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 GnAlSBERRY. PRINIEK,
 
 HISTORICAL NOTICES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SEVERAL REBELLIONS, DISTURBANCES, 
 
 AND 
 
 ILLEGAL ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 IN IRELAND, 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE YEAR 1822; 
 
 AND 
 
 A VIEW OF THE 
 
 ACTUAL STATE OF THE COUNTRY, 
 
 AND OF 
 
 THE EVENTS GENERATING, OR, CONNECTED WITH, ITS PAST DISTURBANCES, AND 
 PRESENT DISCONTENTED AND DEMORALIZED SITUATtON J 
 
 WITH SUGGESTIONS 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 RESTORATION AND MAINTAINANCE 
 OF TRANQUILLITY, 
 
 AND FOR. 
 
 PROMOTING THE NATIONAL PROSPERITY AND HAPPINESS. 
 
 " Spero Meliora." 
 
 DUBLIN : 
 RICHARD MILLIKEN, GRAFTON-STREET, 
 
 BOOKSELLER TO HIS MAJESTY, 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF CLARENCE, 
 HIS EXCELLENCY THE MOST NOBLE 
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY, 
 AND THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 1822.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In laying before the Public a plain statement of the 
 events generating, or connected with, the several rebel- 
 lions, disturbances, and illegal associations in Ireland, it 
 is far from my intention to excite a single painful recol- 
 lection, or angry feeling, or to revive party distinctions. 
 I have been induced to publish them from a conviction, 
 that it is imperatively necessary to disabuse the public mind 
 of a generally received, but erroneous impression, that 
 the present outrages in the South of Ireland have arisen 
 from local and temporary causes ;— and the performance 
 of this difficult and ungracious task is the more indis- 
 pensable, because it is evident that many ill consequences 
 have resulted to Ireland, from the same impression hav- 
 ing influenced the measures of Government and the Le- 
 gislature, during the existence of former disturbances. 
 For although, on those occasions, it was generally ad- 
 mitted, that this country had not been entirely free from 
 tumult or discontent, for time immemorial ; still, then, as 
 well as at the present moment, this admission, which ought 
 to have stimulated an inquiry into the origin of the evil, 
 and the means of preventing a recurrence of it, only led 
 to a general and ready conclusion, that the existing 
 disturbances, lijke all preceding ones, arose from local
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 causes, and that like them, they would be speedily sup- 
 pressed by a temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
 Act, and the rigorous enforcement of the Insui-rection 
 Act for a few months. But, unhappily, experience has 
 afforded us repeated proof that these popular remedies 
 only cauterized, but did not heal the public wounds; in 
 consequence of which, it has now become not only more 
 necessary, but more difficult, to renovate a constitution, 
 alike injured by the excesses of the patient, and the re- 
 peated application of violent and temporary expedients. 
 
 If then we be wise, we shall no longer delay institu- 
 ting a full and dispassionate inquiry into the causes of the 
 past, as well as the jncsent discontented, disturbed, and 
 demoralized situation of Ireland ; and have immediate re- 
 course to such salutary measures as shall be permanently, 
 as well as immediately, beneficial in their results. With 
 this view, and in order to enable the reader to arrive at 
 a correct knowledge of the past, as well as the actual 
 state of Ireland, I have commenced this work with a 
 jeview of the laws, habits, and condition of the ancient 
 Irish, and have not only quoted historical facts from other 
 writers, but have availed myself freely of their sugges- 
 tions, whenever I conceived they would convey valuable 
 information to the reader, or promote the public good. 
 
 I shall deeply regret if any worthy individual, of any 
 leligious persuasion, should imaguie the body to which 
 he may belong, to be spoken of disrespectfully in this 
 work, in consequence of the freedom with which I
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 have made mention of public men, regardless of their 
 political or religious pj-qfessions. I can assure him, 
 that in speaking of the events which have been 
 brought about by disaffected, unprincipled, or un- 
 educated persons, I have considered the lattei', as a 
 body, without reference to the liberal, enlightened, and 
 loyal men, who are to be found in every religious per- 
 suasion ; and it is for this reason, and that I may not 
 be accused of misrepresentation, that I have given 
 names, as well as dates. But, whilst I willingly accord 
 thus much to every worthy individual to whom it may be 
 due, I honestly avow, that I am alike indifferent to the 
 applause, or censure, of the imreflecting many, — and the 
 factious fcd) who lead them : in the words of Lord 
 Yelverton, in the Irish House of Lords, on the 22d 
 March, 1800, — " I have long learned to despise Popu- 
 larity, and if I had not, independently, a conviction of 
 its emptiness, and idle and capricious value, the treat- 
 ment extended to an Hon. and estimable friend of mine 
 (Mr. Grattan) would have sufficiently instructed me of 
 its worth. I have seen him stigmatized as a traitor, 
 and if I may speak in more than figurative language, 
 carried by a senseless mob half way to be hanged, 
 
 — and the next moment adulated to the skies 
 
 If there be any young man, now present, who feels ena- 
 moured of Popularity, that visionary and delusive 
 good, I will give him a short lesson of instruction: — if 
 he devote his ,whole life to the pursuit of some im- 
 practicable object, he will be sure to the close of his 
 life to retain popularity ; but if he turn to the pursuit
 
 VJ PREFACE. 
 
 of some sober, solid, and possible good, some upstart 
 and brawling politician will run a bar's length before 
 him, and snatch the worthless and valued prize of po- 
 pular estimation." 
 
 Dublin, Apil 19, 1822,
 
 A REVIEW, 
 
 " An ingenious foreigner once observed to me, that he never saw a country 
 in which so many proclamations were issued against malefactors, and the 
 commission of crimes, as in Ireland, a sure prooj of the feeble execution of 
 the laws.'" 
 
 Musgrave's Memoirs of Irish Rebellions, v. I . p. 52. 
 
 " When men enrol themselves for the purpose of resisting the law, what- 
 ever the pretext may be upon which they originally associate, the foulest 
 crimes are generated in its progress; that which begins in anarchy ends in 
 murder; and even murder itself, in the progress of outrage, may be only a 
 preparation for the blacker horrors which have to ensue." 
 
 Mr. Att. General Plunkett to the Grand Jury of Sligo, on the 
 trial of tlie Threshers, 5th Dec. 1806. 
 
 " Then (1784) as now (1810) the disease was referred to the severities of 
 the Popery Code, and Tythe System — the remedy suggested in the repeal of 
 both. But the alleged grounds of Irish insurrections are seldom real. The 
 rebellion is raised first, and the grievance found afterwards ; as between in- 
 dividuals of our nation, the quarrel often precedes the offence." 
 
 A Sketch of the State of Ireland Past and Present, p. 15. 
 
 " Let me assure you, after a vast deal of experience. Gentlemen, that 
 criminal violence like this, must be put down in the first instance, or nut all." 
 Chief Justice Bushe to the Kilkennj Grand Jury, March 30, 1822. 
 
 ^* If we consider the nature of the Irish customs, we shall 
 find that the people which doth use them, must of ne- 
 cessity be rebels to all good government, destroy the com-
 
 2 
 
 monwealth wlierein they live, and bring barbarism and 
 desolation upon the richest and most fruitful land in the 
 world.* For whereas by the just and honourable law of 
 England, and by the laws of all well-regulated kingdoms 
 and commonwealths, murder, manslaughter, rape, rob- 
 bery, and theft, are punished with death ; by the Irish 
 Irish Bre- custom, or BrehoTi Laxv, the highest of these offences, was 
 hon law. punished only by fine, which they called an crick. There- 
 fore when Sir William Fitz William (being then Loi'd 
 Deputy, 1589) told Maguire that he was to send a Sheriff 
 into Fermanagh, being lately before made a county ; 
 " Your Sheriff (said Maguire) shall be welcome to me, 
 Custom of but let me know his erick (or the price of his head) afore- 
 '^"^ ■ hand, that if they cut it off, I may cut the Erick on the 
 county." 
 
 " As for oppression, extortion, and other trespasses, 
 the weaker had never any remedy against the stronger, 
 whereby it came to pass that no man could enjoy his life, 
 his wife, his lands or goods in safety, if a mightier man 
 than himself had an appetite to take the same from him, 
 W^hereby they were little better than cannibals who do 
 hunt one another, and he that hath most strength and 
 swiftness doth eat and devour all his fellows." 
 
 Tanisiry. " By the Ii'ish custom of Tanistry, the chieftains of every 
 country, and the chief of every sept, had no longer 
 estate than for life in their chiefries, the inheritance 
 whereof did rest in no man. And these chiefries, though 
 they had some portions of land allotted unto them, did 
 consist chiefly in cuttings and cosheries, and other Irish 
 
 • $ee " A Discovery of the true Causes why Ireland was never entirely 
 subdued," &c. p. 126, by Sir J. Davis, Speaker of tlie House of Commons 
 of Ireland, An. 1613,
 
 customs, whereby they did spoil and impoverish the peo- 
 ple at their pleasure ; and when the chieftains were dead, 
 their sons or next heirs did not succeed them, but their 
 Tanisters, who were elective, and purchased their elec- 
 tions by strong hand. And by the Irish custom of Gavel- Custnm of 
 kind, the inferior tenantries were partable among all the ^^^<^^^^^' 
 males of the sept, both legitimate and illegitimate : and 
 after partition made, if any one of the sept had died, his 
 portion was not divided amongst his sons, but the chief 
 of the sept made a new partition of all the lands belong- 
 ing to that sept, and gave every one his part accord- 
 ing to his antiquity. 
 
 " Neither did any of them in all this time plant any 
 gardens or orchards, inclose or improve their lands, live to- 
 gether in settled, villages or toums, nor made any provision 
 for posterity ; which being against all common sense and 
 reason, must needs be imputed to those unreasonable 
 customs which made their estates so uncertain and tran- 
 sitory in their possessions." 
 
 " And though their portions were ever so small, and 
 themselves ever so poor (for gavelkind must needs in the 
 end make a poor gentility) yet they scorned to descend 
 to husbandry or merchandize, or to learn anv mecha- 
 cal art or service, whereby as their septs or families did 
 multiply, their 2>ossessions have been from time to time di=- 
 xrided and. subdivided, and broken into so 7)iany small par- 
 cels as almost every acre of land hath a several owner, wliich 
 termeth himself a Lord, and his portion of land liis coun- 
 try : — Assuredly these Irish lords appear to us like glow- 
 worms which afar off seem to be all fire; but, being taken 
 up in a man's hands are but silly worms. Besides these 
 poor gentlemen were so affected to their small portions of 
 land, as they rather chose to live at home by theft, extortion,
 
 and coshering^ ttian to seek any better fortune abroad ; wliicfi 
 increased their septs, or surnames, into such numbers, 
 as there are not to be found in any kingdom of Europe, 
 so many gentlemen of one blood, family and surname, 
 as there are of the O'Neals, in Ulster; of the Bourkes, 
 in Connaught, or of the Geraldines and Butlers, in Mun- 
 ter and Leinster. And the like may be said of the in- 
 ferior bloods and families ; whereby it came to pass 
 in times of trouble and dissention, that they made great far- 
 ties and factions, adhering one to another "jcith much con- 
 stancy, because they were tied together, vincido sangui?iis : 
 whereas rebels and malefactors which are tied to their 
 leaders by no bond, either of duty or blood, do more 
 easily break and fall off one from another. And besides, 
 their co-habitation in one country or territory, gave them 
 an opportunity suddenly to assemble, and. conspire and rise 
 in multitudes against the croison. And even now, in the 
 time of peace, we find this inconvenience, that there 
 can hardly be an indifferent trial had betnsoeen the King and 
 the subject^ or bctvoeen party and party, by reason of this 
 general kindred, and consanguinity. 
 
