will observe that these documents prove the following positions : —

First, That Ireland is, and has long been, in a state of disorder; d; ous to life, and opposed to industry.

nd, That this state of disorder is increased by the influence of llo- man Catholic political agitators, and of Roman Catholic pric-

Third, That a special attack has been, and is now, made by those par- »n the Protestants of Ireland; and that, in consequence, the lives and property of the Protestants are in dan.

Fourth, That in the parts of Ireland where the Protestants prevail, in e, and in these only, order and tranquillity prevail: that peace and in- •ry arc co-extensive with Protestantism, and are overthrown by 1V|

I draw no conclusions from the.-e positions. It i> 1 have

proved them, and proved them on tin; hi • '.•we. I lea\<

the reader's judgment.

Hereafter I may feel it right to call attention to the practical - which maybe deduced from them; and it will then be my dut trast the policy recommended by tin in, sanctioned by 0 .'i;d

by common sense, with the policy now en lorn d bv tin on by Government.

I would make one further remark. In ever

out citing my authority, the quotation may be held a> cimiing t'rmu <» the volumes of Parliamentary Evidence, from which my auth<>. drawn: either from the Committee of the [.on!- on the state of Inland in 1825, or from the Committee of the Lords on Tithes in Irelnnd in

or from the Committee of the Commons on the state of Ireland in 1852, or from the Committee of the Commons on Tithes in Ireland in 1832, or from the Committee of the Commons on Orange Societies in 1835. When I do not cite any special authority, I pledge myself that the witnesses quoted or the document referred to, are the witnesses or documents given before the above Committees. In making quotations from them, I have observed one rule — to draw my proofs, in every case where it was possible, from witnesses who differed from me in my conclusions. I cite, for example, the testimony of Roman Catholic priests and agitators to prove the points established above. In the Orange Committee I throw aside, except for one notorious fact, the undeniable evidence of the Rev. Mr. O'Sullivan, and take that of Lord Gosford, the friend of the policy which I condemn. This rule, it will at once be perceived, adds the utmost weight to the authority of the wit- nesses, and removes from them all suspicion of partiality.

With these remarks, I beg to commit the subject to the judgment of my countrymen, and to intreat from them the attention to which its importance and the high character of the evidence seem to entitle it. The subject of this tract shall be divided into the following sections : namely,

Section I. State of the Peasantry of Ireland.

Section II. Crimes of the Peasantry of Ireland.

Section III. Political Agitators of Ireland.

Section IV. Roman Catholic Priests of Ireland.

Section V. Protestants of Ireland.

SECTION I.— State of the Peasantry of Ireland.

LET me invite the attention of my countrymen to the state of the pea- santry of Ireland. I bring this question forward now, because much mis- apprehension prevails on it ; and yet, as we are engaged in active legisla- tion on Ireland, it becomes us thoroughly to understand the state of the people to whom our laws are applied, I desire to make no remarks upon the errors (as we think them) of the Roman Catholic faith. I do not for- get that it was in the Catholic Church that the virtues of the Port Royal Christians arose, that Fenelon's piety was exhibited, and the unblemished life of Pascal. These thoughts would check all harsh denunciation of the Roman Catholics, if indeed I were disposed to fall into it. But I have no wish to touch on this ; my business is not with the religious creed of the men, it is solely with the political tendency of the system, and its effects upon Ireland.

Let us first understand the actual state of the peasantry — their state at this moment — their state, alas I for centuries. In a few words I might de- scribe it as Lord John Russell did, on the 30th of March, when asking what was their moral condition. He said, " There exists, as we unhappily know, a strong propensity to violence and outrage, not merely among a few lawless and ill-regulated persons, but among all, or nearly all, classes of the community." What a state is this for a country ! But it is ac- counted for as arising from English misrule — the oppression of a dominant party — the rebellion of a people aggrieved, and rising against the griev- ance. Down to 1829, we were told that these outrages were from the want of Emancipation, and would cease with this. So said Mr. O'Connell and Dr. Doyle in their sworn evidence ; so said many others. The year 1829 brought Ireland emancipation ; a lull ensued, and we called it peace. In 1831, Ireland was again in disorder. What it was in 1832, 1833, and 1834, we know from the list of outrages submitted to Parliament by Lord Althorp and Lord Melbourne. What it is in 1835, we know from the evidence of Lord John Russell. Emancipation had arrived, but the

outrages remained. A strung suspicion, therefore .,0117

of those who would connect Irish outrages with jt<iti(ira/ witnesses who said this have been belied by t venta which ha\e confii the evidence of Mr. Kiely, a Roman Catholic priest, who said, in I that neither the question of Emancipation, nor any political i|ii« stion, hud any connection with the outrages. " As to any thing political into

the views of the peasantry, or a religious change, I have heard it talkt • but among the higher grades ; I have not heard it at all from any of the peasantry."

But, instead of quoting opinions, I shall give some specimens of the state of Ireland, from Mr. Inglis's Travels, and the observations of Mr. Croly.

Mr. Croly, a Roman Catholic priest, speaks of the character of the Irish peasantry, as superstitious in the highest degree. " They believe in gl. and fairies — are mercilessly cruel, setting no more value on the life of a fellow-creature than on the life of the most worthless brute — believing that they ought to hate and exterminate all such as differ from them in religion : and among themselves are divided into hostile factions or parties — the Ma- honeys against the Hurleys, and the Hurleys against the Mahoneys — they fight pitched battles against one another with deadly weapons at fairs, and markets, and patterns, and goals ; scarcely ever meeting together at christenings, or weddings, or at the alehouse, that a battle does not take place, when blood, and bruises, and broken bones, terminate the barbarous scene."

Mr. Inglis gives a specimen of this from his own observation. He says that County Kerry, when he visited it, was considered tranquil, be- cause free from insurrectionary movements; but there was in one-half of it 199 violent assaults and outrages, arising from those factious, \ Inch " create far more bloodshed than any political association," and lead at every fair to " rights and savage brutalities, which would end, if not checked, in the disorganization of society." Of these he gives one example at Baly- bunian, " when nearly two score persons were driven into the Shannon, and drowned, and knocked on the head, like so many dogs." These factions or clans, he >a\>. have a constant antipathy. " The O'Sullivans are as dis- tinct a people from the O'Neills, as the Dutch from the Belgians ;" and when- ever they meet they fight. A quarrel at a fair between two persons, leads to a general affray, aud when the law interferes to punish the outrage, all of the same name are ready to swear as witnesses in behalf of their clans- man. " If the name of the man who was killed be O'Grady, then every witness who comes up to be sworn for the prosecution is an O'Grady : if the name of the prisoner be O'Neill, then all the witnesses for the defence are O'Neills." Mr. Croly speaks of their total disregard of an oath, and their savage indifference to human life. Mr. Inglis says that the - feature which struck him at their as>i/es of Knnis, was "their perfect con- tempt of human suffering and their utter disregard even of the value of human life. Weapons of the most deadly description were brought into court as evidence : sticks and whips loaded with lead, and staves that might crush the head of a horse;" and there stand the men "ready to heat another's brains out, and all but glorying in the deed," and u>ing, as the substitute for weapons, in a court of law, false oaths, by \\hich t thcniM-lves on the opposite faction. At L'.nuis lie had seen the re>uli- <>f these crimes. In Cnnnemara he witnessed the di>play of them at a holy well, the devotions of which concluded in a pitched battle hrt Joyces and the Cunneniara boys; and this for no iva-on but tha1 man was a Joyee, and the other a Cunncmara boy, and the place ot the pattern was claimed by the one as the Joyce's country, and denied by the other.

Let 'us now gather together the- information suppluMl respecting the condi- tion of the Irish peasantry, from IVrlimwntary documents, the host of all evidence. In 1838, there were 17,800 crimes perpetrated in Ireland, for which persons were committed to gaol. Many escaped altogether. In England, if there had been the same ratio between crime and population, there should have been 34,000 crimes : there were bat 20,000. In Scot- land, there should have been 4,000 : there were but 2,000. How enor- mously, therefore, has Ireland exceeded the rest of the empire in crime ! — how rich is the harvest that grows in that soil of blood ! But these crimes, it is said, are owing to tithes, and to political causes.

In the Parliamentary Returns, presented in May 1834, a list is given of ninety of the most aggravated outrages. There were fourteen committed on tithe-proctors, which ought not to be held as political, because tithe collection from the peasantry is not a necessary part of the Church system of Ireland. One outrage only is connected with the Church of Ireland ; all the rest are private acts of violence, or brawls from factions, or disputes about the possession of land. Including even tithe, there are but fifteen political to seventy-five savage crimes. Let us look further into the Re- turns, and examine two parts of Ireland in detail.

The Barony of Garrycastle, in King's County, was subjected to the Co- ercion Act in the spring of 1834. The outrages which had led to this art- detailed in the Returns, as proofs of the necessity of this Act. There were fifty-five of these in three months — from 1st January, 1834, till the end of March. Three of these were acts of revenge connected with tithes, but the remaining fifty-two had no concern whatever with politics ; — they were either acts of plunder, of which we have eleven ; or acts of violence, of which there are twelve ; or outrages on those who had taken land, of which there are seventeen ; or attacks on labourers to drive them from their em- ployment, of which there are nine ; or interference with the sale of poor peasant's produce, of which there are two. All these, excepting three

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ill these fifty-five crimes, in this single Barony, were committed by desperate peasants, on industrious peasants, to terrify them from their farms, or from their places of employment, or from their humble cabins. Four Baronies in Westmeath round Mullingar, were proclaimed as dis- turbed, in April, 1834. Within these — within two small parishes — forty - r Hit outrages were perpetrated between January and April, 1834. These are all specified in the Returns. One is against a tithe-proctor, one against a gentleman ; but the remaining forty-six are all against the middling or humble classes — farmers, tradesmen, labourers, the defenceless widow, the unprotected peasant. A tradesman's house is attacked and burnt — a weaver's house and loom are burnt— four men's houses entered, and the inmates beat — another man nearly beat to death, and ordered to dismiss his servant girl — a farmer and a steward warned to dismiss the servants they had taken, and take back those whom they had dismissed — a farmer warned not to plough and sow his fields — a widow driven from her house — a herd and several other workmen driven from their places — a carter stopped and hi-; cart cut to pieces — all who would work piece-work threatened with death — a servant beat for fidelity to his employer — another stoned to death in open day near a town. These cases require no comment. What a coun- try must that be, and what a state of a people, in which the business of life and its occupations, however humble, are subject to the tyrannizing in- terfering of desperate gangs, whose word is a law, and whose executors are the fire and the sword I

It is, indeed, a mockery, to assert that such a condition of society can be corrected by acts of Parliament, which do not touch the state of the pea- santry. The acts of legislation may please or soothe the upper classes, whose position they affect ; but will the O'Neills or the O'Sullivans cease

their contest ? or the Cunneinara boys ami the Joyces lay down their fen or the Shannon be less red \\ith the blood of its victim-.'? or tin- . Ennis be less crowded with savage faces, the perpetrator- or the fairs and markets cease to be scenes of lawless bloodshed ? T are crimes whieh arise from the state of the peasantry, and can only < when that is improved.

Every one is familiar with the name of Whitefeet and Black ft « t. All who remember the year 1821, have heard of Captain Rock and his fol- lowers. Those who know more particularly the history of Ireland, ha\e read of the Cardeis and Kighters, the ShanaVats and Caravats, the \Vhite- l»o\s and the Peep-o'-day-boys, the Thrashers and Riskavallas, the Black- hens and Hibbonmen, the Lady-Clares and Terry-Alts. These fact have existed all over Ireland — they have existed for centuries — they :•}>: up as soon as the open wars of clans ceased, and indicated feuds whieh law and government were unable to subdue. " The outrages prevalent from these have existed," says Mr. Barrington, the Crown Solicitor on the Minis- ter circuit, and by confession of all the most unimpeachable authority,'' " with little variation, over Ireland, for the last sixty years."

Their causes it is well clearly to understand. " The peasantry have al- ways," says Mr. Barrington, " had objects connected with the land. I ha\ e traced the origin of almost every case I prosecuted, and I iind that they generally arise from the attachment to, the dispossession of, or the ch. in the possession of land. One of the outrages at Clare, was that of a Kerry-man going to get work in Clare : his house was attacked and pros- trated. The murder of Mr. Blood was by a gang of robbers, whose o! was plunder. The murder of Maloney, at Cratloe, in Clare, for taking a farm which another person had been dispossessed of — the attack on another Maloney, to compel him to set ground at a low rate — the attack on the Kerry-men for going into that county to work — the murder of Mr. Hopkins, in the county of Limerick, for his father's enforcing rent without the pro- mised abatement — a great number of cases for compelling persons to quit the farms they had taken, of which others had been dispossessed — numerous cases of armed parties committing burglaries and robberies on the poor farmers." As to tithe, " not a case in Munster since the Compo>iUon Act." As to political outrage, " I have never known a single case of direct hosti- lity to the Government, as a government." Mr. Harrington's evidence is corroborated by all Irish history. In 1775, the outrages arose from . ciations of peasants formed to regulate the prices of land. In 17S7 and 1788, there wzi< a general combination against rent. In 1811, then a wide combination in the south-west of Ireland, to reduce the nnl of land. In isli*. the peasantry prevented the ejection of tenants, and i lated the price of con-acres, and enforced their orders with the fearful punishment of Carding. "In 1820, the rents being still high, while Ca- prices had fallen," (I quote from the Evidence of Mr. Frankland Leui>, and Mr. Keily, a Roman Catholic priest,) "the middlemen pres>ed on the. tenantry, and they, driven to despair, rose in Galway, to the number of 1 and ravaged the country. In 1821, M \nv exaction of rent on the Courienay estate, roused a tenant of the name oi'Dillane. This man \\a-the celeb] Captain Hock, and he c\cit< <l a general opposition to rent over Clare, Limerick, Kerry, and Cork." In sbjB£, places " rents \\ere. unpaid for ; years." Mr. Kelly, when asked what \\as felt at that time in Mun>ter about emancipation and political reforms, says, the reform they cared li that connected with the reduction of rents, and that kind of Ifockite dis- position, that the people had to keep farm-, rs in possession of tin ir grounds when they wen; not paying rent for them." In \^2'2. the peasantry P. masse — their object Mas a reduction of rent. " 1 ha attic im-

pounded." savs one witness, -'and brouj-ht u> ^>le. but no person dare 1/nJ

for them. I have known the possession of lands recovered, but no one dared to become the tenant." In like manner, all the cases of outrage subsequent to 1822, have been connected with land — the opposition to tithes, was as to a tax on land — the murder of Mr. Blood was owing to his dispossessing many tenants on Lord Stradbrooke's land — the disturbances in Clare, from the Caseys being in want of potato ground. Hence sprung the Terry- Alts and Lady-Clares, and disorders which threw the whole county into con- fusion. The outrages in Limerick, in 1831, which, had they not been promptly checked, would have involved the whole of Limerick in disorders, were owing to some men crossing from Clare, and making a large assembly for digging up ground. The Whitefeet, who sprang up in 1829, and who, in 1831, involved Queen's County in disturbance, were (Mr. Barrington says) but a variety of the same gangs with like objects. Sir J. Harvey, inspector of police, says that they were a part of " an unlawful combination, having in view to regulate rents, and to exclude strangers from land." Another, a Roman Catholic witness, says of them and the Blackfeet, " I have seen crowds of these people brought to trial and convicted ; the ob- jects of these associations were levying increased wages, and seeing that no one is ejected from his land, and another let in." The priest of Maryboro says, " I am very sure there is nothing that they would not forgive sooner than turning them out of their farms ; every string of their heart is twined round every twig upon them. I never found any thing so difficult as to induce people to forgive those persons who took their lands." Mr. De- laney, Roman Catholic priest of the Collieries, Queen's County, and Mr. Keogh, Roman Catholic priest of Abbeyleix, concur in stating that it was no political causes which excited the Whitefeet, but the wish to get posses- sion of land, from which some had been ejected.

The Whitefeet began in 1827, in Queen's County, and spread subse- quently over Clare, Kerry, Tipperary, and Kilkenny. Their first dispute was with the Blackfeet, but their final object was to eject from land all who had taken it within ten or fifteen years. They gained an accession of a great number in the Colliery district, from " persons of the name of Hanlon taking a farm, from which they attempted to dislodge a number of sub- tenants ; and from a proprietor dismissing three of his tenants." When the Whitefeet were asked in Queen's County what were their grievances? they stated them to be low wages, want of work, and ejection from land. The priest of Maryboro says, " the words of the Whitefeet were, We have got no good by emancipation ; let us notice the farmers to give us better food and better wages, and not give so much to the landlord, and more to the workmen — we must not let them be turning the poor off the ground," Part of the Wliitefeet oath is " to assist a brother when dispossessed of lands, and turn off an intruder." All the witnesses before the Committee of 1832, Mr. Wray, Mr. Singleton, Police Inspectors, Mr. Stapleton, and Sir J. Har- vey, Mr. Dillon, an agitator, Mr. Cassidy, a repealer, the three Roman Catholic priests of Maryboro, of the Collieries, and of Abbeyleix, all con- cur in stating that " high rents, want of employment, and low wages, were the grievances" of which the Whitefeet complained. It was the same feelings which were evinced in the disturbances in Roscommou in 1831. " Those who disturbed that county," says the O'Connor Don, " burned and destroyed property, levelled the walls and ditches of many landlords, insisted on their raising the hire of their labourers, and reducing the rents of their grounds, and of con-acres in particular." The statement, there- fore, that tithes were the cause of the disorders of the peasantry is disproved by these facts. I will, however, cite evidence directly denying this. Mr. Barrington says, " that in all his experience he has never found these dis- turbances to have any connection with the political feeling of the country." Another witness says, " The sole obiect of the WTiitefeet was employment,

low wages, and possession of land : they cared nothing about tithes." Mr. Caasidy, a repealer, says, " If tithes Mere done away with to-rnorrov would do no manner of good. The combination of the Whir. vent people from taking land over the heads of other- . be," say»

Mr. Price, "has nothing to do with the Whitefeet association the\

ready to make that a focus — they embrace that, as they would any other opposition to the law."

The fact is, rents were more attacked than tithes; and tithes only, as one witness says, " as their extinction was likely to lead to an abatement of rent." Rents, says Mr. Foster, have been of late years a greater cause of of discontent than tithes. In the four great risings of the Irish peasantry, between 1800 and 1830, it was rents which were attacked. Rents were attacked in 1811, again in 1820, in Galway. Rents were attacked by Captain Rock in 1821, and in some parts of Minister were unpaid for three years ; they were refused in Kerry, Cork, and Limerick, to Roman Catholic as well as Protestant proprietors. Rents were withheld more recently on the Duke of Buckingham's estate in Westmeath. "Their object," says Sir J. Harvey, " is to regulate rents." "We have made the clergy," said one of the White- feet, "take what is reasonable, now we must try the landlord." Rents were, refused in some cases in County Kilkenny, in Donegal, in County Clare, on several estates. In several cases the tenants remain on the land and pay no rent, and the landlord dare not eject them. At one meeting the rents of absentees were taken under consideration. At Loghlin Bridge the White- feet posted up a notice, threatening death to every man who should pay more than a certain rent. In Galway, in the winter of 1831, the south and south-east were in open insurgency, but it was not against tithes ; " for tithes," says Mr. Dwyer, " were satisfactorily paid," but rents and the pos- session of property were attacked — so much so, that I have seen," he adds, "a number of the. peasantry putting up wigwams, like savages, and estab- lishing themselves upon the proprietor's land, and saying, Now we will cut and parcel out this land ; and they have been found disputing and dividing the land amongst themselves." " I have myself witnessed," says another witness, "on a sheet of paper in the hands of the Chief Constable, the number of acres that have been reported by his sub-constable- actually taken possession of by the insurgent peasantry. Land, in fact, i- the great object, as it is the sole support of the peasantry. "They will offer any rent to get land, and they will do any thing rather than be turned out of their holdings. If turned out they will attack those who have possessed them, as in the Colliery district the ejected tenants associated — as all over Queen's County they attacked all who had taken land for tin ten or fifteen years — as in Minister previously, the successor of the dis- possessed tenant was attacked. Every burden upon land they feel, and labour to remove, in hoperf of ameliorating their condition. " Their object is, by a system of intimidation, to enforce the measures which they consider to be desirable, particularly in respect to land — regulating and reducing the rate of rents, not permitting the intrusion of strangers in taking land." Stapleton mentions the remarkable instance of Mr. Hackett turning <>t! three tenants who owed him large arrears ; and these mm, though grateful for being forgiven the arrears, combined with the Whitefeet, -\\ore tin- labourers not to work for Mr. Hackett, beat his -t< \\ard---hi- carts lay MI the field and no one dared to touch them, his fcners were all levelled, and none dared repair them ; "and there are now alxnr land that

are a complete waste, which he dare not go nigh himself, nor can h« any one to protect it for him." Nothing can exceed the misery of the tenants of land in the south of Ireland. Mr. Foster gives us an from his estate in Kerry, on part of which fifty-four families \ver« gated in a state of the 'utmost destitution. Rrad Mr. Foster's account nf

8

the condition of the peasantry on his estate — read Mr. Keiley's and Mr. Burnett's description of the Cork and Limerick peasantry in J822 — read Mr Harrington's narrative of the general state of the peasants of Munster — read Mr. O'Connor's description of the peasants of Maryboro — read Mr. Delaney's account of the Colliery district, in Queen's County, — and then say whether the summary given by another witness is overcharged, that the state of the occupier of the land, " and I mean to represent this," he says. " as the state of this class, and my representation is not overcharged," is one of the utmost misery ; bearing all burdens, with scarcely any thing after the rent left to subsist upon — paying all — exposed to the distress of all — him- self starving — his cultivation always getting worse — the potatoes deteriorat- ing— the state of the land becoming more wretched — unable to raise as many potatoes, were it not that a kind has been found to grow without manure — depending on a wretched cow for milk, and living for four or five months on dry potatoes, in a state of destitution — reserving to himself the worst possible description of food and clothing." So says Dr. Doyle, of the farmers and peasants of Carlow — so says Mr. Welsh, of Kilkenny — Mr. Lalor, a repealer, of Queen's County — Mr. Barrington, of Cork, Kerry, and Limerick — another witness, of Meath — Mr. Palmer, of Tipperary.

It is quite true that exorbitant rents have been too often demanded, and that landlords have taken advantage of the necessities of the poor to extort rents which never could be paid, and should never have been sought. Mr. Lalor, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Day, Mr. Wade, and Mr, Montgomery are disposed to attribute much of the evils of the peasantry to such rents. But on the other hand it must be remembered, as has been well remarked by Mr. Bar- rington and Mr. Stapleton, that the WThitefeet and Rockites were generally of a class below the farmer — the Whitefeet especially. We cannot, there- fore attribute their outrages to high rents, as they paid no rents at all ; and Mr. Barrington remarks, that in Munster, and generally over Ireland, rents are not, after all, so high as in England. In Ulster rents are higher than in the other provinces, yet is the state of the farmer superior; and we have two instances in the south, where the rents are equally high, but the state of the people is peaceful. Sir W. Carroll gives us one in his parish of Kilmore, in Tipperary, which was quiet in 1831, while all the county was in disorder ; and Mr. Inglis gives us another case in the Barony of Forth, in County Wexford, where, in the midst of surrounding poverty, the people arc in comfort, and that not from any difference in the rents, but a differ- ence in their own character. (Inglis, I. 48.)

air

10 SECTION II — Crimes of the Peasantry of Ireland.

But whatever be the immediate cause of the outbreaking of violence in Ireland, whether from distress or otherwise, it is not surprising that outrage should prevail among a people so distressed as I have shown them to be, and so savage. But this is not all the truth. It is a partial description of the fact. It is not merely that there are occasional outbreaks of disorder. The whole country is one mass of disorder. You tread on a volcano, and at every moment under your feet breaks out the fire which is gathering for an explosion. We turn to facts and evidence to illustrate this.

" All the great disturbances of Ireland," says Mr. Harrington, " have sprung from some local cause and trifling local circumstance — the country is in an inflammable state, and a little spark, if not at once arrested, kindles it into a flame." Limerick was in peace in 1821 — an exaction was made on an individual — he resisted — in a few weeks the county was in disor- der— in a few months the greater part of Munster was plunged in the Kockite insurrection. In Clare the Caseys were in want of potato ground — ' i it they attacked and murdered an individual — the country was then

peaceful — in a few weeks it was under the domination of the Tern-Alts, and insubordination was universal. In 18^4, in Queen's Count tenants were ejected — a combination arose, and was rapidly spreading, when \ ere execution cheeked its progress. Queen's County remained in per- fect peace till 1829, and it was regarded as one of the most tranquil and orderly in the South. But some lands were cleared of cottiers — in the Colliery district some tenants were ejected for non-payment of rent — in a few months the county was convulsed, and the Whitefeet had r>tal>li>hed their reign of terror over it. "A single man." says Colonel Rochl '• (luarrelling with his family, sets the evil a-going — he gets in some people from the next county — they issue a Rockite notice, and threaten out- rages— intimidation commences, nobody knowing where the blow will fall next." A few begin to revenge, perhaps, a wrong, or recover possession of land. The law is against them — they take the law of force — others join, for there are always many desperate characters — they compel others — visit their houses at night, and swear them to join — if these refuse, or if their wives and families should in any way prevent them, they are wounded, or flogged, or some sexrere punishment inflicted on them. Whatever these desperadoes order must be executed, otherwise punishment follows; and the consequence is, that the whole peasantry of a county, having no means of resistance, are obliged to join. As no one knows who are engaged in the combination, a panic spreads and general suspicion. The fanner dares not resist — the peasant must unite, for he who is not an accomplice is a victim. Houses are attacked at night, either to obtain arms or to punish an enemy, or to terrify a wavcrer. Every one who has revenge to gratify, or plunder to gain, or property to acquire, joins willingly ; others from terror. One of the first outrages in Queen's County Mas perpetrated by a man who had sold his land, and who recovered it from the purchaser by knocking out his brains with a mallet. In another case, a statement was found in the shape of a petition, addressed to the Whitefeet, stating what land the individual wished to have. " Committees sit at night in the public houses, to decide what houses should be attacked." Every man is in alarm. In Queen's County several farmers bribed the Whitefeet not to attack them, by giving them seven acres of land. One farmer refused to attend a \\ hitefeet meeting, until overcome by the entreaties of his terrified family, who trembled at the danger he would incur. " The law of Captain Hock, one witness, " is stronger than the law of the land." " If a desperate gang," says Mr. Barrington, "form themselves in any county in Ireland, th< of the poorer people are either ready, or are compelled to join, and it runs like wildfire through the county. The greater number join from terror or from necessity, from the kind of houses they inhabit, and their retired situation. No one not living in a slate house is safe. If there were t\ bad men in a barony, they would set the whole county in a flame if not checked." The leaders of these gangs are by no means, in all cas distressed circumstances. Many sons of fanners we— found in thr>c gangs, as Mr. Barrington informs us. Another witness t ;1> us that a part of the Whitefret in Queen's County were drawn fi .-:.» the colliers, who were in the receipt of large wag. -s. ' " At the time they entered into this combination. '.loud Johnson, "there was not the slightest

ground for their doing so, but pure devilment or vice; they were ucll employed — there was not a man in that county who was not fully employed, and two men whom I committed to gaol, told me they were earning from 2s. to 4s. a day." To these, all of desperate circumstances or unruly habit- join themselves, and these associated desperadoes lord it over the more peaceful. Sir H.Vivian says, that there is -little feeling of regard for property, even among farmers. If you armed them, they would use their arms against each other in family or local feuds, i>m up to the

10

Whitefeet. There is," he adds, " the greatest recklessness as to destroying life." But it must be observed, that many detest the tyranny against which they dare not rebel, " The parties to the murder of Mr. Blood," says Mr. Barrington, " went to the houses of many poor farmers to compel them to go with them. Some of these farmers told me they were delighted to hear of their execution — they frequently made them join when they went out at night. Captain Rock (Dillane) told me that he has been obliged to threaten to fire at his own men to make them attack a house." In Queen's County the farmers were most anxious to form an association for the protection of their property and lives (Mr. Bray) : and they said to Mr. Stapleton — and the words give us a most touching picture of their sufferings — " Will there be any law given to keep these people from coming to our houses and visiting us at night ?" In Kildare the farmers cordially joined and put down the Whitefeet. So they did in the parish of Kilmore, in Tipperary. Another witness, Mr. Cahill, speaking of the neighbourhood of Maryboro, says " that the upper and middling classes are satisfied, and are anxious to be at peace. It is the lower class who form the Whitefeet* and perpetrate the outrages." In several cases the farmers petitioned for the Insurrection or Coercion Bill, as necessary for their protection ; and this was done by the Catholic as much as by the Protestant farmers. For it may be well conceived that the state of all respectable farmers, and all honest labourers, must be fearful in such a condition of society. It is favourable to the ruffian and the robber, but the industrious and the peace- ful live a life of suffering. We shall give some specimens of this.

In Queen's County, Mr. Nolan, a small proprietor of land, was furiously attacked and maltreated — suffering under the injury, he laid his complaint before a magistrate. But when he was questioned as to the persons who had beat him, all of whom he knew, his fears overcame the sense of his wrongs. " When I asked him," says Mr. Singleton, " if he knew any of the persons ? he refused to give me any answer — he said, if he gave me that information his life would not be safe for twenty-four hours, I told him I would send a party of the police for his protection : he said * that may do for the present, but I should afterwards forfeit my property.' When threatened with gaol if he did not answer, he said * Commit me if you please, while I will be within the walls of Maryboro gaol my person will be free from assassination.' "

A Catholic farmer, of the name of Perrott, (Major O'Reilly's evidence,) was attacked at night in his house by a gang of twenty-six persons. He fled almost naked, leaving his wife and children in the hands of the mis- creants, to the house of a Protestant farmer of the name of Miller. This man defended him, but was himself knocked down, fired at, and nearly beat to death. Miller prosecuted the offenders, and brought them to con- viction ; but, with such forbearance did he give his evidence, that they were recommended to mercy. Still the crime which Miller had committed, in thus defending his own person and that of his neighbour, and then dar- ing to prosecute the offenders, was such, that he was compelled to prepare to expatriate himself from a home where he was no longer safe. An old man and his wife were attacked in their house at night, because they had not at once agreed to a demand made on them by the Whitefeet, to sur- render a part of their land. They were beat, and the man's ear was cut off. They prosecuted next day, and lodged informations against the mis- creants. "But when the trial came on, they both swore that they did not know them. When asked their reasons for this perjury, the old man, showing me his ear, said, u Sir, I have still got one ear, and my skull is not broke. I have lived too long in my place to wish to give it up, and my old wife and myself are too old to think of emigrating." " The people," says Mr. O'Connor, priest of Maryboro., " are afraid to give information :

11

they suffer the punishments inflicted, (which are generally boating, which sometimes ends in death,) for fear they should be murdered if tie

information." Well might this gentleman say that •• lie had witn< with horror the insecurity of person and property." V few dare prosecute: equally few dare give evidence. ''You will find it, very difficult," says Mr. Harrington, " to get a \vitm-<* agaitosl while hundreds will be found to smear an alibi, or any thing el-e in him." Mr. \Vray, sub-inspector of Police in Queen's Count v. said that many respectable farmers, both Protestants and Catholics, applied to him, and entreated him to use his influence that they might not be placed on the jury, as they feared that if they gave a verdict against the Whitefeet. their

> and property would be in danger. Another says, that his woinl that any witnesses should be found. Many instances are ijiven of witn- bargaining to be removed from the county as soon as their evidence given ; till then they were either protected by a guard of police, or for security lodged in gaol. But no stronger case can be given than that of the state of assizes of Kilkenny in 183:2, of which the agitators boasted as a complete triumph over law. where, with a county co\ eivd \\ ith disorders, and hundreds groaning under outrages, the calendar was crowded with cii but the dock was scantily filled with prisoners, and the witness box was almost emptied of witnesses, because few could be induced to prosecute or give evidence.