 * But the most wicked and mischievous custom of all 
 Livery. Others, was that of Coin and Livery, which consisted in 
 taking of man's meat, horse-meat, and money, of all the 
 inhabitants of the country at the will and pleasure of the 
 soldier ; who, as the phrase of the Scripture is, " did 
 eat up the people .as it were bread," for that he had no 
 
 other entertainment And every lord of a country, 
 
 and every marcher, made war and peace at his pleasure, 
 it became universal and perpetual, and was indeed the 
 most heavy oppression that ever was used in any Chris- 
 tian or Heathen kingdom.'* Davis, p. 13 J. 
 
 * If you look into the Parliament rolls of those times, which are mean 
 between the 40th year of King Edward III. and the ."SOth Henry VI.
 
 '' This extortion of coin and livery was taken for their 
 men of war : but the Irish exactions, extorted by the 
 chieftains and tanistres by colour of their barbarous 
 seignory, were almost as grievous a burden as the other, 
 namely, coshering^ which were visitations and progresses coshering, 
 made by the lord and his followers among his tenants; 
 whei-ein he did " eat them (as the English proverb is) 
 " out of house and home ;" Sessings of the Kerne, of his Sessingt. 
 family, called Kcrnesty, of his horses and horse-boys ; o^ Kemesti/. 
 his dogs and dog-boys, and the like. And lastly Cuttings^ Cutting,. 
 tallages, or spendings, high or low, at his pleasure ; all 
 which made the lord an absolute tyrant, and the tenant 
 a very slave and villein ; and in one respect more mi- 
 serable than bond-slaves. For commonly the bond-slave 
 is fed by his lord, but here the lord was fed by his bond- 
 slave.' 
 
 * Lastly, there were two other customs proper and 
 peculiar to the Irish, which, being the cause of many 
 strong combinations and factions^ do tend to the utter 
 ruin of a commonwealth. The one was Fostering, the posterin" 
 
 other Gossipred In Ireland thev put away all their ""'^ ^°^- 
 
 children to Fostcros, and the reason is, because m the 
 opinion of this people, fostei'ing hath always been a 
 
 stronger alliance than blood The like may be said of 
 
 Gossipred or confraternity. Fosterers and Gossips, by the 
 common customs of Ireland, were to maintain one another 
 in all causes la'jcful and iodaiiful ; which, as it is a combina- 
 tion and confederacy punishable in all well-governed 
 commonwealths, so was it not one of the least causes of 
 the common miseiy of this kingdom' 
 
 we shall find the laws of principal consideration are against coin and livery, 
 Bcss of soldiers, night-suppers, cumrick and the like extortions and lewd 
 customs, which the English had learned among the Irish. Davis, p. 296.
 
 * I omit their common repudiation of their wives; their 
 promiscuous generation of children ; tlieir neglect of law- 
 ful matrimony ; their uncleanncss in apparel, diet, and 
 lodging ; and their contempt and scorn of all things neces- 
 sary for the civil life of man J Davis, p. 137^ Anno 
 1612. 
 
 * 
 
 Arrival of * It will not be necessary to say more of the first settle- 
 the English ^^ent of the English in Ireland, than briefly to remind 
 An. 1169.' the reader, that about the year 1169 (not to speak of the 
 kind of subjection which the Irish are said to have 
 acknowledged to Gurguntius and some Brittan kings) 
 Henry II. being himself distracted with French affairs, 
 gave the Earl of Strongbow leave, by letters patent, to 
 aide Dermol Morrogh king of Leinster, against the king 
 of Mcath. And this Earl marrying Eua the daughter 
 of Dermot, was at his death made by him heire of his 
 kingdome.' — Fynes Moi-yson's Itinerary, p. 2. 
 
 jg^j * About the year 1341, the English-Irish (or English 
 
 Edw. III. Colonies) being degenerated, ^/f/\$/? began to he enemies to 
 the English ; and themselves calling a Parliamciit, Kscrote 
 to the King (Edward III.) that they icojdd not indurc the 
 insolencies of his ministers, yet most of the justices hi- 
 therto were of the English-Irish (or English borne in 
 Ireland.)' Moryson, p. 2. 
 
 1391. 
 
 Sir John Davis (p. 33.) is of opinion, that Richard 
 Richardll. II. in the 18th vear of his reign ' brought with him 
 a sufficient power, (t-.OOO men at arms, and 30,000 
 archers) to have reduced the whole island, if he had 
 first broken the Irish isoith a Mcar, and after established 
 the English la'dcs among them ; and not have beat sa- 
 tisfied with their light S7/bmissio7i only, u-herewith in all 
 ages they have mocked and abused the state of England>,-
 
 But the Irish Lords, knowing this to be a sure policy to 
 dissolve the forces which they were not able to resist, (for 
 their ancestors had put the same trick and imposition 
 upon King John, and King Henry II.) in an humble and 
 solemn manner did their homages, and made their oaths of 
 fidelity to the Earl Marshal, (who was authorised by spe- 
 cial commission to receive them) laying aside their gir- 
 dles, their skins, and their caps, and falling down at his 
 feet upon their knees." 
 
 * With these humilities they satisfied the young king, 
 and by their bowing and bending avoided the present 
 storm, and so broke that army which was prepared to 
 break them. For the King having accepted their submis- 
 sions, received them in osculo pads, feasted them, and 
 given the honor of knighthood, to divers of them, did break 
 up and dissolve his army, and returned into England, 
 " with much honour and small profit," saith Froissard. 
 He was no sooner returned into England but those Irish 
 lords laid aside their masks of humility, and scor?iing the 
 'ii:eak forces w/«'c/i the king had left behind him, began to in- 
 fest the borders, in defence whereof the Lord Roger Mor- 
 timer, being then the king's lieutenant, and heir-apparent 
 to the crown of England, was slain.' — Davis, p. 33. 
 
 In the time of King Henry VII. the Deputy, " Sir Ed. loth Hen. 
 Poynings," made wilful murder high treason ; he caused j^g^^ 
 the marchers to book their men, for whom they shoidd an- 
 swer, and restrained the making war or peace, without 
 special commission from the state. 
 
 In the indenture of submission with Sir Ant. St. Le-^^!'^"' 
 ger, (Davis, p. 180) all the Irish lords acknowleged King An. 1541. 
 Henry VIII. to be their Sovereign Lord and King, and 
 desire to be accepted of him as subjects. They confess /^^
 
 8 
 
 TheKing'tkhig^s supremacy in all cases, and utterly renounce the 
 in au'c^sTs V^P^^^ jurisdiction ,- which I conceive to be worth the 
 acknow- noting, ' because 'mhen the Irish had. once resolved to obey the 
 
 leged. and , . , , , , , 
 
 the Pope's king, they made no scruple to renounce the pope. 
 
 jurisdiction 
 
 renounced. It was also registered " that horsemen and kern should 
 not be imposed upon the common people, to be fed and 
 maintained by them ; that the master should answer for his 
 serva7its, and the father for his children ,- that cuttings 
 should not be made by the lord upon his tenants, to main- 
 tain war upon his neighbours, but only to bear his neces- 
 sary expenses,' &c. — Davis 182. 
 
 iith Eli ^'^^ Henry Sidney abolished the pretended and usurped 
 
 1568. captainships of the Irish lords, and all exactions and ex- 
 tortions incident thereunto. Again, because the inferior 
 sort were loose and poor, and not amenable to the laws, 
 he provided by another Act, that '■^five of the best and 
 eldest persons of every sept should bring in all the idle per- 
 sons of their surname, to be justified by the laxo." More- 
 over, to give a civil education to the j'outh of this land, 
 in the time to come, provision was made by another law, 
 Free- that there should be one free-school, at least, erected 
 f bT' a^^" ^^ every diocese of the kingdom. He also reduced the 
 Irish countries into shires, and placed therein sheriffs and 
 other ministei's of the law. He also caused divers good 
 laws to be made, and performed sundry other services, 
 tending greatly to the reformation of this kingdom. 
 
 The reader wull not consider it surprising that, in 400 
 years, the situation of the native Irish had been little or 
 not all improved, in consequence of the laws, habits, and 
 superior civilization of the English settlers, when he 
 learns that, " prior to the reign of James I. the jurisdic- 
 tion of their courts extended little beyond the pale, when 
 their decisions, being thus limited, could Iiave had little
 
 9 
 
 weight. So limited indeed was this jurisdiction, that in 
 June 1600 (430 years after the arrival of the English 
 under Strongbow) Fynes Moryson writes (p. 75) that, 
 " At this time the county of Duhlyn, on the south side A". 1600. 
 of the river Liffi), was in effect wholly ouerrunne by the 
 rebels ; the county of Kildarc was likeAvise possessed or 
 wasted by them. The county of Meath was wasted, as 
 also the county of West Meath (except the barony of 
 Deluin) and the county of Louth ; so that in the English 
 pale, the towns having garrisons, and the lands from 
 Drogheda (or Tredagh) to the Nauan, and thence back 
 to T/yfu, and so to Dublj/n, were only inhabited, which 
 were also like to grow waste, if they were further charged 
 with the soldiers." 
 
 It was now that the political influence of the Roman 
 Catholic religion first began to manifest itself; the intro- 
 duction of the reformed religion, by increasing the anti- 
 pathy of the native Irish to the English, was a new source 
 of calamities; and religion was made a, pretence for rebel- 
 lion. " Prior to the reformation in Ireland," says Mr. 
 Parnell, in his ' Historical Apology for the Irish Ca- 
 tholics,' p. 7, " the Roman Catholic religion, stimulated 
 neither by scepticism, contradiction, or persecution, had 
 long ceased to have any influence on political events. We 
 have the authority of Archbishop Brown for stating, that 
 the ignorance of the Catholic Clergy was extreme, and 
 that they were frequently incapable of performing the com- 
 mon offices of religionr 
 
 In a letter from Sir J. Davis to the Earl of Salisbury, 
 An. 1607, he states, " that as for the vicarages, they are 
 so poorly endowed as ten of them, being united, will 
 scarce suffice to maintain an honest minister. For the 
 churches, they are for the most part in ruins ; such as 
 
 c
 
 10 
 
 were presented to be in reparation are covered only with 
 thatch, Bnt the incumbents, botli 2^^>'sotis and vicars, did 
 appear to be such 2^''^ot; fagged, ignorant C7'eatvrcs, (for 
 we saw many of them in the camp) as we could not esteem 
 any of them worthy of the meanest of those livings, al- 
 beit many of them are not worth above 40i\ per annum. 
 The king is patron of all the churches. The incumbents 
 are popish priests, instituted by bishops authorized from 
 Rome, yet many of them, like other old priests of Queen 
 Mary's time, in England, ready to yield to conformity, p. 
 241. 
 