But the idea often is, that this state of systematic outrage is one of occa- sional occurrence — that it only is to be found at intervals, in some of the counties of Ireland. " At all times" (we recur to the unchallenged testi- mony of Mr. Harrington) "twenty persons combining together in one barony or parish would set a whole county in a flame." It is the common occur- rences of life which occasion disorders. It is the ejectment of a tenant who will not pay — the removal of sub-tenants from the land — the dis- missal of a bad servant — the refusal of work to a careless labourer. It is Dillane being removed from his farm Li Limerick — the Hanlons being ejected in Queen's County — the sub-tenants in the Collieries— th- in want of potato ground — some idle Clare-men passing into Limerick — a feud between the factions of the Whitefeet and Blaekfeet, or between the families of the Burnets and Bowies — any one of these things, which are of daily occurrence in Ireland, may produce, and has produced, general disorder. Mr. Barrington and all the witnesses concur in stat- ing, that it is only by the most unwearied vigilance that the coni- bu>tible materials of Irish society can be at all kept down, and prevented from bursting into a Maine. The whole of society is a volcano, which may have its violent eruptions, but of which heat and fire an- the con- stant elements, and which requires but the collecting of these at one point to burst at any time into an explosion. Thus in Limerick, in IK'] I. >oin< men crossed the Shannon for Clare, and dug up ground: this in England or Scotland would have been a triHing trespass. In Ireland it \\as the beginning of disturbances which would in three months have involved the whole district, had not the most prompt measures been used to put it down. Some Kerry-men came to Mill-street in County Cork to buy potatoes — the people refund to sell them to the Kerrymeii, and cut oil' the ears of their horses. This outrage would have kindled the two counties, but, for the vigorous measures which Mr. Barrington pursued. In ll<»><-omm<>n. in 1831, it was a trifling cause which excited disturbances, but it took all the vigour of a special commission to extinguish them, and that not till tin- whole county was convulsed. In Limerick, in liSi'l, Lord C'ourtei, tenants expected, probably had a right to expect, an abatement of ivnt. This was not granted. In this country the circumsta: it»'d

"

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attention, and have been condemned. In Ireland it led to an immediate dis- order and an insurrectionary war, by which three counties were convulsed. The fact appears to be, and it rests on the concurrent testimony of all the witnesses, that the lower classes of Ireland are entire savages in all their feelings with regard to law. The power of force they recognise, (as all savages do,) but law they utterly despise. If an outrage is committed on an individual — " if, for example, a homicide occurs at a fair, instead of the people coming forward to prosecute, they wait till the next fair, and then commit, in retaliation, a murder on the other side." They will join their family or their clan in revenging themselves on another family or clan. They will hire, from another county, persons to attack the house of an enemy, or to waylay a farmer. They will fix, as Mr. Inglis mentions, by regular compact, a fight which is to take place at the next fair. But if a person commits an outrage, and the law attempts to punish him, this is the signal for a general combination in his favour. " It is a sort of chivalrous feeling," says Mr. Barrington ; " they do not like to see a man prosecuted, and they will assist him to escape if they can. They have an antipathy to the law." " Nothing," he adds, " can subdue them, but such a persevering and vigorous administration of the law as to inspire them with a salutary terror, and to make them feel that punishment will surely overtake crime." Whereas, at present, the law of Captain Rock — the law of the \Vhitefeet — the law, in fact, of violence, is far stronger and far more prompt in its inflictions than the law of the land. In a district of 800 square miles, south of the Shannon, no writ of law could ever be attempted. Glenbegh, in County Kerry, was, for a long time, in a similar state. Thurles, iu County Tipperary, is described as perfectly lawless, and the peasantry in a most ferocious state. The parish of Feacle, in County Clare, is one, where the law dare not pursue offenders, and they can only be taken by stratagem. These are strong specimens of the state of Ireland, but they are samples, not peculiar cases. Not even in those unhappy countries, where law has never been established, are life and property less secure than in a great part of three of the Provinces of Ireland. The farmer asking protec- tion from a gang of outlaws, and purchasing it by a gift of his land — the tenant applying to them to reinstate him in his farm — the labourer petition- ing them to compel his employer to replace him — the outlaws holding their committees, deciding on these applications, and attacking persons and houses in open day — the outraged victim afraid to complain — the witness of the outrage silent through terror — men of wealth terrified into accom- plices of crimes which they detest — the poor subdued under a tyranny which they loathe — these are some of the facts already cited, which indi- cate, not in one part, but throughout the South and South-west of Ireland, a state of society which it is fearful to imagine. " The people/' says Colonel Johnson, " are ripe for any thing. An instance came before me in Maryboro, of a man going up to a young fellow in the street, and putting an immense loaded whip in his hand, such a weapon as you have no con- ception of; he said to him, Go and knock that man down, and he went and knocked him down immediately, and the man was nearly killed. It was proved to our satisfaction that he never saw the man before." In County Kerry, that county where Mr. O'Connell spends his hum's of leisure, and where, it would appear, he might find room for ample occupation, if his object were to improve the condition of the peasantry, instead of raising himself, there occurred, in July, 1834, the Ballyheagh murders, which, as they stand recorded in the trial, we shall quote, as a sample of the things which take place in Ireland. The principal witness depones that he never remembers the fair and race of Ballyheagh (which occurs annually on the ii4lh of June) without there being a fi^hf between the two elans of Law- Jon? and Cooleens. On (-:reat occasions,' Mich as that of which we arw alxntt

to apeak, tin; men of Kerry procure recruits from Clare and I.imeri-k. tJnsc an lul In/ the larger farmers — tlie ineitement to all ; of fighting." On the occasion alluded to, gr, ,,f p',,li<.,. ;m.l mili-

tary attended, hut all their exertions could not prevent the ti«;ht. The Cooleens, 1000 strong, came up deliberately, armed with sticks and .st and accompanied by the women, with their aprons full of ston might ask if we are reading an incident in the Anglo-Saxon history in the sixth century, or the account of the savages of the South Sea Islands.; The Lawlors were more numerous, and, though unarmed, they took u; stones hurled at them by the Cooleens, and defeated them. A boat-lo the fugitives went down in sight of every one, and were in th to death by the Lawlors, while there stood on the shore 300 farmers . spectators of this monstrous tragedy. It may be said that this exhibition A\as of rare occurrence. On the contrary, one witness terms it •• annual riot of Ballyheagh." And, on a smaller scale, such are the s< which every fair and market present; for, as one witness observes, "There is scarce a market-day in the town of Listowell without a liLjht." refer also to the observations of Mr. Inglis, who has cited several cases of the same kind.

Amongst such scenes, and such a people, law cannot be enforced. We have seen how the prosecutor and the witness fare ; let us observe what happens to the magistrate. Several witnesses state, that if magistral i - it is at the peril of their lives. They are waylaid and attacked, and the Catholic, magistrate quite as much as the Protestant. The last outrage of the Whitefeet, said Mr. O'Connell, in the House of Commons, in February, •\ was against a Catholic magistrate. Mr. Stapleton received several notices not to be so officiously active as a magistrate ; and, for his exertions, found his life so insecure, that he was obliged, for a time, to leave the country. " The fact is, that assassination has become so prevalent in Ire- land that no magistrate in my neighbourhood feels himself quite secure when going a distance from home — he can protect himself in his house, but not from an assassin, who can be hired for a small sum" What a fearful picture ! Mr. Gregory was murdered on the turnpike road from Athy to "lecomer, in open day-light, about six o'clock on a summer evening — he was in his gig when his brains were blown out, by five men who stopped it, and then walked away unmolested, whilst there were several cabins on the side of the road, the inhabitants of which were at home, and about persons saw the murder. We may agree, therefore, with the sentime: one witnex, ?*Ir. Hopner, when he says, " I am only surprised that the middle orders of the gentry should accept a commission of the peace at all. I conceive, that in accc.pt rs^ a commission of the peace in Ireland, I run a much greater risk of my life than in accepting a commission as a captain of a troop of horse."

Therefore, in this lawless state of the people, which render- if dan for the sufferer to apply to the law or the magistrate to enforce ii — the natural influences of society are suspended, and it seems iinpossib! re-establish them. Tin- absence of landlords is repeatedly alluded t witnesses, as one of the causes of the savage state of the peasantry. L Sir W. Carroll's personal superintendence which preserved Kilmore. in the heart of Tippcrary. The ferocious condition of Thurles is attribute.!. many, to the absence of its landlords. 15 ut. the ha/ard which landlords .run, if they attempt to preserve,' order, is enough to deter them from residence. In Queen's County, "which wa* characteri/ed as ha\ing a great number of respectable gentry reading in it, the fir>t thing do the disorders by the agitators was to overturn the influence of the country gentry, who were represented, both by them and the pri- sons of the people, and as men who ought to be hunted out of the country."

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It is. vain, therefore, to expect that the moral advantage of resident land- lords will be secured while residence in Ireland is attended with so much danger — and, therefore, one of the few holds on society is thrown off, and is given up to its own inherent disorders. ••gfj.-

SECTION III. — Political Agitators of Ireland.

But not only are the natural disorders of Irish society great — they are in- flamed and perpetuated by political disorders. The first of these is the evil inflicted on the country by political agitation. Let no one suppose, that I am objecting to the keenest discussion of political questions, and the most frequent appeal on these to public opinion. On the contrary, I do think, and have ever thought, this to be most valuable and favourable to the cause of truth. But the case is different in Scotland or England, where an appeal is made to the reflecting sense of an intelligent community, and in Ireland, where it is a topic of excitement hurled into the savage ele- ments of which we have proved Irish society to consist. When a topic of political agitation is proposed to such men, all the rude and desperate persons who have been engaged in strife and feuds coalesce. This offers a focus for them, and they gather around it. The meetings, the harangues, the crowds, the processions — all these are delightful to them. What the subject is, is of no consequence — enough that it leads to and justifies excitement. Emancipation, tithes, the repeal of the union — no matter what ; Mr. Sheil, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Lawlesss — no matter who. Be the leaders who they may, or the work what it will, they are delighted to find themselves led on, and countenanced by public men, to popular agitation. At the time of the Catholic Association, the people willingly contributed money ; for, as one of the Catholic priests says, they looked forward to some great though undefined good to themselves. They even went farther, (we may recollect how Mr. O'Connell and his coadjutors boasted of this,) — they gave up their factions — clans, whose hatred had lasted for centuries, met and embraced. " Wherever," says Mr. Wyse, " the commissioners of the Association appeared in the turbulent districts, the factions laid by their animosities, and in great crowds flocked to the chapels, to embrace, in the spirit of forgiveness, their most inveterate foes. It wras certainly a striking sight to see the chiefs on either side advance up the steps of the altar — embrace each other in the presence of their priests and their respective factions, and call God solemnly to witness, that hence- forth, ^/br the good of their soul and the cause of their country, they would dwell together in amity and peace." But why was this ? Let Mr. Wysu speak: — " There was something more in this than met the ordinary The people assumed a regular uniform of green calico ; their chiefs were distinguished by some fantastic but characteristic addition to the costume of their caps, such as feathers, green handkerchiefs bearing the portrait of Mr. O'Connell ; they displayed before them green banners with the name of their respective parishes or townlands, each preceded by their bands of music, and all the other circumstances of military array. The people had greatly misapprehended the objects of the Association, and in many instances, could not be convinced that they had recommended the suppression of all former divisions and discords with any other view than to prepare the peo- ple for a general and united insurrectionary movement. * When, trill lu> call us out? was more than once heard in the streets of Clonmell, during the great funereal meeting of last August, and frequently answered with the finger on the mouth, and a significant smile and wink from the bystanders. Many of the peasants, too, hud arms concealed in the mountains mvn- the town— reserved for the coming occasion ! !" The people, then, it ap- pear,*, did not abandon the savage factions and feuds in which they were

15

engaged, until they believed that there was coming a greater and more - piinary tight, in which their appetite for blood might be effectually sL They embraced and gave up party differences, because they In.: Mas to be a general rising. Hence the peace, the order, the >mi!es and Minks of savage joy, the lull before the hurricane, the deadly calm. a> among the Indians, which precedes the wild shout and savage burst of passion. This was the charm which charmed them into peace, that peace of \\hicli Mr. O'Connell boasted, but which shows, in a darker colour, the char- acter of the people — and the moment, as the same history tells us, that all hope of an insurrection was put down by the conduct of the As-odation, the peace ceased, and men returned to their factions, to quarrel and break heads as before.

The people, indeed, continued to cling to the hope of emancipation, even after the brighter hope of an insurrection was at an end. Emancipation did not mean rebellion. Would that it had ! they said. But it meant something that was to be somehow of use to them. They could not see how; but the priests assured them that it was, and they believed their priests. When emancipation was passed, and they found their condition un- touched by it, a new subject of hope had to be found. The agitators, there- fore, brought forward the question of the Repeal of the Union. This pre- sented plausible grounds of hope. It was English tyranny and English mis- government which oppressed them. If these were removed, they would rise in comfort. Repeal, then, became as popular as Emancipation. We had been told, in 1828, and we were foolish enough to believe it, that Emanci- pation would plant peace in Ireland. We were soon undeceived. Mr. Mahony, a solicitor in large practice in Dublin, says, that in J829, after Emancipation, there were great demands by English capitalists tor Irish investments. These men had been persuaded by Dr. Doyle's and Mr. O'Connell's evidence, that peace was to be henceforth established in Ireland ; and they despised the homely warnings of Mr. Keily, who told them that Emancipation had no connection with Irish outrages. The test came. In

1829 all was peace, and embraces, and prophecies of quiet. In 18-30 came the tocsin of Repeal, and all Ireland was in uproar. The English capitalist*, says Mr. Mahony, found that this was no place for them, and the demand for Irish investments in a great degree ceased. The Repeal agitation of

1830 was followed by the Tithe agitation of 1831 and 1832. This, too, like the others, was popular, and for the same reasons. It was not, indeed, so popular as Repeal. The removal of Tithe presented, indeed, to the far- mer, and to the tenant of con-acres, a hope of what was equivalent to an abatement of rent; but a large proportion of those who attended the anti- tithe meetings, had no interest in land, and paid no rent. Nay, even far- mers did not resist tithe until excited by the agitators, and they profe—ed all the while that tithe was a very minor question — it was to the reduction of rent that they looked for real relief. Hence, in \#H. when left to ti selves, they left tithes alone, and set themselves to reduce rents. At this very time in Galway and Koscommon they made no opposition to tithes, but occupied and parcelled out the land. In Queen's County, in Is- they left tithes untouched and assailed rents alone. Still, \\ hen tithe- * denounced by the agitators, they were readily denounced by the people. This formed the new focus, and 'tfte people rallied round it. All par- factions and clans, fanner and peasant, joined in the anti-tithe war. they had joined in the war of Repeal, and as with greater pleasure they would have joined in the war against n-nt>. K The people \\ere read-. make the attack on title Mr. Price, " a focus— they embraced that as they would any other opposition to law." For, while (lie agitators required popular excitement for their ends, this was no less neceoary for the people themselves. Miserable as they were at home, miserable in their

16

families, miserable in their ignorance and vice,, no wonder that they should catch at any promise which gave hope of improvement. Most in- structive and most touching is the history of the deceptions which have been practised on this sunk, but yet high-spirited people, by the cold craft of the agitators. They told them, the priests told them, that if they carried Emancipation " it would he the better for them." Hope was thus kindled, and hope led them on. " They had expected," says one of the agitators, Mr. Dillin, before the Committee of 1832, " an increase of comfort — they found none ; they have often said to me, You have promised something to the poor — we hare got nothing — we are as wretched as ever" But still, though deceived, they are ready for fresh deception, Miserable, any change was a blessing to them, and the benefit of it was hailed. Mr. Wyse tells us truly, that the person who would enjoy popularity in Ireland must be pre- pared to go always forward — forward, we may add, in blood and ruin. If he stops, the stream will roll over him. Hurrah for Repeal ! wild Irish cry — says Mr. O'Connell — hurrah for destruction ! must ever be the Irish cry. Observe that in pandering to this cry, the agitators prevent the peace of Ireland, and increase immeasurably its crimes.

When they call the people together — assemble them in a public meetin^ — address to them violent harangues — inflame them against the government, the laws, the magistrates, they mean that the matter shall stop there ; but there it does not stop. Their object is to carry a petition — to frighten government — to influence parliament; and therefore they bring together immense masses of this illiterate peasantry. Then they bid them go home to their houses and be at peace. They might as well call for a whirlwind, and then wonder that when it comes it produces desolation. Call together the elements, whether moral or physical, and they will not disperse without their natural effects. When a political question, therefore, is agitated in a county of Ireland, we read with suspicion of public meetings and processions — that is one thing ; but we may read in the next paper afterwards of a great number of crimes — that is another thing, and the latter always runs in the train of the former. Do I say this on my own authority ? I say it biit on the authority of the Lord Lieut, of Ireland, Lord Wellesley, in his des- patch to government, of April, 1834. — " The agrarian outrages have been in every instance excited and inflamed by the combined projects for the aboli- tion of tithes, and the repeal of the union with Great Britain." " There is an unfailing connection between the system of agitation and the system of combination, which leads to outrage." I say it further, on the authority of facts, — before the year 1828, Queen's County was one of the most peaceful in Ireland, distinguished by a number of resident gentry, and by a tranquil spirit among the peasantry ; but in 1828 the agitators introduced into it the question of emancipation. Their end was, to spread excitement on the topic, and to bring from the county further petitions and demands for tne measure. They succeeded in awakening interest on this point, and they inflamed the spirit of excitement to a high pitch. There they would have been content to stop, but there the matter did not stop. Once roused on this subject, this tranquil county did not return to tranquillity. The lore of combination had spread — it remained after the political meetings had ceased. The attacks on the government, on the laws, on England, were remembered. The bad had learned to unite — they saw one class of as ciations — they felt the facility of another class for other objects ; hener sprung illegal combinations, organized committees, and funds collected. They became emboldened by success — they struck terror by one outrage panic spread — attacks increased, until at last they overspread the whole of Queen's County, and for two years its state was one of insubordination. ( Evidence of Mr. Despard in 1833.) The outrages had no connection, indeed, with politics ; they were attacks on farmers and the labouring classes

—disputes about land and wages: but they d they received their impulse — from the period of political excited take another illustration of the -aim truth from tin nt\. In i

by severe measures, Queen's County was restored^ to tranquillity. The farmers and peasants again breathed and enjoyed quiet ; but it \\ calm, for it was found necessary, for the purposes of the po/ nx&of

Mr. O'Connell, that agitation should again commence. Tithes selected as the object of attack — the drum of Repeal was mullled, but. i: beat to arms for the extinction of Tithes. Out came Dr. Doyle's lettflT'of fulmination — out poured pamphlets and placards — forth earner and agitators — the country rung with meetings, with addresses from the altar, with speeches, with notices. The agitation began in Dr. Doyle's county — it spread from Carlow to Kildare — it passed into Wicklow and Waterford — it fell on Kilkenny — it embraced Queen's County, and observe the effect produced on the latter county, which I give in the lan- guage of an intelligent witness, Mr. O'Reilly:—" In the year 1830,' Mr. O'Reilly, "the exertions of Mr. Wray had re-established peace; the effect of the convictions, and a suspension of agitation, tended to pro- mote tranquillity, until about the month of August, when, somewhat suddenly, and emanating from some invisible authority, a general objection to tithe arose; and by declarations made at chapels and elsewhere, tin- people became persuaded that they could do away with tithe altogether. For the propagation of that doctrine, the Roman Catholic clergy acted with simultaneous energy ; the agitators sought every opportunity to declaim against the Church, the gentry, and the magistrates, and to stigmatize them as cruel aristocrats. Whiteboy offences increased, notices became frequent, intimidation was prevalent, disorder and derangement of all social relations proceeded rapidly." Such was the effect of this first agitation. But this was not all. The political heat was not sufficient; it was neces>ar\ to throw fri-sh fuel on the fire. " I signed a requisition for a meeting," Mr. Cassidy, "held at Maryboro in February, 1831, for three \mv\ named, Reform, Repeal of the Union, and to consider means to b< condition of the people." At this meeting, and others like it, violent were made, and violent attacks on all the gentry and magistrates. To i were added Dr. Doyle's letters on the State of Ireland, in which the M tracy was held up to public obloquy. " The temper and conduct of the people," says Mr. O'Reilly, " appeared to be immediately and very seri<- influenced by these representations." The Whitefeet became emboh! — many of the middling classes joined them. An association to pi. property was proposed amongst the farmers, who were anxious for it, but the priests and agitators denounced it, and the attempt failed. Out: rapidly increased, inflicted on the farmers and the labourin Attacks on farmers to compel them to dismiss workmen, or to - arms — violent beating of unoffending persons — fines levied on tenai, " hundreds refusing work, though work might be had, in order to live either by robbery or by fines levied on fanners for being allowed to continue in quiet possession of their farms." In a word, such a state of t.h;;. the magistrates of Queen's County to come to this resolution, in 1

1832: " That the disturbances and the general state of insubordin

have risen to a most alarming height — that a systematic- plunder of anus

continues to be exercised at all hours, so that no man can vcutur

his house, unguarded, at any hour in the four-aud-twent.y,' \-c. 1 1

was the county which, in 1830, had been n >tored to tranquillity,

into disorder by the political excitement • Nor was thi

to Queen's County. The state of crime in Kilkenny, which pr-

Parliament, in 1833, so alarming a picture, d

causes. Thus also it was in Carlow, and thus in King's Coun

18

indeed, was there a county in that part of Ireland, into which the firebrand of agitation was hurled, which did not show the effect, by bursting into a greater or less degree of outrage. On the other hand, as Mr. Barrington tells us, Munster was kept free from political excitement, and during all the disorders we have referred to it remained tranquil. It is therefore a mockery, and a heartless mockery, for the agitators to denounce the crimes of the peasantry. " After," as Colonel Rochfort says, " they have taken in every grievance which they thought would inflame the people" — after they have told them, as Mr. O'Connell told them, that the English Government was a curse, and the English laws were fangs of scorpions — after they have urged them, as the priests urged them, " to use their utmost influence to evade the law," and warned them, as Dr. Doyle warned them, that " the magistracy were the very curse and scourge of Ireland." To expect that they should obey their hypocritical advice to respect the law, is monstrous — and more monstrous still to express wonder when they hear of the gentry being fired at, or the police attacked, or the magistrates pistolled from behind a hedge. These crimes flow necessarily from their own language — at their door, not at the door of the misguided peasantry should we place them.

I do not say that the agitators are responsible for the ignorance and dis- orderly spirit of the peasantry. I shall presently refer them to their proper sources. But for the outbreak of violent outrages, I say that they, and they only, are to blame. The elements were ready for ignition — of this I do not accuse them — but they threw the spark, or rather, they hurled a thousand firebrands, and for the explosion which ensued they alone are responsible. If there be crime in the course of the desperate peasant, blood in his traces, fire in his midnight walk, this is their doing; and if we condemn the deed, what shall we say of those who first provoke and then denounce it ?

SECTION IV. — Priests of Ireland.

I have spoken of the effect of political agitators on the state of Ire- land : there is another class whom we must consider — a class possessed of great influence over the peasantry, and into the tendency of whose influ- ence we must inquire. I allude to the priests of the Roman Catholic Church. Of these it is my wish to speak with the utmost candour. It is not from history alone that we learn that, among the Roman Catholic priests, there are many simple and honest men, for we have ourselves met with some of whose conviction of the truth of their religion we have been satisfied, and who only left us to mourn that such characters should not have found a church better worthy of them. Yet when Mr. Shiel tells us that " the Roman Catholic priesthood of Ireland are the best, the purest, the most zealous clerical body in the Christian world," we must take leave to call other testimony before we pronounce in their favour.

There is one fact quite clear, that, whether for good or for evil, the Roman Catholic priests possess a great influence over the Irish people. Among a peasantry who, as Mr. Croly tells us, are, in the highest degree, supersti- tious— who believe in hobgoblins, and witches, and fairies — who tremble at an evil eye, and trust in a charm — who visit holy wells, and submit to cruel penances at the command of their Church ; over such the pri. authority can neither be light nor wavering. But yet this influence has its limits. In matters of religion it is paramount — not so in the affairs of the world. In the moments of sickness, at the hour of death, the priest's authority is absolute ; and if any one had strength then to dispute it, lie could not resist the force of popular opinion which is on its side. So that the priest well knows that there are seasons when the firmest heart will be prostrated under his influence. But if, instead of waiting for those occa-

sions, he attempts to interfere in the 1» passions of the people, there he finds that his autl; people," says Mr. Burnett, the Independent inin!

inction between the influence of a priest in spiritu; i influence in temporal things : in the former it is absolu; resist liis interference. If any disturbaiK liis flock, and the priests ar, i;>us of this, that 1 o

attempting to take the field against the Whiteboys, when th act of disturbance, except in one case at Kilmallock, in County : and there the priest was murdered." On one occasion a riot sprung up in a chapel, and a man was mortally wounded near the altar ; the priest could not prevent it. In Queen's County, in 1832, some of the priests denounced the Whitefeet ; the only effect was, that the Whitefeet shook off all n for clerical authority. Sir J. Harvey says that some of the priests in his neighbourhood were anxious to reclaim the people to order during the c of the anti-tithe agitation, but they said their interference would be of no and, therefore, they declined. Mr. Burke, a priest, says, " that it would be useless for the priests to oppose the people on a point on which they arc 1 . Colonel Rochfort says, that if the priests had tried to interfere, they would have been as badly treated as the Protestant clergy. The clergy did, in< : at last come forward to denounce the illegal combinations in Queen's County. "The Catholic clergy," says Mr. Edge, "did not, at the commencement, exert themselves to check the disturbances, but at last, finding their influ- ence diminished by the progress of the Whitefeet, they interfered, and what was the effect? not that the disorders were put down, but that the p; were taught that their authority had its limits." " The Catholic clergymen in my parish," says Mr. Edge, "told me that they have lost their iiiflu over that part of the people." The priests, indeed, have great power i along with the passions of the multitude to excite them. " In exciting disturbances," says one witness, " they have great power, if they please, to exercise their influence — they have very little power in allaying disoi. Priest Burke says, " There have been cases where they have opposed the people in resisting the payment of tithe ; then they would not succeed, and they would lose their influence over the people in other respects." T are so sensible of this that they will not interfere to ckeek even the n atrocious crimes. It was not for a length of time that the priests and bishops dared to denounce the Whitefeet. At Ballyheagh we have men- tioned the murders which took place — murders on a great scale, and of the coolest atrocity. Never did crimes more loudly call for the reprobation of the clergy. But they were crimes among large factions, and involving all classes from the fanner to the peasant ; and therefore the priest of Bally- heagh refused to interfere. He knew all the facts — he had been a wi; of them ; but he refused to give the authorities any information; and, when asked the, reason, he said, " because it would have diminished his influ. with his flock." In l<S3i?, there was an illegal combination in Wcstmeath against the rents of the Duke of Buckingham. One would have supposed that, in such an attack, the priest would have thought it hi> duty to inter- fere. No, says Mi-. Burke, 1 gave them no such advice. " If I posifi opposed it, I 'might find that my influence upon that and other sub; might be very weak."

It is this inability of the priest, to rc<\^ popular pa^inns. which has led to their present position of political airitatois. This position ti fallen into reluctantly, and not . withoi.

Bet' re describing them, however, with pol'ti. stand their character as men; and w< who knows it best — one of then: " are generally in debt, and are <

exact them with the utmost rigour. At absolution, at baptism, at marriages, at mass, at the cradle of the infant, at the bed of the dying, nothing is done by them without money, and money exacted from them without shame. All the statutes of the church, respecting the amount of dues, are a mere dead letter. The priest drives as hard a bargain as he can, and strives to make the most of the occasion. Marriages are sometimes broken off in con- sequence of the exorbitance of his demands. Demands of money are made upon those present at a marriage — they refuse — the clergyman, after beg- ging and^entreating for some time to little purpose, gets at length into a rage, utters the most bitter invectives against individuals, abuses the M-hole company, and is abused in turn, until the whole house becomes one frightful scene of confusion and uproar." At baptism " the money is often demanded previous to the administration of the rite, and, if not paid, scenes of abuse and recrimination ensue, similar to those at marriages." In extreme unc- tion, " a rite administered often amid sickness, destitution, and want, money is demanded ; and instances occur of money being pocketed by the priest which had been given as alms for the relief of the dying. Often, when it is not to be had, bitter words take place in the very hearing and presence of the poor dying person. Masses, too, are priced ; in spite of the prohi- bition of his Church, the priest labours to get employment in saying mass in private houses," and he and the friars compete with each other in this branch of gain. Thus, when they have wrung forth their dues, " they en- deavour to overreach and undermine one another. Every man looks to his oAvn private emolument, regardless of all agreements. The curate does not make a fair return to the parish priest, nor the priest to the curate, nor the curates to one another. He must make some return of his receipts, but it is an arbitrary return ; every man striving to seize upon a large share for himself. Common honesty is out of the question — nothing but lies, schemes, duplicity, false returns."

Such is their clerical work. Let us now turn to the daily life of those whom Mr. Shiel terms the best and purest of the Christian clergy. " In former times," says Mr. Croly, " the Catholic clergy lived in the most homely style. In their dress, their manners, their dwellings, their tables, they stood little higher than the common farmers. But the state of the Catholic Church is altered — the humility of the former times has entirely disappeared. The country priest now copes with the country squire, keeps sporting dogs, con- tests elections, presides at political clubs, and sits cheek-by-jowl, at public dinners and public assemblies, with Peers of the realm and members of Par- liament." Mr. Wyse mentions the very time when this change among the priests took place, About 1824, he says, when the agitation of the Catholic Association was spreading, there were two classes of priests, exemplifying in their lives the contrast drawn by Mr. Croly. There were the older priests, educated for the most part abroad, men of more cultivated mi 'ids and gentler manners, whose wish it was to avoid politics ; and there were the younger priests, educated at Maynooth * (Maynooth, which, for our con- tributions to Popery, has paid us back this return,) whose disposition was very different — keen politicians, fond of excitement, and far preferring to their clerical duties the storm of political meetings. For a long time there was u struggle between these two classes. When the Catholic Association began its acti- ity, a large proportion of the priests refused to countenance it, and the disposition of some of them (as is stated by the witnesses before the Committee of 1825) was to keep aloof from it. But the agitators found that this would not answer their purpose. It was necessary, as Mr. \Vyse declares, both for the sake of pecuniary funds, and for the sake of diffusing agitation, that the influence of the clergy should be enlisted on their side. ssrfan toflisgja isJtel ^'sl^oQ .iG orr

i1 als-o Tngll?, vol. ii.