 The political influence of the Roman Catholic religion 
 1569. first displayed itself in the year 1569, when " the Fitz 
 Geralds of Munster raised a rebellion, in which the 
 Byrne's, Tooles, and Cavenaghs joined, but they were sub- 
 dued by Sir Wm. Drury, and were all attainted the 27th 
 and 28th of Eliz. 
 
 James Fitz Gerald published a manifesto in jiistijication 
 
 of this rebellion, in which he said, " It was for the gloty 
 
 of God, and of Christ, whose Sacraments the heretics deny ; 
 
 for the glory of the Catholic Church, which the heretics 
 
 falsely assert was not known for many ages." 
 
 An. 1595. Hugh O'Neill raised a rebellion in 1595, which lasted till 
 the end of Elizabeth's reign. It was called " Tyrone's 
 Rebellion," and branched out into three different civil 
 wars, according to Borlase. 
 
 Sir Richard Cox allows that this rebellion arose from 
 " the distaste of the old Irish potentates, and all old 
 English settlers, who had been dispossessed of their so- 
 vereign rights, and that religion u-as only made a pretence 
 for rebellion."
 
 Fynes Moryson, cap. 1, part 2, page 3, says, " In this 
 earely age, Religion rather them Liberty Jir%t began to be 
 made the cloake of ambition, and the Roman locusts, to 
 niaintaine the pope's usurped power, breathed every 
 where fier and sword, and not onely made strong combi- 
 nations against those of the reformed religion in all king- 
 domes, but were not ashamed to proclaime and promise 
 Heauen for a reward, to such cut-throates as should lay 
 violent hands on the sacred persons of such princes."* 
 
 " Religion," in fact, " was nothing to the purpose. 
 
 The English never mentioned it ; the Irish only appealed 
 
 to it as a known meaJis of acqtiiring money and supplies 
 
 from the Pope and the King of Spain." Parnell's Hist. 
 
 Ap. 50. 
 
 " Yet, (observes Mr. Pai'nell, p. 85,) since we find the 
 Catholic 7'eligion assuming a considerable degree of conse- 
 quence, as a principle of discontent in the succeeding 
 reign, there can be no doubt that it had gained considerable 
 hold of incn's minds during the reign of Elizabeth. It is 
 true, that at the beginning of the war, the being a papist 
 was no cause of suspicion ; all the towns were peo- 
 pled with Catholics and remained loyal; the queen's army 
 consisted mostly of Catholics, and were generally com- 
 manded by Catholic officers ; yet latterly apprehensions 
 were entertained of the loyalty of the cities and towns ; 
 at the same time this is mentioned as a matter of surprise. 
 Sir R. Cox says, the very cities and towns were staggering^ 
 and so frightened by the threats of the clergy, that no trust 
 could be reposed in them." O'Sullivan mentions it as a sub- 
 
 • For the truth of this let the reader refer to Speed, Rapin, and Hume, 
 and to the Bull of Excommunication and Deposition against Queen Eliz- 
 by Pope Paul V.
 
 12 
 
 ject of regret, that only a ftW of the papists in the queen^S 
 army revolted. Yet this shews, (says Mr. Parnell, the 
 apologist for the Catholics) that there was a certain degree 
 of disaffection connected ivith religion. Camden also re- 
 lates, that many of the papists, "doho had been loyal, sent 
 to Rome for a dispensation for this crime. When the 
 young Earl of Desmond was sent by Elizabeth to Ireland, 
 the people of Munster at first received him with congra- 
 tulations, but deserted him on discovering that he was a 
 Protestant."* 
 
 ' These are the most material instances we can collect 
 of the progress of Catholic bigotry during Elizabeth's 
 reign, nsohich prove that it existed in no great degree, yet 
 that it did exist and. had increased.' Parnell, p. 86. 
 
 ' O'Neil, though indifferent to religion himself, was 
 too politic to forego so favourable a pretext, and declared 
 himself the champion of the Roman Catholic religion ; in 
 consequence, supplies of money a?id men ivere obtained 
 from the Pope and the King of Spain. Vicars and Jesuits 
 were se?it over to Ireland, who, by the customary arts of 
 zealots, awakened religious fanaticism, and gave effect to 
 a Bull of excommunication issued against Elizabeth by the 
 Pope. Mac Egan, the Pope's Vicar, never allowed any 
 Irish pajjist that served- the quecm to be pardoned when taken 
 jnisoner.' Parnell, p. 87. 
 
 James I. " The first object of James I. was to destroy not only 
 1C02. ^Yie power but the very existence of the old Irish and old 
 
 * I refer the reader to Pacat. Hib. (p. 91.) or to Smith's Hist, of Cork, 
 vol. 2. J). 73,) for the brief but interesting particulars of the immediate 
 fhange in the reception of the earl by the Catholic people, on his going to 
 church.
 
 13 
 
 English chieftains, and this lie accomplished with admi" 
 rable wisdom. He espoused the cause of their oppressed 
 subjects against their chieftains. He held out to them 
 the blessmg of equal law, of the inviolability of their per- 
 sons, of the secure possession of their properties, and its 
 descent to their children. He strengthened defective ti- 
 ties, and abolished all distinctions between English and 
 Irish ; ' whereupon," says Sir John Davis, ' such com- 
 fort and security was bred in the hearts of all men, as en- 
 sured the calmest and most universal peace that ever was 
 seen in Ireland." Parnell, p. 95. 
 
 This happy state of things was of short duration, for 
 " Among the lower ranks, when King James died, 
 there was a legendarv record of English barbarities ; the 
 power of the old Irish, and of the old English chieftains, 
 had been destroyed by the wisdom of James ; yet, among 
 these septs, there were many who valued the direct grati- 
 fication of pride afforded by princely consequence, to the 
 indirect gratification of pride which is acquired through 
 the medium of property, who ■preferred to he poor 
 tanists, elected hy their clan^ rather than rich landlords de- 
 pendant on laxv." Parnell, p. 111. 
 
 ' And. independent of the new injluence of Religion^ Charles I. 
 which now rapidly increased, we are to consider that 
 many previous causes of discontent continued to exist. We 
 are not to omit, the unappeased. hatred^ which the Irish 
 subjects bore to their English conquerors. The injuries 
 done to individuals by confiscations and plantations, par- 
 ticularly those of Ulster. The regrets of the descendants 
 of the Irish chieftains for the loss of their principalities.^ and 
 
 the ever isoakeful ambition of the house of O'Neil.' 
 
 Jestiits andjmests were sent from Spaiji and Rome, who knew 
 how to turn these preposterous mistakes of government
 
 14 
 
 to the best account, ike. — Hence the Catholic reh'ffion, 
 which in Ireland had till now been characterised by a 
 7iative mildtiess, a sjjirit of toleration, and a composure pe- 
 culiar to old establishments, acquired an illiberal, enthusi- 
 astic, and sangicinarij spirit" — Parnell, p. 1 20. 
 
 Rebellion ^ shall not harrow the reader's feelings with any de- 
 ofi64i. ^Q^\ of the dreadful atrocities committed in the too me- 
 morable rebellion of 1641 in Ireland, and I shall only 
 briefly advert to the infamous arts which were used to 
 goad the Irish people into it. In treating ofit, Sir R. Mus- 
 grave observes (v. i. p. 32 of " Memoirs of the Rebellions 
 in Ireland") that, "besides the Bull issued by Pope Ur- 
 ban VIII. (the friend of science and of Galileo) in KJ'iS, 
 the same pontiff, during the existence of that dreadful 
 civil war, the better to inflame his votaries, fuhninated 
 another, dated 25th May, 1 643, containing the following 
 paragraphs : " In imitation of their godlj/ and worthy 
 ancestors, to endeavour, hy force, to deliver their thralled 
 nation from the oppressions and grievous injuries of the he- 
 retics, wherewith this long time it hath been afflicted, 
 and heavily burthened." And in v.hich he grants absolu- 
 tion from all sins, crimes, transgressions, ^-c. Sfc. to all those 
 who will gallantly do in them what lieth, to extirpate 
 and totally root out all those workers of iniquity, who, in 
 this kingdom of Ireland, had infected, and were always 
 striving to inject the mass of Catholic purity vcith the pesti- 
 ferous leaven of heretical contagion." 
 
 "Before this," observes Mr. Parnell, p. 121, "it is im- 
 possible to call the rebellions of the Irish, Catholic rebel- 
 lions, when tliey were in fact principally opposed by Ca- 
 tholics ; but, after this, it iwuld be idle to deny that Catho- 
 lic bigotry had a ve^y large share in exciting and prolonging 
 ike rebellions in Ireland. That writer would be an injudi- 
 cious defender of the Catholics, who should deny ih&facf.
 
 15 
 
 when perhaps there is not a more lamentable instance of the 
 ^^ea/cness of the human mind, when subservient to religious 
 bigotry, than the absurdity and intemperance with which 
 the Catholics acted, when they surrendered their interests 
 to the influence of the Nuncio Ranuncini, and in fact sold 
 their country to the Pope" 
 
 " We pass over," says the able author of a Sketch of 1688. 
 the State of Ireland, Past and Present, (5th Ed. p. 4-, 
 which, in my future numerous references, I shall desig- 
 nate by the title, " A Sketch, &c.") the alternate ravages 
 of Charles and Cromwell, to arrive at the almost Theban 
 contest of James and William, the lawful, but intolerant 
 and intolerable possessor of the throne, and the unamiable, 
 but enlightened and necessary instrument of his expul- 
 sion By conquest and by capitulation the triumph 
 
 of William was complete — as complete as he desired. 
 Ireland indeed was not tranquillized, but his throne was 
 
 secured Though James had abandoned the Irish, 
 
 the Irish had not abandoned James. Against his undis- 
 turbed predecessors they had maintained desultory, but im- 
 placable war — to him expelled and oiitlaxsoed they exhibited, 
 as laere their character and custom, a perverse loyalty — like 
 their perverse rebellion, — blind- to its object, atrocious in its 
 
 measures." 
 
 " While James and his power lingered in Ireland he as- 
 sembled a pseudo parliament : he had chosen tiie mem- 
 bers; he chose the measures — the act of repeal, justifying 
 all rebellion, breaking all faith — the act of attainder, pro- 
 scribing thousands by name, and millions by inference — the 
 act for liberty of conscience, lice?ice to the papists, hard- 
 ship to the reformed. — The whole closed with the subver- 
 sion of established institutions — dilapidation of churches, 
 spoliation of bishopricks — denunciation, plunder, and op- 
 pression of the tvhole protestant community" 
 
 1689.
 
 16 
 
 I7(». " VII. From the papist— thus lately tyrmmkal, nc/iM 
 
 subdued — the protestarit thought it justifiable to subtract all 
 power* Obsolete penalties were revived, and new re- 
 straint- enacted — of their ambition from the senate — their 
 par i-.;ity from the magistracy— their force from the field; 
 that influence, often misused, should not be regained, 
 possessions were forfeited — acquisitions forbidden : that 
 disaffection — as it was natural — should be impotent, wea- 
 pons of offence were stiicken from their hands, and the 
 means of resistance removed, as its causes were multi- 
 plied. 
 