" The leaders of a certain party." says Mr Croly, •• have found count tins time past in the co-operation of the Roman Catholic prie>ti. It was clerical co-operation, or rather clerical sub-en iency, that j multitude the more completely at their disposal — that enabled them to •. the whole kingdom in a state of commotion, to levy contributions, ivc. — to be, in short, of tremendous consequence as a political party." The <•!. therefore, were to be drawn into co-operation. First, the bishop- pealed to; but the bishops, headed by Dr. Doyle, were strongly op| to this. Their appeal was next made to the people. " It wa> now held that priests should second, with all their influence, the patriots of the day," and whoever refused, was denounced as an enemy. The younger priests who joined were exalted to popularity ; those who declined were suspected, and their clues were withheld. When, in the course of time, some of the bi - gave way, their power was used to coerce the refractory ; and when a priest persisted in refusing, a suffragan was quartered on him. who drew hi- Thus the priests were, by degrees, frightened, or stimulated, or sta: into compliance. Dr. Doyle long resisted, but he had the mortification of finding, at the election for Queen's County, at which Sir H. Parnell \\a- defeated, and Mr. Lalor elected, that even his influence, though it could excite a movement, could not restrain it. A witness speaking of J " The impression on my mind was, that at first the Roman Catholic; pi had no desire whatever that there should be a disturbance. They would have been perfectly satisfied with procuring their income in a quiet way, but they found, that if they took a decided part against the people, they might be sufferers themselves in consequence." " The priests," says another witness, " are obliged to follow the bent of their flock; by this they have been led into politics, though against their wishes." Accordingly, after the struggle in 1824, they became very generally the collectors for the As- sociation, and 2600 priests enrolled themselves its members, while twenty bishops and four archbishops joined the Association. In the despatches sent to the Lord Lieutenant, we find them mentioned as stimulating Un- people to join the Association and pay their contributions, by assuring them that it would be for their good to do so.

W^e find scattered through the Evidence instances of priests whose better feelings shrunk from this alliance with politics, and from the measures into which it drew them. The treatment they met with showed what others were to expect who pursued this course. Mr. Croly tells us, that a priest who lives on good terms with his Protestant neighbours, is denounced and called a Protestant priest. In the parish of Castle Pollard, County \\ Vst- meath, the priest who preceded Mr. Burke was obnoxious to his parishioners who said of him, " that he was a very good man, but a bad man for his parishioners," because he would not encourage agitation. The friars, who are always watching for the unpopularity of the parish priest, in order to gain his fees, rush into his parish, if he does not go the whole length with the people: or, if they do not appear, a sufl'ragan is sent to draw his due-. "In a word," as Mr. Croly says, "the multitude hold the strings of the cleri- cal purse, and woe betide the unfortunate priest who would set himself in opposition to their wishes. The common cry among them was, that they would not uphold any priest who would not back them in their pn ings; and instances could be produced \\herc this thr. uricd into

execution, and upright individuals of the clerical body were made the ob- jects of every species of injustice, and persecution." Hence, though in IS:M, when the Catholic quest i<. n \\ as in agitation, the priot- wen- divided in opinion, and many of them kept back from politics; all thoe scruples had disappeared in 18^0. When the excitement then arose, the priests were found no longer backward, but zealous agents. Dr. Doyle's letter again>t tithes was the prime cause of the excitement. Priest Doyle was the person \\lio

22

commenced the opposition in Graigue, and denounced tithes from the altar. Priest Milner wrote a pamphlet, advising the people to pull down the church. At Loghlin Bridge, the priest gave orders to the people not to pay tithes. . At Bagnalstown, the priests harangued the people against them. The priests in Carlow put themselves at the head of the vast as- semblages of people who met to hurl out tithes — so they did in County Kilkenny— -so at Castlecomer and Ballyragget. Every altar was occupied by priests denouncing tithes — Dr. Doyle's letter was publicly read — anti- tithe placards were put up by priests — over every county in the south of Ireland, the priests were the active agents, and, in a few cases where the parish priests declined to interfere, violent priests came from a distance. " There was not," says Mr. Singleton, " one great anti-tithe meeting which the priests have not attended." " Political and factious harangues," says Mr. Croly, " were made from their altars at the celebration of divine wor- ship, and their churches were surrendered to be used as political club- houses." " In 1828," says Mr, Wyse, " on the same day, and at the same hour, meetings were held at the suggestion of the agitators, in upwards of 1500 Catholic churches." In the elections, even before Catholic Emanci- pation, the priests had began to take a decided part, and openly to canvass the electors. They commenced this in 1824, in the Waterford election, when Bishop Kelly headed the priests of his diocese in an active canvass. They showed it more clearly in the Clare election, when Fathers Murphy and Maguire canvassed with Mr. Shiel and Mr. Lawless, and priests drove their own flocks to the polling booths. Then, first, might be seen the novel exhibition of the priest and the agitator walking arm-in-arm to the chapel, and Mr. O'Conneil, Mr. Shiel, or Mr. Lawless, haranguing the people from those altars which professed to be the altars of God; but which then rung with fierce curses against men. With the solemnities of religion were mixed the passions of politics, and anathemas, not against crimes, but against those who did not vote for the popular can- didate. But these things, which were at first rare, became frequent, and at every election, and at every political meeting, priests were to be found. We see what occurred at the anti-tithe meetings. The Rev. Mr. Burke says that he attended political meetings in his own county of Westmeath, and in Meath — that he gloried in being the leader of the people, and in addressing to them political harangues — at Bagnalstown the priests ad- dressed the people in most violent speeches, " and took in every grievance which they thought would inflame them." Mr. Napper, at Loughcrew, says that the priests have taken an active part in politics, and have con- tributed materially to the excitement. Mr. Burke abetted the feelings against the Duke of Buckingham, abused the Duke of Buckingham's agent in the chapel, and ordered the tenants to pay no more rent to him. — (Evi- dence, 1832.) The language which, in various places, the priests used to- wards the gentry and the magistracy was of the most violent character. We may remember the published language of Dr. Doyle, but perhaps that of priest Burke, at Mr. G rattan's election in Meath, delivered at the hus- tings to the people, will give us the justest specimen of their sentiments: — " What kind of feeling can be entertained by you, my friends, for the laws and the administration of them in this country, and for those functionaries who administer them, when the lowest grade of them can imbrue their hands in innocent blood with impunity, and are sure to receive protection from the ermine on the bench ?" '• It is such men," speaking of the gentry, " who have bared the country to its bones — if you abhor the bloody and inhuman massacres of your innocent and ignorant countrymen that t< place, at Castle Pollard; and so long as the laws continue to be adminis- tered as they were at the last assizes, the people cannot expect justice: it is tainted at its .source." This is a moderate specimen of i

23

which these ministers think it their duty to address to t

election last winter produced >imilar specimens — denunciations iroin the

altar, open canvass, and the priest leading the people to tin- poll.

1 shall give a few specimens of the use the priests make of their i influence to intimidate men in their political rights. (Carlow paper,) in an address to his constituents, gives the follo\\ iii<.r de- scription of the means used by the priests to intimidate tin- <>m voting for him, at the late election for Carlow : " One priest threat that the very moment a freeman, who voted for me, returned lmm< would clap a pair of horns on his head. Another protested that, if he had not forgotten his crucifix and breviary, he would, on the spot turn his rebellious parishioners into flaggers. A third gravely told them, that the food should melt in their hands ; whilst a fourth swore that if they went against him, he would turn them into four-footed beasts, and put them on their bellies for the rest of their lives !"

" In the parish of Sancroft, the persons who voted for Ponsonby, at the late Kildare election, are pointed at as they go along — no one dare hold the slightest intercourse with them, under the penalty of the withering malediction of the priest, who, often from the altar, holding them up to the infuriated and excited passions of the mob, ordered, on pain of excom- munication, no person to sell, give to, or admit one of the recreants into their houses. Repeated attacks have been made on a number of persons who attend divine worship at the chapel of Castledermot, for the last four or five Sundays, by hooting, shouting, and, in one instance, breaking the seat and pew in pieces belonging to a respectable man, who voted at the Carlow election for Colonel Bruen and Mr. Kavanagh. In no part of the Queen's County have the mandates of the priests and agitators been more brutally exercised than at Clonaslie. After last mass on Sunday i Michael Finn, who voted for Sir C. Coote, and his children, were assailed in the street of Clonaslie, after having received much injury."

I shall give some further specimens of the treatment which electors re- ceived who ventured to vote contrary to the priest. Several women sta- tioned themselves, on Sunday last, 25th January, at the different avenues leading to Carlow Chapel, and, as on the Sunday previous, hooted and groaned at some of our Catholic townsmen, on their way to worship their Creator.

Synriland Chapel — Several persons were hooted and driven out «:f this chapel on Sunday last, one man was shut out, and brutally ill-treated by the rabble.

Bennekerry Chapel — Several persons were abused on Sunday, and st« were thrown at the car of Mr. Nolan, while another body of mix-rcaiits proceeded to the chapel, and broke the pew of Mr. Gorman.

Ballinabrana Chapel — Black lists were posted up, and alluded to from the altar, for the purpose of exclusive dealing.

Leighlin Chapel— So furious was the conduct of the rabble in I his chapel^ that Captain Stewart, with a party of police, was obliged to patmle the streets. Several men \\ • n in the Chapel yard, and a \\oi;

named Keddy, \va« obliged to save her life by flighi -rted out

of town by the police.

Castledermot Chapel— A worthy and estimable gentleman narrowly escaped being attacked by the rabble.

Rathviliy Chapel— On" Monday l&t; Feb. ± Mr. Pierre I»yrne N proceeding' to this chapel, he was'attacked in the yard by a mob, and his family grossly ill treated.

Kahama Chapel — On Sunday, as Michael h elector for this

county, was entering this ehapeU he was attacked by several nun. knocked down,' and severely hurt. The $# lt*d that •' i >«i

acted, was for his voting against the wishes of the priest at the late elec- tion.

On Monday last, while Mr. Luke Nolan was sitting with his brother in his pew in Rathloe Chapel, he was assailed by about twenty ruffians, who attempted to drag him out of the chapel ; the only reason assigned for this outrage is, that he did not vote for O'Connell and Cahill. On the same day, a young woman was thrown off the gallery of Borris Chapel by some mis- creants, because her relations were friendly to the interests of Colonel Bruen and Mr. Kavanagh.

At Ballyroan Chapel, two Roman Catholics, who did not vote, were attacked before the service was completed, and their seats broke to pieces. Let it not be forgot, that in all the above cases the priests were eye-wit- nesses of the scenes, and did not interfere. In Cork a priest urged an in- dividual, who had not a vote, to appear on the hustings, and that he would be smuggled through. In Tuam, the Roman Catholic bishop headed the canvass ; from 1 80 to 200 priests brought up the voters, and after col- lecting them, deposited them in a rendezvous, under the care of a chief agent. From this place each man was accompanied to the hustings by two priests, who did not quit him until he voted. At the late Carlow election, in 1835, two priests were the proposer and seconder of the Radical candi- dates. Nor is it only in the heat of an election that the priest uses his in- fluence. Every one who does not submit to his orders is the victim of his attacks. The Duke of Buckingham's agent displeased Mr. Burke — he complained of him to the Duke, and his calumnies were rejected. He re- venged himself by forbidding the tenants to pay rent Mr. Walker, a quiet country gentleman, gave him offence — he harangued against him in the chapel, and ordered his parishioners not to work for him ; and Mr. Walker found that the men, to whom he had given constant work for years, de- serted him, and he had the utmost difficulty in getting his potatoes dug. At Ballymahon, in County Longford, a person for a theft was apprehended and imprisoned by order of the magistrate. The priest of Ballymahon, M'Cann, induced the thief to prosecute the constable ; the constable was acquitted, and the man himself, for assaulting him, was sentenced to two months' imprisonment. This exercise of justice offended the Catholic clergy. Forth came the bishop, Mr. Higgins, and his priests, who, from the altar, recommended a subscription in favour of the convict, and de- nounced the magistrate, for whom, in consequence, no Roman Catholic dared to work. (Evidence, 1832.)

It would be impossible, indeed, to produce adequate proof of the influ- ence which the priests are now exercising in Ireland. We may show, as we have attempted to do, what they do as political agitators. Then we find them the willing tools of the demagogue, and panderers to popular passions. Of them, in this capacity, we may say with Mr. Croly, " that while their congregations have engaged in sedition and insubordination — in burning and maiming — in murder and massacre, they, instead of setting their faces against these things, and preaching the doctrines of the gospel, have been the instigators of a misguided multitude, and by their conduct have left this impression on the mind, that to these actions the priests give their full and unqualified sanction." But it is not there only that we can discover their influence. We must go deeper into the relations of daily life. There, in the broken elements of Irish society, the feuds and disorders of which are so many, let us imagine what it must be to find an influence — great as superstition can make it — constantly exerted over the ininds of the pea- santry, not to soothe them, but to exasperate — mixing with every village feud — inflaming every local grievance — sowing every where the seeds of suspicion — checking no crimes, but poisoning kindly feelings, and abetting unsocial antipathies — using religion to goad Mio passions — making the rich

by the poor, the employer by hi* labourer, the landlord by tenant, the Protestant by his Catholic neighbour — let us remember that th« influence is unwearied, vigilant, and universal, in every parish, in CN county, and then say whether the expression of the inhabitants Pollard, when, from a peaceful state, they were driven in exertions of their priest, was too strong, " that they believed it \\a> the devil who sent him among them." And if this demon of discord is work in every parish in the South and West of Ireland, can we manvl it Protestant emigrate from a place where his life is wretched, and the in respectable Catholics fly from such scenes, or, in order to be at peace, that they give themselves up to the priest, and are content to propitiate his favour by submitting to his will?

The poet has described Pandemonium as the place where the bad vex their fellows, and they revenge themselves on others more wicked, by trampling them under foot — a true description of Ireland, where the wicked govern, and where the priest is the tool of their passions, where superstition is used to excite and encourage crime ; and from the altar, which professes to offer sacrifice to Heaven, rises the cloud of bitter hatred and stormy dissensions, and over the dark and benighted minds of the people come the blasts of a still darker superstition to rouse them to passion and hatred. If you would gratify your vindictive feelings, go to Ireland — you may riot in their in- dulgence ; but, if you would live at peace, you must fly from the country where crime and superstition are leagued in one desperate fraternity.

It has been attempted however to be said, that the priests in Ireland may be useful in maintaining peace, or might be made so, if they were attached to the state by a state provision. We have now given every one an oppor- tunity of judging of the likelihood of this. Treat the priests as you will, they must depend for their fees, and for power, which is dearer than fees, on their command over the people ; and we have seen that there is one way only, that of political agitation, by which they can maintain their command. Political incendiaries, therefore, they have become, and such will they remain. W7hatever, therefore, are the evils of political incendia- rism to Ireland, with these they are connected ; and, moreover, they throw into the hot fire of politics the fuel of a hotter superstition. The gent' ml effects of their influence, therefore, are obvious. But, besides these, their influence has-taro special effects; and both of them must be stated before we can arrive at a just conclusion.

The first is the effect which they produce on the condition of the Pro- testant inhabitants of Ireland. The Catholic members, and Mr. O'Connell at their head, try to persuade us that nothing can be more benign and fra- ternal than the present spirit of the Roman Catholic Church. The prii they would have us believe, have bosoms open to all, on which all may repose with confidence. But every day, and every hour, gives the lie to these assertions. Their whole religion is full of denunciations auain>t heretics. There is not a catechism or a sermon which does not point out heretics as a horror, and a warning to the true sons of the Church. Not a Mr. Burke rises at their altars that does not mark them with tin- fin of reprobation. " Boys," said that reverend gentleman, in one of his bu. of triumph in his chapel, " Boys, the tottering fabric of heresy is falling, and the Catholic Church is rising in glory. Ireland was once Catholic — it shall be Catholic ajiain." It is true that, lately, there has transpired a fact of which we were kept in profound ignorance — that, while the Catholic Bishops of Ireland were assuring us that, their religion was changed, they were all the while reading amon^ their cleruv, and inculcating on them as theology, a book containing the doctrines of persecution and extermination of heretics in their utmost rigour. This is. ho\ve\«-r. but a >tronur evid< of a fact which require- no proof at all. Cio anion- the h.u< r or.hr

26

the Catholics in any country, and you will see there the real spirit of their religion. It is of little moment what the priests tell us — the question is, what they tell their people; and, if we would know this, we must know what their people believe. Now, in all Catholic countries the lower orders believe they show their love for the Church by hatred of heretics. It is so in Spain and Portugal — it is so in Italy. The lazzaroni of Naples are the fiercest bigots. It is so in Ireland. Every oath by which the lower orders associate themselves together, whether it be under the name of Ribbonmen or Whitefeet, is one binding them to exterminate the Protestants. Live therefore as these may, peacefully, blamelessly, they cannot be safe ; for they are Protestants, they dwell among Catholics, and therefore are they the objects of anathema by the Church, and of hatred by the people. Here is the Whitefeet oath, and a similar oath is taken by all the Ribbon Asso- ciations which have existed for above half a century : — " Never to spare, but persevere and wade knee-deep in Orange blood — not to serve the king, unless compelled ; and when the day comes, to fight and wade knee-deep in the oppressors' blood ; and that neither the groans of men, nor the moans of women, shall daunt him, for the ingratitude shown to his brothers of the Catholic Church"

Such is the oath of the Catholic Associations; and, to give it greater significancy, it is established, in the same evidence, (before the Committee of 1832,) that the priests of Queen's County never interfered with the Whitefeet, until (says one witness) they saw that these associations were sapping their authority — that the priests in the diocese of Down and Con- nor refused to interfere with the Ribbon Associations, and connived at them — that Mr. Croly charges the priests with sanctioning these associa- tions. It is not surprising that such hatred of Protestants exists, when Archbishop Murray tells us that they (the Catholic clergy) prohibit and dissolve all marriages of Catholics with Protestants, thereby holding out Protestant blood as abjured and tainted. The people are not slow to shed it — to dip their hands in the blood thus cursed by their Church. The Ribbonmen's oath is — " To appear in a court of justice, and swear, if ne- cessary, for the protection of Ribbonmen ; and, whenever occasion required, to walk in the blood of the heretical class;" (meaning the Protestants;) " and to resist the payment of tithes ; and to support and uphold the Holy Mother Church of Rome, and not to deal with Protestants, except it was more for his advantage than dealing with their brethren." Such is the oath deponed to by a Ribbonman before a magistrate, as taken and read aloud every quarter in the associations of Ribbonmen, which Mr. O'Connell tells us are widely spread over Ireland. In every movement, therefore, the Protestants are the first object of attack. Whenever the popular pas- sions combine in one union of fury, it is on these unhappy victims that they fall. In Kilkenny, in 1830, arose at Castlecomer the assemblages against tithes. The priests headed these, and the Catholic schoolmasters led the affray, in which several persons were murdered. This excitement then settled down (says Major General Crawford) into an attack on the Protestants. " The people fired at them frequently, some at their work, and others coming from divine worship. The Protestants employed by the gentlemen of the country have been attempted to be murdered ; some unfortunate wretches have been actually murdered ; one at the collieries ; another attempted to be murdered near Coolcullen ; another was fired at coming from church ; three were fired at in their fields when at their work ; another at his own door, and another on the bridge of Castlecomer." W ell might the witness infer that it was their object to expel the Protestants from the country. In Queen's County, says Mr. Despard, there is a strong feeling against the Protestants. Out of Queen's County the Protestants have emigrated in great numbers, says another witness. They have tied

from a Catholic soil, which they find thirst.; for their blood. I of Vv'aterford, (I give a speciin. of a tho

clergyman from London pi- >i a barn to i

He preached no controversy. He has no taftte lor conti no attacks on any creed — his wish is to teach his own; he preached what he believed — the gospel. The people heard him with in; iied

tears, and poured blessings on him. They hung around him as he leaving them. They asked him to return to them. The parish pr heard of it. He wrote to the gentleman who allowed the use of his barn, (a Protestant gentleman,) and told him that he iroiild ikntmnn- hint f the altar, unless he promised never to lend his houses for such purp. again. He read from the altar the names of the///?// indirirlmils who were thus won by the preaching of truth, and he forbade any Catholic to hold any intercourse with them. They were all stript of their trade and liveli- hood, and have been compelled to seek employment elsewhere. — Here is another case. The island of Achill was left unvisited by any minister. Religion was not introduced because the people were too few to otter any attractions to its ministers. No priest had set his foot on it. A Bible missionary, Mr. Nangles, went there last year to teach the gospel. He was successful. The people cherished and loved him. They profited by his teaching, and they valued it. No sooner was this known to the priests on the mainland, than they sent some of their parishioners, trained up in the doctrines of persecution, and they attacked and stoned Mr. Nangles, and hunted him out of the island. Hear Mr. Inglis, a liberal and a Whig — "I entertain no doubt that the disorders, which originate in hatred of Protest' ism, have been increased by the Maynooth education of the Catholic priest- hood. It is the Maynooth priest who is the agitating priest ; and if the foreign educated priest be a more liberal-minded man, less a zealot, ant I less a hater of Protestantism than is consistent with the present spirit of Catholicism in Ireland, straightway an assistant, red-hot from Maynooth, is appointed to the parish. In no country in Europe, no, not even in Spain, is the spirit of Popery so intensely anti-Protestant as in Ireland." And yet it is this spirit which is burning hot as fire through all the parishes of this wretched country, and to this hot fire are all unhappy Protestants subjected.

1 am far from admiring political associations. The Ulster associations of the last century 1 joined with many others in reprobating; and Dr. Cooke, in his evidence before the Committee of 1825, has shown that evil has resulted from party warfare. But the inquiry which, in this session, Mr. Sheil carried into Orange Lodges, has exhibited their real causes. In Ulster, after various local feuds from 1760 to 1780, in 1784 the Catholics combined and began to persecute the Protestants. In 1790 they attacked Protestants in order to deprive them of their arms, under the name of Defen- ders— and hence sprung a rival association of Protestants under the name of Peep-of-day Boys — unjustifiable in their conduct, but called into exigence. by Roman Catholic persecution. And so allied were these violent Catholic associations \\ith their own clergy, that in 1793, when Dr. Troy and the Roman Catholic clergy interfered^, the Defenders became tranquil. The United Irishmen, under Wolfe. Tone, tried for a short time to draw both Protestants and Catholics into a combination of treason. But when that failed, the Catholics again returned to their attacks on Protestants; and so incessant and relei. 3 their persecution — attacking them in their

houses, on the road, at mar!,. .;:t no man's life was safe, nor hi-

mily at peace, that the Protestants threw themselves into Orange tions (which, then, first the members of the Church joined; to protect \ property and lives. The result of this union lias been far from unmixed good. Evil has attended it — sometimes violent p: • >nal

28

disturbances. But, in comparison with the evil against which it was a protection, these are insignificant. It preserved the lives and properties of the Protestants of Ulster, by uniting them in a strong body, without which they would have been run down and driven out in detail. The proof of the advantage is, that, by the confession of all witnesses, Ulster, with all its Orange disorders, has had since that time no Insurrection Acts, or Peace Preservation Acts, while these have been applied to every other part of Ireland. The proof of the necessity we find, in addition to what we have stated, in the testimony of Dr. M'Niven, a United Irishman and a Roman Catholic, who was examined in 1798. " How can you account," he is asked, " for the cruelties lately exercised by the rebels on the Protes- tantsT " If the Directory could have prevented it, I believe they would ; but the lower orders of Catholics consider Protestants and English settlers as synonymous, and as their natural enemy." Now, let us remember that these associations, so furious against Protestants, were under the control of the priests. Not a Ribbonman lives but all his operations are known in confession to the priest, " and they, (says a witness) are the chief advisers or consulters of these bodies." What the Protestants, therefore, had to feel were the vindictive passions of the peasantry, inflamed by religious hatred, and pointed at their heads by the priests' anathemas. It was not wonder- ful, that where they were sufficiently numerous, they should unite to pro- tect themselves. But years elapsed from 1795, when Orange associations had arisen ; their evils were seen — their causes were forgotten. All liberal men in this country learned to condemn them. I am sure I speak their sentiments, as I do my own, when I say we regarded them with dislike. In Ireland many Protestants, of sound principles, abstained from joining them. In the meantime, on the part of the Catholics, or rather I should say of the Catholic priests, efforts against the Protestant became bolder and more in- jurious. Whatever was the name under which the Catholics associated, and whatever was the object of their association, they always bound them- selves by the anti-protestant oath which I have given ; and in dealing out wrong on others, they dealt out, by the way, wrong on those whom all Catholics hated, and whom their priests denounced. The Protestants, therefore, were always the sufferers in every disorder — and Whitefeet, Black- feet, Ribbonmen, all dealt a blow and wreaked vengeance upon them. Hence, among the Protestants emigration went on rapidly. In the Evidence before the Committee of 1825, this is established, that in the North of Ire- land there had been far beyond the natural proportion of emigrations among the Protestant part of the population. " I have no manner of doubt," says Dr. Cooke, " that if a number of ships were sent to County Derry, whole districts of Protestants would remove for fear of the Catholics. I know that this fear pervades the minds of many of the lower orders of the people. This fear arises from the unprecedented influx of that association called Ribbonmen, or Threshers. There have been a succession of petty assaults, night after night ; there has also been the murder of a Protestant at his own door, by a party at night. The minds of the people have thus been kept continually on the alarm." It was even more so in other parts where the Protestants were less protected. From these quarters the stream of Protestant emigration ran deeper and more rapidly. Instead of won- dering that the Protestants by the last census are found to be so few, I wonder, that with these causes operating on them, so many of them have been able to endure and to remain.

But, at last, about^bwr years ago, the attacks on the Protestants became tnore concentrated. The elder class of priests, to whom Mr. Inglis alludes, and of whom Mr. Wyse speaks, the milder priests, had died out or were re- moved. The hot zealots, the Maynooth priests, who, Mr. Inglis fcays, "are ready to re-establish the Inquisition/' were muv fi\«-d mvr Ireland— 3000

29

Bf with great influence and equal fury, blo\\ . ,-,l tireof .ptrseeu-

tion strong upon the heads of the victims who were in tin t it.

These priests representing themselves through Mr. Shell's and Mi. nell's declamations, as very lambs and doves — boasting before Commit of Parliament of their benign spirit — were all the whiU; working in their parishes and goading on the people to the habitual persecution ot ' tin- Protestants.

Mr. Burke turned Athboy into a scene of strife — in Castle Pollard h«- hh-w the flames of variance. In County Longford the priests excited the ]>« • to fury — in Meath the priest turned the people against the Protestant fan i — in Wustmeath he turned their fury against Protestant landholders Po- litical causes came to animate and encourage them. Catholic emancipa- tion gave them a vast accession of power, and made them necessary to Un- political demagogues. The prospect opened as they advanced, and they saw, in the words of Mr. Burke, the heretical church falling, and their own rising in glory. Now emboldened by success, assured of victory, they kept no terms with the Protestants — \vhoeverdid not yield to their orders was de- nounced with fury, and their attacks became more open. Hear the lan- guage in which, at the last election at Carlow, a priest from his altar de- nounced an individual who would not vote for Mr. O'CormeiTs candidates,

M c ssrs. Raphael and Vigors. " Do you know who I mean ? I mean ,

the hypocritical proselyte, apostate lickspittle, and his father, &c. I say, ,

you are a detestable, hypocritical, apostate lickspittle — a ruffian and a mis- creant— to be held by the finger to scorn, and detestation, and contempt :" and every one that does not come at once to the poll, he declares to be one who is tampering with his landlord — a renegade and an apostate I Them extending his fury to all the Protestant landlords, he says, "Who are these bloody landlords, these tyrannical despots ? Why, they are fellows whose names were not known when your ancestors possessed the land they now usurp the right over, — but a time will soon come that will call upon them to prove what right and title they have to their usurped possessions." And then to point to the remedies necessary, he says, " I hope it will not be ne- cessary for us to draw the sword, for I hope the very sight of the scabbard Avill be enough to terrify them. We'll not be beat ; but if we are, rivers of blood will flow broader and deeper than are the waters of the Barrow." The landlords were held out by a Roman Catholic bishop as miscreants, " to be hunted out of the country" — the Protestant policemen were marked to be execrated — and magistrates v\ei-e denounced "as a curse and a scourge." No Protestant of activity escaped denunciations — many magi- strates were tired at — many individuals fell. Emigration amongst Pro- testants increased — landlords became non-resident — farmers and lubooairs fled to America. A witness, in 1832, is asked respecting Queen's Comity, "Does any general apprehension prevail among the Protestant resit! that they an- not in a state of security? Certainly, a great number (of Protestants) this year have quitted; cert/ fe/r Itucc remained in the dis- trict. This removal of Protestants is produced by a general feeling of in- security that it is not safe for them to reside? Yes; in a very populous Catholic district they do not find themselves secure." To strike more uni- versal terror, the idea of the lif/ltted /////was contrived. This \\a.x to show that the whole Catholic population were under the complete discipline of their priests; that they were, as one of themselves b<>a-h-'. ment planted all over the country, and ready at. any moment to rise and fall on their enemies. Previous to this a proof of the same jmu er had been given, as Mr Wyse tells us, when, at the bidding ot 'the Catholic .Wociatum, the priests summoned a meeting from the. altar ; ami over all In-hind, in above 3000 chapels, 3UOO priests on the. s:n .lleeted their H<

Ottfe million and a half of men, r fight, were thn- il'«r

30

at a few hours' notice. There was another mode of assembling the people, of which Lord Gosford informs us, by lighting fires on the tops of moun- tains. This might be used at any moment to raise the whole Catholic po- pulation. But the Lighted Turf, the Red Cross of Papacy, passed across Ireland with a warning yet more fearful. At midnight, when all was still in every country except Ireland, and men were sleeping in peace, "in the sum- mer of 1832, the door of the Roman Catholic was knocked at — individuals were heard hastily rising, and then there was a person despatched from that house to carry on the lighted turf. The rapid movements of parties along all the roads, the order with which, in the dead of night, these sym- bols were borne, or some mysterious message was conveyed, kept the alarm of the Protestants alive. Their doors were scarcely in any instances knocked at, perhaps in none" — (this witness is speaking of Tyrone, where the Catholics and the Protestants are mixed together.) "The consequence was universal alarm. In the house of every Protestant in the country some one person kept watch during the night, and apprehensions were felt that there would be an attempt at a general massacre. I spoke to one of my Roman Catholic parishioners about these signals, and expressed my sur- prise that a man of his good sense would lend himself to the raising of such alarms in the country. It was not possible for him, he said, to disobey when the priest had given him an order to perform this duty." This dis- play of perfect order and concentrated power in the hands of the priests, took place in 1832, and it added fresh power to the threats and denuncia- tions made, and too often executed, against the unhappy Protestants in the preceding years.