 " The retaliation was complete : not so its justification. 
 William had ratified the articles of Limerick, and broke 
 them ; a policy useful to him and his near successors, fatal 
 to us ; ensuring temporary ti-anquiility, and lasting dissen- 
 sion. Co7itempt would have extinguished the catholic super- 
 stition, pi'oscriptioti has pe7petuated it. 
 
 " The sword had failed while both had swords — the 
 law had failed while it existed but for one ; the alliance of 
 the law and the sword effected so)nething. It has been called 
 a peace and a truce — it was a pause — ' to the Catholics,' 
 said Mr. Grattan eloquently, ' a sad, servitude ; to the Pro- 
 testants a drunken triumph,'' — but had James prevailed, it 
 had been to the Protestants neither sad nor servitude — 
 but death ! to the Catholics a triumph, not drtrnken, but 
 bloody ! This experience deduces from the ferocious bi- 
 goti*y of that sect at that day — this, history writes or war- 
 rants — this, Mr. Grattan, in his candour and intelligence, 
 does not doubt." — A Sketch, &c. p. 8. 
 
 * Mr. Parnell is quite indignantat their doing so, in his " Historical Apo- 
 logy for the Irish Catliolics," p. 45. He says, " So perverse are the feelings 
 of thfi vulgar, that the English Protestants seemed to ri-e from under the 
 wheel of persecution with renewed vigour to persecute." — Editor.
 
 17 
 
 " In the year 1729 the popish bishops of Ireland ap- 1729. 
 plied for, and obtained a bull from the Pope, to raise 
 money by the sale of indulgences, to be speedily applied 
 to restore James III. to his rights. The whole of this 
 plot is to be found in tJie 6th vol. of the first edition of 
 the Journals of the House of Commons, p. 342. 
 
 " It appears that a number of popish prelates and 
 other ecclesiastics, being assembled at the house ofTeigue 
 M'Carthy, alias Rabagh, titular bishop of Cork, Connor 
 Keefe, bishop of Limerick, presented a letter to the 
 said M'Carthy, from Dr. Butler, titular archbishop of 
 Cashel, informing him, that his Holiness the Pope, 
 had at last complied with the request of the Irish arch- 
 bishops and bishops, in granting them an indulgence 
 for the above purpose. 
 
 " The purport of the bull was this: ' That every 
 communicant duly confessing, and receiving the sacra- 
 ment on the Patron days of every respective parish, and 
 every Sunday, from the first day of May to September, 
 having repeated the Lord's Prayer five times, and once 
 the Apostles' Creed, and upon paying two pence each 
 time, was to have plenary indulgence for his sins ; and 
 all approved confessors had full power to absolve in all 
 cases, with intent God would speedily place James the 
 Third on the throne of England. Every parish priest was 
 to pay £5, towards this fund, and was to account upon 
 oath for the collection of it ; and the Pretender had an 
 agent in each province to collect it. ' 
 
 " Some of the papers of these traitors were discovered^ 
 and seized, by which the conspiracy was detected." — 
 Musgrave, Vol. 1, p. 35.
 
 18 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that prior to the breaking out 
 of the White Boy system, viz. 
 
 " In the year 1757 there appeared a very singular 
 and unquestionable proof that those doctrines of the 
 Romish Church, which had disturbed the peace of all 
 Protestant countries ever since the Reformation took 
 place, existed in full force in Ireland. 
 
 Oath of al- a jn that year, a bill was introduced into the House 
 1757. of Lords to secure the Protestant succession^ in which 
 there was an oath of allegiance. 
 
 " Thomas Burke, titular bishop of Ossory, and pub- 
 lic historiographer to the Dominican order in Ireland, 
 made the following observations on that oath : — After 
 animadverting on the severity of setting aside the different 
 foreign branches of the Steuart family, he says, " Would 
 " it not exceed the greatest imaginable absurdity, that a 
 " Catholic priest, who instructs his people in the will of 
 " God, from scripture and tradition, by his discourse 
 " and actions, and nourisheth them with the sacrament 
 " of the church, should swesLV ^fidelity to King George, 
 " as long as he professetli a heterodox religion, or has a 
 " xvife of that religion F That then, and in that case, 
 " the same Catholic priest ought constantly to abjure the 
 same King to whom he had before sworn allegiance," — 
 Musgrave, vol. 1 . p. 44-. 
 
 Origin of About this time the peasantry rose in Munster. " The 
 grievances they complained of were the enclosing of com- 
 JHons, the turning out, the old tenantry in order to throw 
 many farms into one, and the encouragement given to 
 grazing ,- and levelling inclosures and houghing hdlocks 
 
 Levellers,
 
 19 
 
 were their first employments, and Levellers, not Whitebui/Si 
 their first nom de guer7-e." — An Inquiry whether the Dis- 
 turbances in Ireland have originated in Tithes, &c." 
 p. 3, 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE WHITE BOYS. 
 
 " In the year 1759, and under the administration of WhiteBoy*, 
 
 " .... 1759. 
 
 the Duke of Bedford, an aiarmin<^ spirit of insurgency 
 appeai'ed in the South of Ireland, which manifested 
 itself by the numerous and frequent risings of the lower 
 class of Roman Catholics, dressed in white uniforms, 
 whence they were denominated W/iiieboj/s ,- but they were 
 encouraged, and often headed by persons of their own 
 persuasion of some consideration. i hey were armed 
 with guns, swords, and })istols, of which they plundered 
 Protestants, and they marched through the country, in 
 military array, preceded by the musick of bag-pipes, or 
 the sounding of horns. In their nocturnal perambulations 
 they enlisted or j^f'^ssed info their serxnce every person of 
 their ovon religion, who was capable of serving them, and 
 bound them by oaths of secrecy, o^ Jidelity, and obedience 
 to their officers, and those officers tisere bound by oaths of 
 allegiance to the French King, and Prince Charles, the 
 Pretender to the Crown of England, which appeared by 
 the confession and the informations of several of the in- 
 surgents, some of whom were convicted of high treasouj 
 and various other crimes." 
 
 The pretext they made use of for rising and assembling -pretext. 
 was, to redress the following grievances : The illegal en- 
 closure of commons, the extortion of tythe proctors, and
 
 20 
 
 the exoj'bitaiit fees exacted hy their oivti clergy, — though 
 it appeared that they were deeply concerned in en- 
 couraging and fomenting them, in the commission of 
 outrages." 
 
 1762. * In the year 1762, the Marquis of Drogheda was sent 
 to command a large district in the province of Munster,* 
 and made Clogheen in the county of Tipperary his head 
 quarters, at that time much disturbed by the iVJiite BoySy 
 who used to assemble m bodies of from 500 to 2000." 
 
 Father Ni- His Lordship, during his residence there, took the fa- 
 hy?rwHie "lous Father Nicholas Sheehy, who had been a noted 
 Boy leader, leader of the White Boys, and was afterwards hanged at 
 Clonmel. 
 
 MIstak n ^^ ^^^ y^^^ ^^^ Committed such dreadful excesses in 
 lenity of the South of Ireland, that Sir Richard Aston, Lord 
 tice^ Aston. Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was sent down with 
 a special commission to try them, and " the mistakai 
 " lenity which he shewed them in the course of his 
 " crcuit was such, that it encouraged them to persevere 
 " in the commission of enormities for some years after." — 
 Musgrave, vol. 1. p. 36. 
 
 ORIGIN OF « HEARTS OF OAK BOYS." 
 
 " Hearts of " The Hearts of Oak were excited to insurrection in the 
 
 1763. year 1763, by a remnant of the feudal system, well known 
 
 by the appellation of the six days' labour, and by a grand 
 
 * His Lordship is now alive. 1822.
 
 21 
 
 jury cess, laid on at the spring assizes in the county of 
 Armagh, which they deemed excessive. 
 
 One of the first proceedings of those insurgents was 
 to swear several gentlemen, on the commons of Armagh, 
 not to lay on more than a farthing an acre land cess 
 towards the repairs of high roads, and not levy any money 
 for private roads. 
 
 ORIGIN OF " THE HEARTS OF STEEL. 
 
 "The discontents which excited the Hearts of Steely \iio. 
 
 Heart! 
 Steel. 
 
 in the year 1770, to take arms in the counties of Antrim Hearts of 
 
 and Down, had their source in the new setting of a great 
 estate, the terms of which being the payment of large 
 fines, a considerable proportion of the tenants were una- 
 ble to obtain renewals, and had recourse to violence 
 against such persons as ventured to take their farms." — An 
 Inquiry whether the Disturbances, &c. &c. p. 4 and 5. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE VOLUNTEERS. 
 
 MUSGRAVE, V. i. p. 54. 
 
 " In the year 1779, when England was involved in a war j^^^^ 
 with the French, Spaniards, and Americans ; when the Volunteers, 
 combined and naval armies of the enemy were superior 
 in point of number to the channel fleet, when constant 
 and well grounded apprehensions were entertained that 
 Ireland would be invaded, the loyalty of her parliament,
 
 22 
 
 trembling for the fate of the empire, left the kingdom 
 almost destitute of any military force for its defence. At 
 the same time what little commerce she then enjoyed 
 was completely stagnated by privateers, which constantly 
 hovered on her coast. In this critical jmicture some ma- 
 ritime towns, dreading that they might be plundered by 
 the latter, applied to government for a militai^y force for 
 their defence, but received in answer, ' that they must 
 arm and defend themselves.' 
 
 " This gave rise to the Vohmteers, of which numerous 
 bodies were immediately raised, who at first supplied 
 themselves with arms at their own expense ; and govern- 
 ment, wishing to encourage the laudable spirit which the 
 Irish nation shewed, distributed immense quantities among 
 them. 
 
 Volunteers « It was to be lamented that they soon began to de- 
 ated from viate from the end of their institution, and to form pro- 
 the original inncial 7neeti?igs, for the purpose of new modelling the state. 
 their insti- They marched in regular procession to the Rotunda, on 
 tution. ^j^g \Q\\\ of November 1783, where they opened their ses- 
 sion, and entered into deliberation on new modelling the 
 Constitution. 
 
 " On the first institution of the Volunteers, some low 
 persons, xdio turned out notorious traitors in the late rebel- 
 lion^ assumed the rank of officers ; and many gentlemen 
 of rank and fortune, who headed them at first, having 
 retired, were succeeded by men destitute of both, and 
 well hwMi to be disaffected. Of this description were 
 James Napper Tandy, Bacon the tailor, Matthew Dow- 
 ling, and many others concerned in the late rebellion, whom 
 the lenity of government has saved from the vengeance of the 
 law.
 
 23 
 
 *' It is stated in the Report of the Secret Committee, 
 and it is strictly true, that the national guards, who in 
 the year 1792 meditated the subversion of the Constitu- 
 tion, sprung from the Volunteers." Musgrave, v. i. p. 
 59. 
 
 " In this tumult the Catholic was again exigent, and 
 the Protestant indifferent or favourable ; further relaxa- 
 tion ensued, and more ge?ieral tumult.'" A Sketch, &c. p. 
 U. 
 
 ORIGIN OF " PEEP-OF-DAY BOYS AND 
 DEFENDERS." 
 
 (musgrave, v. i. p. 62.) 
 
 *' As a great conflagration is often kindled by a small i784. 
 spark, so the feuds and altercations between the Peep-of- dav^Boyg 
 day-Boys and Defenders, the former Presbyterians, the lat- ^^^ ^e- 
 ter Romanists, which occasioned much strife and blood- 
 shed, has been ascribed to a trifling dispute between two 
 individuals.* 
 
 " From the inveterate hatred which existed between 
 the two sects, they soon began to enlist under the ban- 
 ners of religion; and as the Roman Catholics shewed un- 
 common eagerness to collect arms, the Presbyterians be- 
 gan to disarm them. 
 
 The former assumed the appellation of Defenders — 
 the latter Peep-of-day Boys, because they visited the 
 
 • Other causes are also assigned m Sir R. Musgrave's Work.
 
 24 
 
 houses of their antagonists at a very early hour in the 
 morning to search for arms ; and it is most certain that 
 in doing so, they often committed the most wanton out- 
 rages, insulting their persons and breaking their furni- 
 ture. 
 
 " Sobriety,* secrecy, the accumulation of arms, and 
 the giving assistance to each other on all occasions, seem 
 to have been leading objects with the Defenders; who 
 were exclusively of the Roman Catholic religion." 
 
 " They knew each other by secret signs : they had a 
 gi'and master in each county, who was elected at a ge- 
 neral annual meeting, and they had also monthly meet- 
 ings. They had parochial and baronial committees, and 
 a superior one to which they appealed ; and from a con- 
 nection which afterwards appeared to have subsisted he- 
 ttsoeen them mid the Catholic committee iti Dublin^ we may 
 infer that they were much influenced by it. We cannot 
 be surprised at this, when it is very well known, that the 
 Father famous Father Quigley (or O'Coigley, who was hanged at 
 Maidstone in 1798) was very active among the De- 
 fenders. As he interested himself very much in their 
 concerns, it is not improbable that their organization 
 was on the French plan, as it has been discovered that 
 he made a practice of going often to France." 
 
 179«. " In the autumn and winter of 1792, so many bar- 
 
 barous outrages were committed by them in the county 
 of Louth, that at the spring assizes following, held at 
 Dundalk, twenty-one defenders were sentenced to die ; 
 
 • It was remarked, that prior to the breaking out of the Irish Rebellion 
 in 1798, and of the Insurrection in 1805, the lower classes were sober beyond 
 all precedewt. — Author.
 
 25 
 
 twenty-five to be transported ; twelve to be imprisoned a 
 certain time, for having conspired to murder certain per- 
 sons; thirteen indicted for murder put off their trials; 
 and bench warrants issued against eighty persons, who 
 absconded." 
 
 I request the reader's particular attention to the fol- 
 lowing remarkable circumstance, on which any comment 
 would be superfluous. 
 
 " On the 3d of January, 1793, a few persons who called 
 themselves the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the county 
 of Louth, assembled at Greenmount near Castle Bel- 
 lingham, entered into strong resolutions against the De- 
 fenders, and exhorted all persons of their j>ei-suasion to ab- 
 stain from their combinations, and their unwarrantable 
 practices ; and they published them in the Dublin 
 Journal. It was signed by sixty laymen, most of 
 them in vei'y low situations, by eighteen popish priests, 
 and by Dr. Reilly, the titular Primate of Ireland." 
 
 " The following persons were among the laymen who 
 signed it: One Coleman of Duiulalk, who corresponded 
 with one Sweetman, Secretary to the Catholic Committee 
 in the month of August 1792, relative to protecting the 
 Defenders then in prison, and fo r 'whom he employed cotin- 
 sel in their defoice, as stated in the Report of the secret 
 Committee of the House of I^ords. 
 
 " Another man of the same name, convicted of lying in 
 wait, and conspiring xvith others to murder Pat. McNeil, 
 Esq. a magistrate, because he had taken an active part 
 against the Defenders." 
 
 £
 
 26 
 
 " Pat. Bryne of Castletown, Esq. a man of fortune, but 
 very seditious, who was fined ^1000. and imprisoned 
 two years, for having published an inflammatory pamph- 
 let, and who has since absconded, having been deeiily en- 
 gaged with the Defenders." 
 
 " John Hoey and Anthony Marmion, convicted of trea- 
 sonable p^-actices, as Defenders, and Jianged at Dundalk in 
 the summer of 1798. Thomas Markey, condemned to die ; 
 but this sentence was mitigated to transportation : Bar- 
 tholomew M'Gawley, transported for Defenderism : one 
 M'Allister, deeply concerned with the Defenders: John 
 Conlan, a Defender, who afterwards became an approver .- 
 and it is most certaiin, that the majority of those ivho signed 
 that paper were Defenders." 
 
 " In short we may venture to assert, that before the 
 end of the year 1793, they had spread the seeds of com- 
 bustion in most parts of Ireland." 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE « RIGHT BOYS." 
 
 (MUSGRAVE, V. 1. p. 50.) 
 
 Q^. . , " The Right Boys succeeded the White Boys in the 
 Right Boys, province of Munster, in 1786, and resembled them in 
 every respect, except in the title which they assumed. 
 Their proceedings, chiefly directed, against the Protestant 
 clergy, were not the wild and extravagant efforts of rash 
 and ignorant peasants, but a dark and deep-laid scheme 
 planned by men skilled i?i the law, and the artifices by 
 which it might be evaded. Such men suggested to the
 
 27 
 
 farmers to enter into a combination, under the sanction Their pri- 
 of an oath, 7iot to take their tythes, or to assist any clergif- ^^^^^ ° 
 man in draxmng them" 
 
 " Some of the Protestant gentlemen, hoping to exone- 
 rate their estates of tythes, by the machinations and enor- 
 mities of these traitors, secretly encouraged them; a7id 
 others connived at their excesses, till they began to opj)ose Their fur- 
 the jpayment of rent, and the recovery of money by legal -^^^ 
 process, and the7i they came forward in stipport of the laiv^ 
 
 " They published a Tything Table, according to which 
 they pretended that they Xixndd. pay the clergy, but to ischich 
 they did not adhere, and if they had done so, it "woidd not 
 ' have afforded them a subsistence^ 
 
 " These traitors soon proceeded from one act of vio- 
 lence to another, and established such a system of terror, 
 that landloi'ds xoere cfraid to distrain for rent, or to sue by 
 civil vrocess for money due by note : they took arms from 
 Protestaiits, and levied money to buy ammiinition. They 
 broke open gaols, set fire to hay and corn, and even to 
 houses, especially to those occupied by the army." 
 
 ' This spirit of riot and insurrection occasioned the Remedy, 
 passing of a law in the year 1787, drawn by Lord Clare, 
 entitled, " An Act to prevent tumultuous risings and as- 
 semblies, and for the more effectual punishment of per- 
 sons guilty of outrage, riot, and illegal combination, and 
 of administering and taking unlawful oaths :" — and the 
 introduction of it into the counties of Kilkenny, Tippe- 
 rary, Cork and Kerry, occasioned such a revolution in 
 the juorals and 7na?mers of their inhabitants, and was so ef- 
 ficient in preserving social order, that some of the prin- 
 cipal landholders in them declared openly in Parliament,
 
 28 
 
 " that their estates "iScere increased two years 'purchase in 
 value hy that salutary statute." Musgrave, v. 1, p. 52. 
 
 The highly talented author of a Sketch of the State 
 of Ireland, p. 14, in speaking of the outrages of this 
 period, says, " Evils real or imaginary, the execuses — 
 evils monstrous and inevitable, the consequences. They 
 evaded the law, — they escaped the sword ; at last they de- 
 Jied both. The nights were nights of plunder — the days 
 of punishment — and both of horror.'* 
 
 ORIGIN OF UNITED IRISHMEN. 
 (musgrave, v. 1, p. 129.) 
 
 Origin of « In the years 1791 and 1792, Rabaud St. Etienne, 
 
 United . . 
 
 Irishmen, the bosom friend of Brissot, the famous leader of the 
 Girondine party in the French National Assembly, passed 
 sojne time between Dublin and Belfast, sowing the seeds of 
 future combtistioti. 
 
 The first society of United Irishmen at Belfast, pub- 
 lished their plan or prospectus in The Northerti Star, in 
 Oct. 1791, though it had been fabricated in Dublin. 
 
 According to " the constitution of the Society of 
 United Irishmen of the city of Dublin at first agreed 
 upon," " This Society is constituted for the purpose of 
 forwarding a Brotherhood of AiFection, an identity of in- 
 terests, a ccmmunion of rights, and an union oj -power
 
 29 
 
 among Irishmen of all religious persuasions, and thereby Their al- 
 obtaining ati impartial s 
 nation and Paiiiamejit." 
 
 obtaining an impartial and adequate representation of the \^x.. 
 
 According to their declaration of Dec. 30, 1 79 1 , Musg'. 
 234, V.2. " The object of the institution is to make an United 
 Society of the Irish nation ; to make all Irishmen citizens ; 
 all citizens Irishmen : nothing appearing to us more na- 
 tural at all times, and at this crisis of Europe more rea- 
 sonable, than that those who have common interests, and 
 common enemies, who suffer common wrongs, and lay 
 claim to common right, should know each other, and 
 should act together." 
 
 'o 
 
 " Our design, therefore, in forming this society, is to Their de- 
 give an example, which, when well followed, must collect s'S"- 
 the publir xcill, and concentrate the public ]Jotver into one 
 solid inass, the e^ect of 'whicli, once put in motion,* must be 
 rapid, momentous., and consequential" See the Consti- 
 tution of the United Irishmen. — Musgrave, v. 2, p. 322. 
 
 In the letters from Theo. Wolfe Tone, conveying the 
 Dublin United Irishmen's Resolutions and Declarations 
 to a republican friend in Belfast, Tone says, " My unal- 
 terable opinion is, that the bane of Irish prosperity is in 
 the infuence of England. I believe that influence will be 
 extended while the connection between the two counti'ies 
 continues; nevertheless, as I know that that opinion is 
 for the present too hardy, though a little time may establish 
 it iiniversally, I have not made it a part of the resolufio7is. 
 I have not said one word that looks like a wish for sepa- 
 
 * Witness 1798.
 
 30 
 
 ration ; though 1 give it to you as my most decided opi- 
 nion, that such an event would be regeneration to this cotm" 
 try." Musgrave, v. i. p. 130. 
 
 « 
 
 Leaders of It is stated in the Report of the Secret Commit tee of 
 United ^i^g House of Lords, made in 1797, "That the Leaders 
 
 Irishmen 
 
 connected a7id Directors of the United Irishmen are now, and have 
 defenders ^^^^ ^^^' some time past, anxiously engaged in uniting 
 in 1797. iioith them a class of men, who had formerly disturbed the 
 peace of this country by acts of outrage, robbery, and mur- 
 der, under the appellation of Defenders, and that the Com- 
 mittee had reason to apprehend that, in a certai7i degree, 
 they had. succeeded" 
 
 The following observation is to be found in the Report 
 of the House of Commons, made in 1798, page 9; and 
 in the course of my inquiries I have found it to be strictly 
 true: 
 
 Apply this " That the counties in which Defenderism had pre- 
 
 to all simi- y^yg(j easily became converts to their new doctrines : and, 
 
 larassocia- . *^ 
 
 tions, past in the summer of 1797, the usual concomitants of the trea~ 
 
 come ^^"^h namely, the plundering houses of arms, the fabrication 
 
 of pikes, and the mwder of those who did not join the party, 
 
 began to appear in the midland counties." 
 
 " By a Report, made the 14th of August 1797, by a 
 provincial Meeting of Delegates of Ulster, it appears 
 that there was a number of Societies of United Irishmen in 
 North Ajnerica, whose professed object was to assist Ire- 
 lajid." 
 
 Can any reflecting mind be surpi'ised at the events which 
 occurred in Ireland in 1798 ?
 
 31 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE « ORANGEMEN." 
 
 (musgrave, p. 82.) 
 
 ** As the Defenders not only became terrific to indivi- Orange- 
 duals, in most parts of the kingdom, by the constant per- ""^"795 
 petration of nocturnal robbeiy and assassination ; as they ' 
 formed a systematic combination, mid supplied themselves 
 "with aims^ for the obvious purpose of subverting the Consti- 
 tution in Church and State ,- and as they were encouraged 
 and directed by the Catholic Committee, and. the United 
 Irishmen, the Protestants of the Established Church, to 
 defeat their malignant designs, found it necessary to ex- 
 cite and cherish a spirit of loyalty, which had began to lan- 
 guish and decline in a very alarming degree, and to rally 
 round the altar and the throne, which were in imminent 
 danger." 
 
 As a refutation of the many falsehoods and calumnies 
 uttered against the institution, the members of the Orange 
 Society published a declaration of their principles in the 
 newspapers...... All that I have to request of the unpreju- 
 diced reader, is to compare them with the principles 
 avowed in the " Declaration of the Society of Uyiited 
 Irishmen.'" 
 
 ti Yo THE LOYAL SUBJECTS OF IRELAiND. 
 
 *' From the various attempts that have been made to 
 poison the public mind, and slander those who have had . 
 the spirit to adhere to their King and Constitutio7i, and to 
 maintain the laws, 
 
 *' We the Protestants of Dublin, assuming the name of 
 Orangemen, feel ourselves called upon, not to vindicate
 
 32 
 
 our principles, for we know that our honor and loyalty bid 
 defiance to the shafts of malevolence and disaffection, but 
 openly to avow those principles, and to declare to the 
 world the objects of our institution. 
 
 " We have long observed, with indignation, the efforts 
 that have been made to foment rehellion in this Icingdom hy 
 the seditious, iioho have fm-med themselves into societies^ U7i- 
 der the specious name of U^iited Irishmen. 
 
 " We have seen, with pain, the lower orders of our 
 fellow subjects forced or seduced from their allegiance, by 
 the threats and machinations of traitors. 
 
 " And we have viewed with horror the successful exer- 
 tions of miscreants, to encourage a foreign enemy to invade 
 this happy land, in hopes of rising into consequence on the 
 doiXjufal of their country. 
 
 " We, therefore, thought it high time to rally round the 
 Constitution, and there pledge ourselves to each other, to 
 
 MAINTAIN THE LAWS, AND SUPPORT OUR GOOD KING, 
 
 against all his enemies, "johether 7'ebels to their God or to 
 their country ; and by so doing, shew to the world, that 
 there is a body of men in the island who are ready, in the 
 hour of danger, to stand for'ward in defence of that grand 
 palladium of our liberties, the Constitution of Gi'eat Britain 
 g,nd Ireland, obtained and established by the courage and 
 loyalty of our ancestors, under the great King William^ 
 
 " Fellow- subjects, we are accused with being an Insti- 
 tution founded on principles too shocking to repeat, and 
 bound together by oaths, at which human nature would 
 shudder; but we caution you not to be led away by 
 such malevolent falsehoods ; for we solemnly assure
 
 S3 
 
 you. In the presence of the Almiglity God, that the idea 
 of injuring any one, on account of his religious opinion, 
 never entered into our hearts ; we regard every loyal suh" 
 ject as our friend, he his religion what it may. We have 
 no enmity, but to the enemies of our country, 
 
 " We further declare, that we are ready at all tunes 
 to submit oiirselves to the orders of those in authority under 
 his Majesty, and that we will cheerfull}- vnidertake any 
 duty which they shall point out for us, in case either a 
 foreign enemy shall dare to invade our coasts, or that a 
 domestic foe shall presume to raise the standard of rebellion 
 in the land. To these principles we are pledged, and in 
 support of them we arc ready to shed the last drop of our 
 blood. 
 
 Signed, Thos. Verner, 
 
 Edward Ball, 
 John Claud. Beresford, 
 Wm. James, 
 Isaac Dejoncourt." 
 
 Musg. V. 2, p. 227. 
 
 The author of this work is not an Orangeman, but he 
 fervently wishes that these were the principles of every man 
 in the United Empire. 
 
 " In the month of May 1797, a numerous body of de- 1797. 
 legates from the several Oranee lodges in the province of ^^®.''^°^ 
 
 •^ _ o o X service to 
 
 Ulster, waited on Hall Waring, Esq. of Waring' s-town, Govern- 
 near Banbridge, and authorised him in their name ^0^^^'^^^°°^ 
 address General Nugent, then commanding at Lisburn, orangemen. 
 and to inform him that, should an insurrection or an in- 
 vasion take place, they would assemble to the number of
 
 34 
 
 20,000 at four days notice, and march under his com- 
 mand to any part of Ireland, where their service might 
 be required." 
 
 " I have been assured, by a very respectable gentle- 
 man of the county of Tyrone, that its inhabitants were 
 so much intimidated by anonymous threatening letters, 
 and by the assassinations committed there, that in the 
 lordship of Caledon, containing 10,000 people, the 
 whole of them, except about 6 or 8 persons, were sworn ; 
 but the loyal subjects having entered into the Orange 
 societies, and having gained courage and confidence by 
 their united strength, renounced with indignation these 
 traitorous combinations, invigorated the arm of the civil 
 magistrates, and completely checked the progress of treason, 
 
 *' The Hon. General Knox commanded at Dungannon 
 in the summer of 1798, and he assured Government 
 that the institution of Orange lodges was of infinite use, 
 and that he would rest the safety of the North on the ^fide- 
 lity of the Orangemen who were ewolled ifi the yeomanry 
 corps." Musg. V. 1, p. 86. 
 
 In reply to some observations which were made on 
 ' Orangemer^ in the House of Commons, on July 15, 
 iSl*, the Right Hon* Robert Peel is reported to have 
 said, " That Orange Societies had existed in Ireland, he 
 believed, since the year 1795, and had always been pe- 
 culiarly obnoxious and objects of marked hostility to the 
 factious and disloyal. He was far from saying that none 
 but the factious and disloyal objected to them ; and he be- 
 lieved many loyal, moderate, and sensible persons used 
 their influence in discouraging such and similar associa- 
 tions, and disapproved of them as tending to create irri- 
 tation, and to extend and exasperate party feeling : — but,
 
 35 
 
 he would again repeat, that from the loyat principles 
 which they professed, and their firm and determined enmity 
 to the views of the factious and disloyal^ to that class of per- 
 sons they were peculiarly offensive." 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE CATHOLIC COMMITTEE, 
 
 (iMUSG. V. 1. p. 90.) 
 
 * The Abbe O'Connor says, in the life of his grand- Catholic 
 father Charles O'Connor, the Irish antiquary, page 830, 
 " That he. Dr. Curry, and Mr. Wyse of Waterford, first 
 thought of establishing a Roman Catholic Committee in 
 tke city of Dublin, in the year 1757." 
 
 They, at some period which I cannot ascertain, assi- 
 niilated to the confederated Catholics assembled at Kil- 
 kenny in the year 1641 ; for members duly elected and 
 returned by towns and districts, in almost every part of 
 the kingdom, sat in it; gentlemen of landed estate had a 
 right to a seat there; and they soon began to regulate their 
 proceedings according to the form and solemnity of a 
 parliament. 
 
 These particulars are fully proved by the following nss. 
 Resolution, which they entered into the 15th day of Nov. 
 1783, 
 
 " Sir Patrick Bellew, in the Chair. 
 " Resolved, That we feel ourselves particularly calle
 
 36 
 
 upon to declare, that this Committee consists of every 
 Roman Catholic Nobleman and Gentleman of landed pro- 
 perty, and of other gentlemen chosen by their fello'm subjects 
 of that 2Je>'Stiasio7i in Dublin, and other prijicipal -parts of 
 the kingdom.'" 
 
 " Resolved, That thus constituted, we have, for several 
 years past, been the medium through which the voice of the 
 Roman Catholics of Ireland has been conveyed, and the only 
 one competent thereto" 
 
 1791. At a session held by them on the 10th of February, 
 
 1791, styled " a meeting of the general Committee of 
 the Roman Catholics of Ireland," they resolved, " That 
 the several papers now read, containing resolutions and 
 instructions from this city, and from the principal cities 
 and towns of Ireland, be referred to a committee of 
 eight, who shall report thereon to this committee, on 
 Friday the 1 8th instant." 
 
 The Lords Fingal and Kenmare, and Sir Patrick 
 Bellew, were at the head of the committee till the be- 
 ginning of the year 1 792, when they, and above 60 res- 
 pectable Roman Catholic gentlemen, disgusted and 
 alarmed at their intemperate proceedings, seceded. 
 
 Some of its demagogues, who had revolutiona?yj designs, 
 fearing that the moderation and loyalty of these noble- 
 men and ijentlemen would check them in their furious 
 career, made the committee so unpleasant to them, that 
 they prudently resolved on retiring from it. Lord Fingal 
 was voted out of the chair, in rather a tumultuous man- 
 ner, and Thomas Broughall was voted into it, on which 
 his Lordship said, " Sir, I wish you luck with it."
 
 37 
 
 (In like manner, in the course of a debate amongst 
 the Catholic committee, on the 2d Feb. 1811, Lord 
 French told the committee, " You were appointed for a 
 «' specific purpose ; your commission is ended. — Ireland 
 " is sick of this business ! Do you mean to erect yourselves 
 " into a perpetual parliament ?"* Lord Fingal, and ma- 
 ny others at the same time, also seceded from the Catho- 
 lic committee. 
 
 Thus it ever has been, and thus it ever will be, that 
 in all unauthorized associations, where there are secret 
 as well as avotved objects in view, the factious, the turbu- 
 lent and revolutionary part will eventually estrange or get 
 the upper hand of the respectable and well-meaning 
 members.) 
 
 " The proceedings of the committee were then governed 
 by Edward Byrne, John Keogh, Randal M'Donnel, 
 Thomas Broughall, John Sweetman, and Richard M'Cor- 
 mick. They had three secretaries ; the two latter, and 
 Theobald Wolfe Tone, who turned out to be notorious 
 traitors. 
 
 In the month of July 1792 Theobald Wolfe Tone, 
 John Keogh, and Richard M'Cormick, were sent by the 
 Catholic committee on a mission to some of the northern 
 counties, which were disturbed by the Peep-of-day Boys 
 and Defenders, to effect a reconcile) vient between them. 
 In their way they were joined by Samuel Neilson, an active 
 and artful demagogue, who was professedly a Presby- 
 terian, but who, as well as Tone, a reputed Protestant, 
 
 • Page 1 7, of " A Speech of the Right Hon. W. W. Pole in the House 
 of Commons, .3d Feb. 1812,"
 
 38 
 
 was destitute of all religious principles. They pretended 
 to be actuated by motives of the purest patriotism and 
 benevolence ; but as Tone, Neilson, and M'Cormick, ap- 
 peared afterwards to be notorious traitors, we cannot be 
 at a loss to know their real views. 
 
 It required some time and unabated exertion to over- 
 come the strong antipathy which existed between the 
 Papists and the lower classes of Presbyterians ; and it 
 probably could not have been accomplished, if the 
 leaders of the conspiracy had not attached to their cause 
 some of the clergy of both. 
 
 From the men who composed this mission, it is evident, 
 that the Catholic committee and the United Irishmen 
 were closely connected and labouring in the same vineyard. 
 Tone was at the same time the secretary of the former, 
 and the original framer and the chief leader of the latter 
 in Dublin ; Neilson in Belfast; — Keogh and M'Cormick 
 were the most active members of the former. 
 
 It is most certain that the first leaders in the north, 
 though regarded as Presbyterians, were in fact infidels, 
 who endeavoured to extinguish all religious principle by 
 the dissemination of French doctrines, the circulation of 
 Paine's Age of Reason, and publications of that stamp. 
 
 The Presbyterians engaged in the conspiracy were 
 chiefly confined to the counties of Down and Antrim ; 
 and even there none of the most respectable members of 
 that order wei'e concerned in it. Some of the most pro- 
 fligate dissenting ministers* in those counties, who became 
 
 * I annex theii- names, and tlic punishments which they suflfcred.
 
 39 
 
 partizans of the United Irishmen, prevailed on the rabble 
 of their persuasion, and such of them as were devoid of 
 principle and property, to join in the plot ; but very few, 
 if any, of the really religious Presbyterians entered 
 into it 
 
 As soon as the massacres perpetrated at Vinegar Hill* 
 and ScuUaboguef were known in the North, numbers of 
 Presbyterians, of whom some had been disaffected, and 
 others lukewarm, in the counties of Armagh, Tyrone, 
 Fermanagh, and Donegal, trembling for their safety, be- 
 came Orangemen ; and General Knox, depending on 
 their zeal and sincerity, embodied them, and procured 
 arms for them from Government. Musg. p. 88, v. 1 . 
 
 The rebellion of 1 798 proves that the Romanists meant 
 to make use of the Presbyterians merely as an engine to 
 overturn the constitution, and to have extirpated the whole 
 order of Protestants when they had succeeded. As there 
 are many good and loyal sttbjects among both these religionists, 
 I think it right to apologise to them, and to assure them, 
 that I allude only to the ignorajit^ the unprincipledy and 
 uneducated, ranks of both." 
 
 • " I could not ascertain the number of Protestants who were massacred 
 in the rebel camp on Vinegar Hill, and its vicinity ; but I have been assured 
 that they exceeded 500." Mr. Gordon, in his History of the Rebellion, p. 139, 
 allows, that they fell little short of 400. Musg. v. I, p. 461. 
 
 t It appears, on the evidence of different persons, that 184 Protestantf 
 were burned in the barn of ScuUabogue, and that 37 were shot in the front of 
 is. Musg. T. l.p. 525.
 
 40 
 
 DISSENTING MINISTERS IN THE COUNTIES 
 
 OF DOWN AND ANTRIM IMPLICATED 
 
 IN THE REBELLION OF 1798. 
 
 (see musgrave, v. 2, p. 238.) 
 
 COUNTY DOWN. 
 
 Names. Abode. Sentence. 
 
 Poi'ter Gray Abbey Hanged. 
 
 Warwick Kercubben Do. 
 
 Simpson Newtownards . . ..Transported. 
 
 Sinclair Do Do. 
 
 Ward Kellurchy Do. 
 
 Birch Saintfield Do. to America. 
 
 Adair Cumber Proclaimed, 
 
 Hull Bangor Do. 
 
 McMahon Hollywood Do. 
 
 Dickson Portaferry Confined to Fort George. 
 
 Barber Rathfriland Two years imprisonment. 
 
 COUNTY ANTRIM. 
 
 Acheson Glenarm Tried, acquitted. 
 
 Hill Ballynure Tried, partly guilty. 
 
 McNeill Clogh Accused ofbeing a leader; 
 
 sentenced to transport 
 
 himself. 
 
 Glendy Mahera Accused, ordered to leave 
 
 the kingdom. 
 
 Wate Laine Taken up, never tried. 
 
 Henry Connor Do. 
 
 Kelburne Belfast Do. discharged.
 
 41 
 
 Tiie following Roman Catholic Priests are mentioned 
 in Sir R. Musgrave's work, so often quoted in this com- 
 pilation, as having been implicated in the rebellion in 
 Ireland in 1 798 : 
 
 Michael Murphy, of Baliycarnew... Killed at the battle of 
 
 Arklow. 
 
 Clinch Do. at the battle of 
 
 Vinegar Hill. 
 
 John Murphy Killed at the action of Gore's 
 
 Bridge. He was aid de camp to his 
 
 namesake, who was hanged at Tullow. 
 
 Two Priests (names unknown) ...In vestments, were killed 
 
 at the battle of Newtownbarry. 
 
 One Do. (name unknown) In vestments, shot in the 
 
 action near Clogh, by Captain 
 Duncan, of the royal Irish artillery. 
 
 Kearns Hanged atEdenderry. 
 
 Philip Roche Do. at Wexford. 
 
 Prendersast Do. at Monastereven. 
 
 John Murphy, of Boulavogue Do. at Tullow. 
 
 John Redmond Ilanged.* 
 
 Cowley Suffocated in his hiding place 
 
 in a bog in the co. of Sligo. 
 
 Dixon "i 
 
 Hurrard >Transported. 
 
 Thomas Munnelly } 
 
 O'Coigly, orQuigley Hanged at Maidstone, 1798. 
 
 Priests — Edward Murphy, Bryan Murphy, Kearns, 
 Byrne, Dease, Francis Kavanagh, James Conroy of Ar- 
 dergoil (county Mayo) and Klane, commonly called " the 
 blessed Priest of Bannow," were all implicated in the 
 Irish rebellion of 1798. 
 
 G 
 
 • I have not discovered where.
 
 42 
 
 The preceding painful details are necessary, as they 
 may serve as a warning to future legislators to judge of 
 men by their actions, and not by their declarations; to 
 adopt prudent and vigorous measures on the first appear- 
 ance of illegal association among any body of men, 
 be their designation and avowed objects what tliey may ; 
 and to persevere actively and unceasingly in enforcing 
 those measures until " they have killed, not scotched the 
 snake." 
 
 The talented author of " A Sketch of the State of Ire- 
 land, Past and Present, page 18," thus briefly, but ener- 
 o-etically and ably, points out the inevitable result of 
 all such anti-social associations^ when allowed to rear their 
 head. 
 
 1798. "The hordes o^ jiett^/ rebels, that for twenty years, 
 under twenty barbarous names and pretences, had ha)-assed 
 the land, now sank into one great union against all civil and 
 ecclesiastical i7istitutio7is — the legacy of the American con- 
 test paid by France. The conflagration was general ; 
 war on every side — in Ulster of -politics — elsewhere of bi- 
 gotry. The disse7iter fought — the papist massacred — the 
 loyalist cut dorm both. Some provocation there may have 
 been — much vengeance there was, but where most, if any 
 provocation, least slaughter, no cruelty : where no pre- 
 vious oppression, most blood, much torture. The details 
 of this rebellion — realizing all we read of 1641 — I be- 
 queath to the bigotry of both parties — its objects, how- 
 ever, are interesting to the enlightened ; that of the dis- 
 senters — a republic ; that of the papists — popish ascendancy ; 
 of both, connexion with France, separation from England.
 
 4.3 
 
 Its results are, too important; — Union with Lnnla7id,^^^^°^^^- 
 
 ,. y^ 17 7- 11 twcen Great 
 
 separation trom r ranee, and 6oM, it %voulu seem, Biitain and 
 eternal:' I'^^^f' 
 
 Jim. 1801, 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE " YEOMANRY" IN 
 IRELAND. 
 
 (jNIUSGRAVE, V, 1, p. 19S.) 
 
 It would have interrupted the narrative of the march Yeomanry, 
 of events which produced the rebellion of J 798, if I had^"^^* 
 adverted sooner to this invaluable body of men. 
 
 ' In tlie autumn of 1796, Government having proposed 
 to all loyal subjects to embody themselves as yeomen 
 corps, similar to those in England, and subject to the 
 control of Government, the proposal was embraced with 
 alacrity in many parts of the kingdom.' 
 
 • This wise and salutary measure, which proved the 
 salvation of the kingdom, isoas opposed by many of the 
 teading Romanists in Dublin, a7id by all the active members 
 of the Catholic commiltce ; for when the church- wardens 
 and magistrates attended at the different vestry-rooms, for 
 the purpose of carrying this excellent system into execu- 
 tion, one or other of these leaders, attended by a mob of 
 the Popish rabble, attempted to overpower them by vo- 
 ciferation and numbers.' 
 
 ' They then entered into resolutions against it, ajid 
 published them in the jacobin prints, which teemed witb
 
 44 
 
 invectives against Government for having instituted it ; — 
 and for the same reason tlicy calumniated the Orange 
 societies.' 
 
 ' Notwithstanding the decided opposition which the 
 Romanists gave to this very excellent institution, which 
 saved the kingdom from impending destruction, the first 
 estimate laid befoz-e pasliament for 20,000 men, was filled 
 up immediately. In the course of six months it rose to 
 37,000 ; — and during the rebellion, the yeomanry force 
 exceeded 50,000, and they were all to be depended on, 
 for as very great disaffection appeared among the popish 
 yeomen, the different corps were quickly purged of such 
 of them as were known to be disloyal. Of a corps of 50 
 Catholic yeomen at Castledermot, there were but five 
 who were not implicated in the rebellion ; and their lieu- 
 tenant, Mr. Daniel Caulfield, was committed by Govern- 
 ment. All the Roman Catholics in the Rathangan corps 
 joined the rebels : Molloy, their lieutenant, and several 
 more, were hanged ; many were pardoned under the pro- 
 clamation, and others of them absconded.' — Musgrave, 
 vol. i. p. 325. — For further instances, read the work 
 itself. 
 
 Insurrec- " The Earl of Hardwicke's succeeded the Union ad- 
 
 1803, ministration. (' A Sketch, &,c.' p. 20.) Inactivity on 
 
 the one part, was mildness and conciliation ; — sullenness 
 on the other, content and gratitude. On this calm of 
 conciliation and content burst forth another rebellion'^ —
 
 45 
 
 short in its duration — contemptible in its actions— tjii 
 serious in its unsounded depth and un/aiOKn exte?it. The 
 jpolicy of that dai/ under-rated the danger — and the peril 
 of Ireland was forgotten in a squabble between the Go- 
 vernor and the General. 
 
 " Ireland sunk back into her silence — and all again 
 was mild and gratefid and hollo'w, till the departure of 
 Lord Hardwicke, bequeathing to his successor insurrec- 
 tion in five counties, and discontent in twenty. 
 
 " That person was John Duke of Bedford, amiable isos. 
 and honourable, but by party connections unfitted for the 
 
 situation of viceroy The advent of the Whig viceroy 
 
 was hailed by the voices that had before hailed the com- 
 ing of the French To his first levee crowded, in the 
 
 levelling audacity of their joy, persons of every rank ex- 
 cept the highest — of every description but the lojal 
 
 The viceroy, awakened to his sense and dignity, and the 
 chancellor (George Ponsonby) illustrious by his birth 
 and talents, were disgusted at the vulgar fellowship, and 
 alarmed at the traitorous insolence. They did some- 
 thing, and should have done more, to the repression of 
 both. 
 
 " The intreaties and intrigues of the ministrv, their 
 late partizans, and the adverse opinion of many of their 
 own sect, could not dissuade the Catholics from another 
 parliamentary appeal for indulgence. I cannot blame 
 their resolution ; I did not think it untimely ; I can never 
 think it unjust ; but I blame, I denounce as traitorous to 
 the constitution, and ruinous to their cause, the speeches 
 then published by their pretended and pernicious ft-iends 
 — fatal advoc .tes — if, indeed, their object was Catholic 
 emancijmtion^ and not Catholic insurrection .'"
 
 46 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE " THRESHERS/' 
 
 Origin of I (Jo not take upon me to assert that the publication of 
 Threshers, the speeches just alluded to had an injurious tendency on 
 1806. |-j,g minds of the lower orders, who are ever ready to take 
 advantage of the slightest /'/r/cj-/ for entering into illegal 
 associations for the redress of their grievances, but it was 
 at this time that the outrages of the Threshers commenced, 
 principally in the western counties of Ireland, though va- 
 rious symptoms of the same spiiit afterwards manifested 
 themselves in some of the northern, and also in some of 
 the southern counties, and in February 1807, in the 
 county of Kildare, at so short a distance as 14 miles 
 from Dublin. 
 
 Their ob- In the month of December, 1806, a special commssion 
 jects. ^jjg ggjj^. jj^|-Q ^}jg counties of Sligo, Mayo, Leitrim, Long- 
 
 ford and Cavan, to try the " Threshers," who, according 
 to Mr. Serjeant (now Judge) Moore's address to the 
 Longford jurors, " were sworn not to pay tythes, except 
 to the parson, — not to pay dues to the Roman Catholic 
 clergyman beyond a certain specified amount ; — and not 
 to pay more than certain prices to the working people : 
 (thus fixing a maximum for the wages of labourers and 
 manufacturers) not to prosecute ; — to obey the laws of 
 the Threshers ; and to attend whenever called upon." 
 Resolutions were also posted up, addressed ' to the steady 
 friends of liberty,'' which contained invitations of a dan- 
 gerous tendency, and assertions of " fweign assistance" 
 of the most unequivocal nature.
 
 47 
 
 They appeared in arms at night, wearing handkei^ 
 chiefs or straw round their hats, or straw caps, and white 
 shirts over their clothes. 
 
 In some instances they carded the backs of the per- 
 sons whose houses they visited, with a carder's wool 
 comb; the same as the ^^ Carders of 1809." See Ridge- 
 way's Report of the Trials of the Threshers, in Decem- 
 ber 1806. 
 
 On the 9th of July 1807 (see the Morning Post) " Sir i8o7. 
 Arthur Wellesley, in pursuance of his notice, rose for recdon" Act 
 leave to bring in a Bill for the suppressson of Insurrection brought in 
 in Ireland^ and to prevent the disturbance of the peace in Weiiesley. 
 that country. The House would remember, that the cir- 
 cumstances which preceded and attended the suppression 
 of the rebellion in Ireland, had rendered stronger mea- 
 sures than the established laws afforded, necessary in that 
 country. An Act was therefore passed by the Irish Par- 
 liament in 1796, to prevent unlawful assemblies, and to 
 authorize the Lord Lieutenant, on a report of the magis- 
 trates, to proclaim any county where disturbances ex- 
 isted. This act had proved effectual for the suppression 
 of the insurrection, as ap})eared from the acknowlegment 
 of the leaders of that insurrection, before a Committee 
 of the Irish Parliament. The bill he proposed to bring 
 in contained the same provisions as the insurrection act, 
 with respect to the powers of the Lord Lieutenant, &c. ; 
 but in order to prevent hardships to the subject, the bill 
 then moved for required that persons so arrested should 
 be tried at the quarter sessions, by the magistrates and 
 assistant barrister, assisted hy a Kin^s counsel^ a Serjeant 
 specially sent down for that purpose.
 
 48 
 
 Register of " Besides this bill, he meant to nlove for leave to brino- 
 ^'^iso?'" "^ another, to prevent imp}oj)er persons from keeping arms, 
 and authorizing magistrates to search for arms. 
 
 " These bills had been prepared by his predecessor, 
 Mr. Elliott, Chief Secretary to the Duke of Bedford." 
 
 Sir A. Wellesley is reported to have said, that he 
 thought of proposing seven years as the time of duration 
 of these bills, but his mind was not quite made up as to 
 that point. 
 
 Mr.Grattan Upon the passing of the Insurrection Bill (for two 
 there were y^^''^ and Until the end of the then next Session, &c.) 
 meetings of in the House of Commons, on the 27th of July 1807, 
 
 nature ^^i'- Grattan, as stated in the reports of the debates, 
 
 and a Frenc/j Jeclared, "that he was infoi-med, that meetings of a 
 
 party in Fie- i i i • t i i tt i- i 
 
 landini807. treasonable nature were liekl in Ireland. He did not 
 mean to accuse his countrymen of treason or disaffection, 
 but he xvas certain that there was a French party in Ireland; 
 it was against them, and not against Irishmen, that the 
 operation of the Bill was directed ; and sooner than run a 
 risk of losiiig the constitution altogether, he would take upon 
 himself his full share in common with his Majesty's Ministers, 
 (he was then in opposition) of the responsibility which 
 would attach to the measure."* 
 
 • Mr. W. Pole tliought himself justified, on the ground of restored tran- 
 quillity, to allow the Act to expire in 1810, Mr. Peele found it necessary 
 to resort to it in 1814, (54 Geo. Ill, cap. 180) and to continue it in 1817, 
 (by the 57th Geo. III. cap. 50) Mr, Grant did not consider the further con- 
 tinuance of it necessary, and allowed it to expire in 1818, and opposed the 
 Galway Petition for its re-enactment in the year 1820. It was again found 
 necessary to re-enact it in Feb. 182^.
 
 49 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE « RIBBONMEN." 
 Tlve ferocious wretches who have disgraced their country ^ . . 
 
 " •> Origin of 
 
 and humanity under the name of Ribbonmen, first associated Ribbon- 
 in the counties of Down, Armagh, Antrim, Tyrone, Fer-"^"' ^^°®* 
 managh, &c. against the Orangemen. They afterwards ex- 
 tended their outrages eastward and into Connaught, and 
 set themselves in array against proctors, canters of farms, 
 rack-rents, &c. 
 
 The " Carders' of 1809 were a branch of the same tree. Carders, 
 and associated on the same pretext in the counties of 
 Meath, Westnieath, Roscommon and Mayo, but made 
 a practice of carding with wool combs the backs of those 
 persons whom they supposed to be hostile to their views. 
 
 The " Shanavats and Caravats" who disturbed the peace f'^;^"^^*ts 
 
 ' cc Caravats, 
 
 of the counties of Tipperary, Kilkenny, Limerick, and isio-ii. 
 part of Cork, were, at the commencement, fighting factions, 
 opposed to each other ; but they terminated, like all the 
 other associations, against ty the -proctors, &c. Truly may 
 it be said, that the commencement of illegal association, 
 as ivell as of strife, " is as the letting out of water, — we 
 knoAv not where it may end." 
 
 The " Moll Doijle" and '' Padreen Gar's Men" of 1814, ^^oll Doyle 
 were also rustic hostile factions in the begninmg, but ter- dreen Gar's 
 minated like every other unconstitutional association, in ^^^"' ^^^'** 
 evei'y outrage subversive of the public tranquillity. 
 
 There are several other appellations under which the 
 Insurgents have appeared ; but, as 1 have enumerated the 
 principal associations, the names of the minor ones are of 
 no consequence ; for it is diflicultj if not impossible to 
 
 H
 
 50 
 
 ascertain the precise period of the first display or periodical 
 return of the insurrectionary spirit, in consequence of the 
 multifarious appellations and pretexts under which the 
 disaffected have associated together. 
 
 Caravats On proposing the " Irish Preservation of the Peace 
 
 ^"jgj^^"^'^Bill," in the House of Commons, the Right Hon. 
 Robert Peel is reported to have said, "that a letter had 
 been put into his hands that day (July 8, 1814) by an Hon. 
 Bart, the Member for the Queen's County, (Sir H. Parnell) 
 which stated, that the Caravats were levying contributions 
 of "05. and 40^. each from the little farmers every night, 
 and seizing arms and ammunition wherever they could be 
 found. He had also letters in his possession, representing 
 that the Carders were in constant activity through the 
 county of Westmeath, and that the unfortunate inhabitants 
 (whose offence was, perhaps, no more than by their in- 
 dustry being able to give a higher rent to their landloi'ds 
 than others, — their loyalty, — or their refusal to join these 
 lawless bands) were in unceasing apprehensions of assas- 
 sination, or having their little cabins burnt over their 
 heads." 
 
 1814. On the third reading of this bill, July 19, 1814, Mr. 
 
 tions in ' ^^^^ is Stated to have asserted, " that he had read an 
 Westmeath, oath, for which no less than six convictions took place at 
 to be true to the assizes of Westmeath, and the purport of which was 
 Bonaparte, i iq ig f^ue to Bonaparte J' He had hoped that peace would 
 have overpowered and overcome all such absurd specula- 
 tions as adherence to the despot of another country, but 
 he had recently learned that similar combinations isoere still 
 forming in Ireland. A memorial had been presented to 
 the Lord Lieutenant, signed by 60 of the most respectable 
 individuals of the county of Tipperary, 1 8 of whom were 
 magistrates, and the first name signed was that of Lord
 
 5i 
 
 Landaff (in opposition at the time) the brotlier of the re- 
 presentative of that county in the House, the object of 
 which memorial was, to persuade the Government to 
 bring forward the present measure." 
 
 In 1817, the Insurrection Act was in force in the ^'^'^• 
 counties of Louth, Westmeath and Tipperary ; and in 
 the month of May in that year, on the representation of 
 Mr. Peel, then chief secretai-y for Ireland, parliament 
 continued the Act for another year. 
 
 I beg leave, Avith the most profound humility, to ex- gj^^j j^^ J ' 
 press my regret that Parliament negatived Sir John poi't's mo- 
 Newport's motion of the 20th June, 1817, " that an ad- Ser^to '" 
 dress be presented to his His Royal Highness the Prince '"'Pi'e into 
 
 v> • 1 • n 1 TT- 1 • 1. t''^ State of 
 
 negent, praymg his