It was at this time, when these signs were gathering on all sides, — when Mr. O'Connell and his party were in England, representing the Protestants as oppressors, while in Ireland they were the victims of a most intolerable oppression, — while Government frowned upon them as enemies, and the public in England and Scotland believed what was reiterated ; it was then that, rousing themselves from their despondency, they returned to their Protestant Associations. They had no friends. Denounced by eloquent speakers in Parliament — belied and slandered by the press — traduced abroad — in terror at home — suffering under a daily persecution — wea- ried out by terrors — anathematized at the altar — pointed at in the mar- ket— waylaid on the road — their homes unsafe — their minds worn by ru- mours of vengeance ; they fell back on themselves, and re-established their Orange Associations. Many who had long kept aloof from ti: now joined them. Whigs and Liberals saw that, if they were Protestants, there was no safety but in association. They felt that if they remained isolated, they would fall unpitied ; and while the curses of the priests were rained like flakes of fire upon their heads, and the fingers of a savage people were pointed at them, ready to be dipped in their blood, they were all the while held out to this country as the persecutors of others. It is well, in- deed, and most consistent with their public principles, that Mr. Hume, and Mr. O'Connell should denounce the Protestants of Ireland — quite natural that those who long to extinguish our Protestant faith, and to let loose the dogs of superstition and infidelity upon us, should denounce these Protestant Associations. For my own part I can truly affirm, that no one, at one time, looked with greater suspicion upon them than myself, nor yet do I give them a willing and unqualified approval. But, while not a word is said of the Ribbon Associations among the Catholics — not a word is spoken of that persecution, bitter and unrelenting, which is now carried on against the Protestants — not a whisper reaches us from these patriots, of the cui thick and black, which are poured out from the altar against the men of our own faith — of the annoyances, various and constant, by which they are be- set— of that wearing, exhausting, daily persecution, by which they are in

31

jeopardy every hour, — God forbid that we should riot hail the spirit of t. win), when deserted by all other men, do nor desert themselves. In > land, at least, where we have- suri'ered like evils under an intolerant gOVfcWl- nient and a cruel priesthood, we ought to join in their f,- there are men at this day who are cheering on the furies of the rabble against the Protestants in Ireland, whose hearts are a* > Claverhousc, whose hatred is as deadly as Dalzelfs. The weapon - which they use are different, and they wield them in another field <>t fare. It is in Parliament, not in the' secret chamber, when- the tort', now applied. It is not to the boot they are submitted, but to the hitter accusation and the opprobrious lie. It is by these that char torn

to pieces, and men of blameless truth are hunted down. And while Govern- ment stand calmly by and express not one feeling in their favour, the Ca- tholic and the Infidel, the demagogue of England, and the bigot and tyrant of Ireland, apply to them, their undefended victims, the steel of their cold and false calumnies, that it may enter into their souls. But the time is now come when Scotland will see the real position of our Protestant brethren in Ireland ; and it is satisfactory to feel, that the more the ques- tion is inquired into, the more will this ensue. The evidence of that com- mittee, for which, this session, Mr. Sheil moved, in order to blacken the Protestants, has had the opposite effect. I can truly say, that I sat down to its perusal with the strongest conviction of the impropriety of Orange Associations, and I rise from it fully satisfied that the union of the Pro- testants in such bodies was indispensably necessary for their safety. One witness, himself driven lately to join them, correctly states the case, and speaks the feelings of all who will impartially examine this evidence. But though I state this in his words, I do not rest it on his authority. I would refer any one who would understand the question, not to the witnesses in favour of Orange Lodges, (whose testimony of course should be taken with caution,) but to that of Lord Gosford, the enemy of Orange Lodges. His evidence alone proves the necessity and the use of these associations. " From the time of the passing of the act for the removal of the Roman Catholic disabilities," says Mr. O'Sullivan, "it became more manifest that the destruction of Protestantism in Ireland was contemplated by Roman Catholics. I became convinced that England was greatly deceived as to the state of Ireland, and might never be- come thoroughly sensible of the perils to which Protestants were exposed, until it was perhaps too late to protect them ; and I felt it to be essential to the interests of the Protestants of Ireland that they should all be confe- derated into one great body for the purposes of self-defence. I sawr that the North of Ireland was tranquil, and I had reason to believe that its peacefulness was mainly owing to the conduct and the combination of the Orange Societies. 1 looked upon it that the critical circumstances of the time demanded of me the joining myself with this body." This is the justification of such associations, and that justification, to revert to our 'argument, lies in the danger to which the Protestants of Ireland are exposed by the persecution of the Roman Catholics. It is the sense of a common and imminent danger which has driven them into union ; and, while \\ e ad- mit this danger — as, after these proofs, who shall deny it ? — we have a urave charge against, the Roman Catholic priests who have eaus.-d it. For they, by denouncing heretics and cursing heresy, have embittered and inflamed the passions of the, peasantry, stimulated local feuds with religious hatred, and have rendered it impossible that peace should exist in Ireland, or Pro- testantism be sai'e.

SECTION V. — Protestants of Ireland.

There is, however, a mode by which peace may be purchased for Ire- land, and it is the mode which Mr. O'Connell and the priests urge as the remedy for all difficulties. It was applied in the case of the island of Achill, when Mr. Nangles introduced the gospel there. The priests their emissaries to excite disturbances, and then stated to government that as the preaching of the gospel was the cause of disorders, it should be prohibited. On another occasion Dr. Doyle and the Catholic Bishops were examined as to the reasons why peace had not followed emancipation in Ireland. They said it was owing to the crusades and missionaries of the religious societies. Now, these religious societies — the Bible, Hibernian, Irish, and Reformation Societies, to which they alluded, are those of which Mr. Burnett (not a churchman, but a dissenter,) says that their good in Ireland had been incalculable — they were societies for the preaching and teaching of the truths of the gospel — the truths taught at the Reforma- tion. If the Catholic clergy say that these are an offence and an injury to them, they were the same offence and injury to their ancestors, and if the attempts made now, which do not touch their property, or affect their churches, are to be regarded as injurious, what is this but telling us that that we must not preach to their flocks ? — that if we dare to throw light on them we must be put down — and that there can be no peace unless we permit the poor Catholics to remain the slaves of the priesthood ; but that if we presume to enlighten them, sticks and stones are to be the answer. Force is indeed the weapon to which the priests of Ireland have, of late years, frequently had recourse ; and by force it is plain that they intend that Protestantism in Ireland shall be put down.

But perhaps this, after all, is the better plan. Let us buy peace from the priests in Ireland by driving away heresy. There is no other mode. For if we leave the Protestant faith in Ireland, though it had not a sixpence of the public money, the Catholic priests would persecute it as they now do. There is no way, then, but to withdraw it altogether — to take back our Scottish and English settlers, and leave Ireland to the priests. They point at this as the time that is fast coming, the time " for inquiry into titles and resuming usurped possessions." What then is tin- objection to this? justice, and right, and law might offer some ; but what are these if they stand in the way of the happiness of Ireland ? If its peace and future well-being are to be consulted by this sacrifice, it is worth mak- ing. Nothing short of this will succeed. Neither emancipation, nor tithe extinction, nor church extinction. Repeal of the Union is only valuable because it tends to this result. Repeal the Union, and the Catholic party, with Mr. O'Connell as their leader, are unopposed; and we have only t<> read the history of the age of Louis XIV., and of the extermination of the Protestants in France, to learn the fate of the Irish Protestants, — to discover that, under a Catholic democracy, as under a Catholic des- pot, the priests have the same powers over their own religion, and prepare the same fate for others. Let us then anticipate the convul- sion, and quietly withdraw Protestantism from Ireland. The object of all parties is to make Ireland a peaceful and prosperous country. If it can become peaceful and prosperous only as a Catholic country, we agree, not merely that the Protestant Church should be removed — that is nothing — but that the Protestant people, the million and a half of Protestant souls, should be swept away as a nuisance from the soil.

Now, in such a case, would the condition of Ireland be improved ? — that Is the question. There would be no religious dissensions — no Orange lodges — no Protestant Associations. All these nuisances, which, we aiv

33

assured by Mr. O'Connell, and Lord Gosford < MOD, nre tin*

.nd bane of the country, would be abated.

But there is one of the four provinces of Ireland which is tiainjuil. and has been tranquil for f< : the other t!i. ant

disturbances. In the one province Orange lodgs-s are m, are thousands of Orangemen; there are few in the. other. Tranquil

not seem then to arise necessarily when religion- diil'eivne. In Tipperary theiv are but t\vo Orange lodges ; in many other counties of Minister there are none. Tipperary is never at peace ; Minister ! notorious for its disturbances. Ulster, on the other hand, is dotted tii with Orange Associations ; but Ulster is the only part of Ireland where life is safe, and manufactures exist, and land is well tilled. We must enter more minutely into this.

The population of Ireland, by the Report of the Commissioners of Public Instruction, is very nearly eight millions. Six millions and a half of them are Catholics ; one million and a half are Protestants. These last ar. unequally distributed, that while Ulster has 1,100,000 Protestants, tin other three provinces of Ireland have but 400,000 Protestants. As the Report of the Commissioners divides Ireland into the four ecclesiastical proviir we cannot say with accuracy the proportion of Protestants to Catholics in each of the four civil provinces. In the ecclesiastical province of Armagh, the Catholics are 1,955,1:23 ; the Protestants are 1,155,795 — the Catholics, therefore, are 62 per cent, of the population, and the Protestants 3(i. But Armagh comprehends several counties of Leinster, so that the proportion of the Protestants is smaller in the Ecclesiastical province of Arm than in the Civil province of Ulster. In round terms, the Protestants and Catholics in Ulster may be said to be nearly equal, though we believe the Catholics form the majority ; that is, in a population of '2, 20(>,000. about a million are Protestants. On the other hand, in Leinster, where the popu- lation is nearly two millions; in Connanght, where the population is a million and a quarter ; and in Minister, where it is above two millions ; that is, in the three provinces, containing a population of nearly six mil- lions, there are only half a million of Protestants. In Minister the propor- tion of Protestants is the smallest ; in the Province of Cashel, (which is identical with Minister,) there is a population of :>,335,573 ; and out of this there are only 115. -233 Protestants — in other words, out of every hundred of the population in Minister, there are only^V-e Protestants. The eon; of Minister, it will be remembered, are \Vaterford, Tipperary, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Clare.

tin- best tests of the disturbances in Ireland, is the necessity which Government were under to apply tin; Insurrection Act, or the \'<

•rvation Act, to the disturbed parts. If, therefore, we follow the steps of these Acts, we shall find where they have lighted, and we may !• which are flie most disorderly districts in Ireland. On the :M December, 179G, a small par; r, with part of two parishes in the Conn,

•e proclaimed as disturbed. The dispute's between the Ca- tholics and Prot-.-stants, tho Defenders and Peep-o'-day-boys, led to proclamation. But it v -it attached to a

small part of Ulster. whole province of 1

parts of two . and on this occasion, only tluriny !<•

century.

Bat throughout I, viand, 1'.. disturbance In

\Ve

in operation. Few years h;

proclamations have no* -m Dublin, to strike (ii

and. until crii:.

Hint it wns imt • the ordinal".

j • *

34

proclamations are, therefore, the evidence and the signals of advanced and general outrage. By this black telegraph, then, we read which are the parts of Ireland abounding in crimes. We have had the Insurrection or Peace Preservation Acts, fifteen times in these 35 years, in Ireland ; but applied to far more than 15 parts of Ireland — for an Act, when passed, was applied to many districts. But to enumerate merely the periods when the Acts were passed,— they were passed in 1800, 1801, 1803, 1804, 1807, 1808, 1810, 1814, 1815, 1816, 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1833. And to what provinces, when this extraordinary power was called into existence, has it been carried ? Into all the three provinces of Leinster, Connaught, and Munster. — Into every county in each of these, except, I believe, Dublin. Into Ulster, never. Not once has it set its foot within the borders of that province. "It is a remarkable circumstance," says Mr. Leslie Foster, " that in the eleven counties which were the subject of the settlement of James the First, (a settlement which broke up the whole fabric of Irish society in the province of Ulster, and in parts of two other counties — abo- lished the Irish tenures, and laws, and habits — led to the native population being pent up within their mountains, while all that was fruitful and valu- able was taken possession of by the English and Scottish settlers) — in these eleven counties the Insurrection Act never has been applied."

We have heard much of the mischief of Orange Lodges, and the disor- ders consequent on Orange processions. Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Hume in Parliament — Mr. Crawfurd, Lord Gosford, and others, in evidence before Committees, would have us believe that these parties, and the religious hostility which they engender, are the cause of disorders in Ireland. So inconsistent is this with the fact, that Lord Gosford himself, (a most reluc- tant witness) is obliged to confess, that in the counties where there are most Orangemen there are fewest disorders, and where there are fewest Orangemen there are most disorders. I do not underrate the evils of re- ligious differences ; but where there are Protestants and Roman Catholics, religious differences must exist. So far, however, are these differences of religion from producing civil disorders, that, to quote the words of Mr. Leslie Foster, "It is very observable that in those counties which have been the seat of religious differences, the Insurrection Act never has been ap- plied, while in those counties which have been perpetually the theatre of its application) there has been very little of religious dispute. There have been very few Orangemen in the counties to which the Insurrection Act has been applied." I am far from saying that Orange Associations have led to no disorders. Dr. Cook, in his evidence in 1825, has stated the bad effects to which their processions have, in some cases, led. But the higher you rate them, the stronger becomes my argument. If Lord Gosford and Mr. O'Connell assert that Orange processions have caused so many disor- ders, let us admit their view ; but then, how striking becomes the fact, that in spite of the disorders which these Protestant Associations engender, such is the beneficial tendency of the residence of Protestants, that where they reside, and there only, is peace to be found. They draw after them Orange combinations ; well, admit that this is an evil. They produce Orange dis- orders ; well, that is clearly an evil. They occasion religious disputes, for where the Catholics and Protestants are nearly equal, these have arisen. Yet, with all this, there is peace in Ireland with Protestantism — without it, Insurrection Acts and crime.

In Munster there is one place with a large number of Protestants — Ban- don, in County Cork. This place has been disturbed, we are told, by Orange Associations, and d; 'ween the Orangemen and the Catho-

lics. Of course, then, if Lord Gosford and Mr. O'Conncll's view bo cor it must be a most disorderly town. On the contrary, with all its religious Uiso: ,1 tranquillity. It has a prrpondoraue, of

•-.slants, and there!'.. -« a v< i

Foster, " to the treneral state ot'Mun-1

We have taken the Insurrection An i walking

out the line of order, and the boundary of distur! all, we find, is tranquillity ; over all the re>t of Ireland, v.

:';iees which mark the course and the punishment of crime. 11 now to the Keturns of the actual criin.

1834. The returns of five months give us 2000 insurreetio:iarv crimes in Ireland. In Ulster, where the population is tl

these crimes. In Minister we have 262 — for various iv i hy

Mr. Barrington, this province was tranquil. In Connaught, with lation not much above one half of that of Ulster, r 478 crin

and in Leinster, the population of which is 300,000 less than in Ulster, 1 were 963 crimes. We find, besides, the amount of crimes committed in the different counties of all the Provinces stated in Parliamentary papers, in May, 1834. As these counties differ in population, I shall state the num- ber of crimes for every 100,000 souls. In Fermanagh there were 25 er — in Armagh, 22 — in Antrim, 20 — in Down, 19 — in Tyrone, 11. These are some of the counties of Ulster. From the other province- et a

few. In Gal way there were 62 crimes — in Westmeath, 66 — in Ki County, 70 — in Kilkenny, 95. Compare 11 with 62 — 25 with 95; ;' give you the comparison of crime in the Protestant, and of crime in the Catholic counties of Ireland.

But compare the counties of Ulster with one another. In some the Protestants are far more numerous than in others. In Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Derry, the Protestants far exceed in number the Catholics. In Cavan, Monaghan, and Fermanagh, the Catholics far exceed in number the Protestants. In the four first counties there are 20 crimes for e 100,000 of the population — in Derry there are only 11 ; whereas, in tin; three Catholic counties the lowest amount of crime is 25 — in the other two it is 46 and 50. Therefore, 11 as compared with 25 — 20 as compared with 50 ; these are the measure of the difference between the order and peace of the Protestant counties of Ulster over the Catholic counties.

We have taken crime as one test, and by its sombre light we have been guided to one conclusion. Let us take another guide, and follow the steps of manufactures and capital. Nothing, we know, is so sensitive as capital. It is therefore the best index of the political atmosphere, and mcasun its rise and fall the state of the political world. In India interest is high because capital is exposed to risk. In our own country in former ti in ill-governed countries now, the interest of capital is enormous. It has fallen with peace and order. The interest of money lent on land is at pre- sent low in EngtanS and Scotland. In Scotland, at this moment, it is from 31 to 4 per cent. In Ireland, says Mr. Mahoney. a solicitor in e\t. ; practice in Dublin, 5 or 6 per cent, is offered for money advanced on land ; but the Irish capitalists prefer having 2 or 3 per cent, in the funds to the risk of so lending their money. If, he says, it is in the North of Ireland that he is employed to sell a property, or to borrow money on a prop he finds no difficulty; but an almost insurmountable difficulty it' the pro- perty is in the South or West of Ireland.

Such is the course, then, of agricultural capital. It f'ies from l' southern pro fin <rs of Ireland — it Hows into Ulster. What doe- turing capital do? it. is collected in masses, and in Derry, Antrim, and 1'elfast, and other towns of Ulster. \\\\\ in provinces of Ireland, where shall we look for manufactures on any con.-i- derable scale ?

But the progress of the Cotton <ure in Ireland, vine]

many places superseded the old staple the Linen, is a -till stronger in

S6

tion. It' \ve follow its gradual and timorous advance, we shall see how it felt its way to the safe parts of Ireland, and what these parts were. " The capitalists of England," says Mr. Frankland Lewis, " in 1825, set to work very cautiously. Ireland has hands that are able to weave, the linen manu- facture having raised up a population acquainted with the practice of weav- ing. The manufacturers in England have begun to send over cotton, spun in England, to be woven in Ireland, and it is immediately brought back into England to be finished. They risk very little ; there is nothing of large establishments, no spot where a great deal is accumulated together ; there is nothing that can be destroyed by any sudden act of violence, and they part with it for a very little time." Being asked to what parts this Cotton- weaving was spreading, he replies, " I should say, commencing at Drogheda, it follows the north-east coast to Derry ; in Antrim it is carried on very considerably ;" and in Derry, Down, and Antrim, and Louth, adds Mr. Leslie Foster, are its great seats ; in Down there is the greatest com- petition for weaving. " It does not spread," says Mr. Lewis, " into Done- gal, nor does it extend much into Fermanagh and Cavan." Thus, then, in Ireland it crept along the coast, from Drogheda to Dunleer, in Louth, spread itself over the counties of Down, and Antrim, and entered Derry, it then assumed a more fixed character in Belfast, where, as Mr. Foster says, the second stage of its progress was reached, and mills for the spinning of cotton-twist equal to those of Glasgow and Manchester arose. The capi- talists have found the country in these parts secure, and they no longer feared to make a fixed investment of their capital. But it will be observed, and we pray attention to this, that the counties where the Cotton manu- facture has thus settled itself are the Protestant counties of Ulster. Louth, which is in Leinster, is an exception ; but Louth has been always free from disturbances, says Mr. Foster. In Louth, according to the returns of crime in 1834, there are only 12 crimes to every 100,000 of the population, which is the lowest amount next to Derry. Antrim, and Down, and Derry, where the manufacture is located, are the Protestant counties of Ireland ; far be- yond all others in number of Protestants ; and, as the Cotton manufacture graphically tells us, far beyond all others in security and peace. Into Donegal, which is a more Catholic county, the manufacture does not pass, nor does it spread into the Catholic counties of Cavan and Ferma- nagh. Here, then, does manufacture take the map of Ireland, and by its settlement mark out the quiet parts, and those parts are found to be the Protestant districts, and those alone. — But there is yet another fact not less remarkable. We have shown what Province the Cotton ma- nufacture turns to, and in what parts of that Province it fixes its seat. But in the other Provinces of Ireland there is one spot in the midst of them, on which manufacture locates itself — one island in the midst of those troubled waters, on which it plants its foot as on a dry ground. " There is a Cotton manufacture," says Mr. Frankland Lewis, " established at Ban- don, in the County of Cork ; and I have been told by persons who have observed upon it, that it is extremely thriving and prosperous ; anil that it is remarkable, during all the disturbances which have agitated the County of Cork and its neighbourhood, that that district never lias been disturbed in such a way as to interfere with the operations of the manufactures." Bandon then was selected by the manufacturer, as the only spot free from those disturbances which agitated the rest of Munster. But where the Pro- testants and Catholics are nearly balanced in numbers, says Mr. Lewis, there angry collisions take place. " I have heard that in the town of Bandon, where there is a strong Protestant population in the midst of a Roman Ca- tholic population, these contests take place." Now in Bandon alone, out of all Munster, is there, security, and quiet, and manufacture — just because, in Bandon alone is there "a strong Protestant, population." One instance moiv.

37

There can be no Orange combination* without a con^,,

Protestants. There are two places in Minister, and two only,

Foster, where, there are Orangemen. "Then; are violent ( n in

Bantlon, in the County of Cork; and there are a few, l.nt. n :. in

the town of Tarbet, in the County of Kerry." These, ihi-r..

Protestant places, and " these places are," he says, " ma;

the general state of Minister."

Such, then, are the indications given by capital and manufactures of the state of the Protestant parts of Ireland. Let us turn now to the condition of the farmers. I have before described, from ample evidence, the M retell, d condition of the farmers of Minister and Leinster. In the three Catholic provinces, misery, filth, and poverty, are the characteristics of the farm, r and peasant " The state of Ulster," as Mr. Foster says, and ;^ may remark, " is not merely different, but the direct contrast to the south- ern and western counties." But proceed into Ulster — is it all alike ? on the contrary, it is mapped and marked in the scale of comfort by the limits of the Protestant population. It is true that a Catholic of the north, as one witness says, is in a very different position as to order and comfort from a Catholic of the south. He has risen in the general elevation of the society around him. But still he is in a very different position from the Protes- tant. Mr. F. Lewis says, speaking of Ulster, " the Catholics outbid the Presbyterians in competition for land, because they oti'er rents, and can pay rents which the Protestant population, who are a higher and HUH, able class, will not pay; and they are willing to live hard, and exist, in their miserable icar/, on the produce of the land." Dr. Cook incur' that greatly more of the Protestant population have emigrated from Ulster than of the Roman Catholic. Being asked the reason, he assigns this — besides the fear of Catholic persecution, that, being more educated, and reading more, they knew more of America ; and, when the families of farmers are large, the Catholics are content to subdivide it into wretchedly small allotments ; but the Protestants, having higher notions of comfort, prefer sending their sons to America. Whether, therefore, we compare one province with another, or whether we compare its different classes, we find that the Protestant province far surpasses the Catholic ; and that in the Protestant province, the Protestant class is the thriving, the Catholic the degraded. And, if leaving the north, we plunge into the south of Ireland, and follow a track through it, in the midst of the filth and misery of a moral desert, you find a green spot in the farthest south — in the County of Wcxford. " I found a country," says Mr. Inglis, speaking of the Barony of Forth, " without any natural beauty, but with every thing else to recom- mend it. I saw universal tillage, good husbandry, and a comfortable people. The farm-houses substantial — the cottages clean and comfortable ; at the doors flower-pots, and little ornamental gardens — the land well laboured, and clean — the crops excellent— few unable to find employment." And what is the cause of this contrast? A distinction of character, not a distinction in condition. kt Sujn'rior intlutln/* and f/rrt/ftr prori,;, have produced among the farmers an improved husbandry, and perhaps a somewhat larger capital ; and this again has been the means of givii, more general, ami a more regular employment to labourers." Ti in the south of Ireland — in Leinster ; but it is a colony of South Wales — a Protestant colony.

And if we take Mr. IniJis' ETtMDtll in Ireland, and trace his pro. from the South to the North of Ireland, we shall be struck by remarking, that just in proportion as the Protestants thicken in numbers, the simx of civilization increase; and that in every town or estate in Connanght uhere Protestants exist in considerable numbers, there a rise the unwonted simi> omfort and order. After passing through a considerable part of Con-

38

naught, Mr. Inglis comes to Sligo, of which he thus speaks : " Sligo has the look of a town of some consequence — more so, I think, than any town I had seen since leaving Limerick. In streets, houses, bustle, and shops, Sligo holds a respectable rank. The latter, indeed, are scarcely surpassed even by those of Cork or Limerick." " With the ex- ception of two or three months in the year, there is employment for the people." He then enumerates the extent of its trade, which is considerable ; its fever hospital and dispensaries, which show benevolence ; its three lib- raries, which mark intelligence. " These were the first libraries I had seen since leaving Limerick." Now comes the explanation of all this activity. There are two Protestant churches in Sligo. Is there religious harmony ? On the contrary, religious and political animosity prevails to a consider- able extent in Sligo. But the cause which Mr. Inglis assigns for this, leads us to the sources of this local prosperity. He says that the Protestants and Roman Catholics are nearly balanced in numbers ; " the Protestant popula- tion of Sligo and the neigbourhood is large." Speaking of Mr. Wyse's estate near Sligo, he says, " This gentleman has been at great pains to es- tablish a Protestant tenantry on his estate, and in the appearance of their houses, &c. there is more neatness, and some show of comfort."

Next \ve come to Enniskillen. " I found it one of the most respectable looking towns I had seen in Ireland. I did not observe many symptoms in the town of a pauper population. In the general aspect of the population I perceived an improvement. I saw fewer tatters than I had been accustomed to, and fewer bare feet on market day, when all wear shoes and stockings who can. I saw a population without rags — improvement is every where discernible. This, and the generally improving condition of the town, are evidences of the prosperous condition of the surrounding agricultural popu- lation." Now comes the reason of this. The population of Enniskillen is about one-third Protestant. From Connaught Mr. Inglis passes into the County of Fermanagh. " The condition of the land occupiers in the baronies of Fermanagh is superior to the same classes in most other parts which I had visited. I found all the farmers admit that they could afford to eat meat three times a-week, and as much milk and butter as were required for their families." Now for the cause. The County of Fermanagh is con- siderably Protestant.

In one of the parishes in which Mr. Inglis rested a few days, he men- tions, that within a few years, the Protestant congregation has increased more than one-half, and in the adjoining parish it has increased one-third. As Mr. Inglis advances in Ulster the improvement becomes more striking. " In Tyrone, near Strabane," he says, " I found a pleasant and pretty well cultivated country. I every where noticed excellent crops. Strabane I found a remarkably neat towrn, with several streets, which contain excellent houses and capital shops. I saw little or nothing of rags ; there was a re- spectable look about the people, and every thing else. The poverty- stricken appearance of the Irish towns was fast disappearing. I perceived that I was verging towards the north, and getting among a different race of men. I heard few complaints of want of employment about Stra- bane, and tenpence is the usual rate of wages. I was greatly struck in the course of this day's journey, with the very improved appearance of the peasantry. A ragged, rather than a whole coat, was rather a rarity; and the clean and tidy appearance of the women and girls was a very agreeable sight. The farm houses too are of a superior order, and the epithet, slo- venly, could rarely find any subjects for its application." The prosperity of Londonderry, Mr. Inglis then d\vells upon — " I found the condition of the lower orders in Londonderry and' its neighbourhood better, upon the whole, than I had yet any where seen it. In the south and west I have frequently asked this question : If I wanted fifty men on constant employ-

39

ment, what would they hire tor? and the Hero, in Londonderry, on putting the sunn- q or Is. 6d. suitteiently proving that labour \\, higher wages were ptiid." Now comes l! very large preponderance of Protestants in the popr.latio: all the upper classes, and a great body of the middle classes, ineludin shop-keepers, are Protestants.

Mr. Ingli-s, on leaving Londonderry, says, "he passed through a fruit- ful corn country, and noticed throughout a very improved things amongst the people and their habitations." "Colerain. fairly considered a rising town. Generally speaking, then- is employment for labour in and about Coleraine, and wages in the country aver; elevenpence. At Coleraine the overwhelming majority are Pn.1 Again, in Belfast the preponderance of Protestants is notorious, usual evidences of prosperity are so much more abundant, and so much more striking in Belfast than even in the other most flourishing t<n\ > Ulster, that I am justified in saying, that Belfast has little or nothing in common with the rest of Ireland. Within the town and without the town, the proofs of prosperity are equally striking. No mud cabins — these Iliad left behind me long ago — no poor cottages — and neither in the streets nor in the suburbs is the eye arrested by objects of compassion. There is, in fact, no trace of an Irish population among any class. The lower orders are not ragged, and starving, and idle, because unemployed." We add not a word of comment to this striking commentary of 1'acN.

Wherever you go in the Catholic provinces of Ireland, in their rudest districts, the Protestant population stand out alone, distinguished in every wav from the surrounding neighbourhood, as in an Irish morass are scat- tered the few green spots on which a man may plant his foot.

In all the outrages which covered Queen's County, King's County, and Kilkenny, &c. in 1830 and 1831, not a single Protestant was concerned ; the Catholic farmers of wealth were driven into the Whitefeet Associations ; (Mr. Singleton cites several cases of thi* in Queen's County and in Gal- way;) not a single Protestant farmer was induced to join in them. In like manner, when a wrong was inflicted, or a murder committed by the White- feet on a farmer or a labourer, the Catholic labourers or farmers, though groaning under oppression, dared not prosecute or give evidence — (see Mr. Harrington's evidence, and that of Mr. Singleton) — the Protestants alone had the courage to prosecute and give evidence, and that in more than one case, for wrongs inflicted on their Roman Catholic neighbours. Mr. Singleton is asked, " You have stated, in the early part of your evi- dence, that you have found that the prosecutors upon all occasions all, were Protestants ; have you ever found that there was any reluctance on the part of Roman Catholics to prosecute? Yes, I have. The Roman Catholic farmers do not come forward with that willingness to bring offenders to justice that a Protestant does. — Do you attribute this to any indisposition to the constitution of the country? I attribute it mo intimidation." Mr. Stapleton is asked. "I In

rally Protestant or linman Cat.holics? Protestants in almost all ca Mr. O'Conm 11 h:;- repeatedly made it a charge, that t!i. -ufti-

L number of Roman Catholics on j:iri«. l;rn:.i the find the reason. The Ho; artifice and entreaty to av<>:, they were afraid t

atrocious crimes ; r.ml it wns only in lev

testants were on juries, th." I. 1'ut. !•

should be r-aid that the Car- Mr. Sf:-' "

County came to him in 1831, and said, "Will there be any law given to keep those people from coming to our houses and visiting us at night?"

Mr. Barrington also tells us that in Minister the farmers, though they dared not prosecute or give evidence against the parties to the murder of Mr. Blood, " yet told him that they were delighted to hear of their execu- tion." But though the Catholic farmer is writhing under the cruelties inflicted on him by the Whitefeet, he dare not give evidence, or prosecute, or convict ; and therefore the law altogether fails. It is only among the Protestants that there is found courage and principle sufficient to make them appear as prosecutors and witnesses. It is for the same reason that the police and constables are drawn from the Protestants — a topic of fre- quent declamation by Mr. O'Connell, who, in one of his bills last session, proposed to sweep them out, and put Catholics in their stead. In Queen's County, when a sufficient number of Protestants for the police was not to be found, we procured Protestants from the North, says Mr. Wray, and that because, in looking for fit and efficient men, we could find none to be de- pended upon among the Catholics. I may give one instance more of the contrast between the character of Protestant and Roman Catholic inha- bitants, in the case of Lord Caledon's estate. He wished to reclaim a mountainous district in Ennishowen — he located there a number of Pro- testant families. I would refer any one who knows or has read of the sin- gular difference made in the appearance, the cultivation, and the houses of that district, to form his judgment from this, of the connection between Protestant principles and civilized habits.

It is vain, then, to hope that the remedy proposed by the priests, namely, to extirpate the Protestants from Ireland, would bring peace. They are, it is evident, the only sound parts of society ; and it is only as they spread, that order will spread. I waive all higher considerations — I put aside all ques- tions of religion — I place the Protestant and Catholic religions on the same field, and am content to regard them as of equal value. But in their po- litical effects, the difference between them is marked. And, if we desire the progress of civilization in Ireland, we must seek for the spread of Protestantism. They are and will be co-extensive. If the Roman Ca- tholic religion shall continue there, vice and disorder will prevail, popular ignorance will be perpetuated, poverty, the misery of the poor, and in- tolerable crimes. I am aware that in correcting these we must oppose the interests of those whe feed on them — the interests of superstition and mer- cenary politics — of the priesthood and the agitators. But these cannot, I should think, be put in comparison with the interests of the people of Ire- land. Better, surely, that the altar should be overthrown, and the confes- sional empty, than that the labourer should be wretched. The well-tilled farm, the cheerful labourers, the hum of active business, the smiling cottage — these are more cheering objects than splendid chapels and gorgeous masses. A people plunged in the mire of ignorance — wading in the blood of violence — yet lavishing half a million to feed the priests : this is a monstrous anomaly.

Grant that there are 6000 persons interested in the present state of Ire- land— 3000 priests and 3000 agitators. I know that with Protestantism their power would be destroyed. But the happiness of eight millions is better worth than the interests of 6000 men. Let us weigh these in the scale, and make our choice between them. We cannot have both. I ad- mit that the two are incompatible. Priestcraft and peace cannot be found together. But we may have one, and by our policy we may secure one — which shall we prefer?

1'iintfxl L-y \V. C,»!:i.:>^ C\>. (ihugowr.

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UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS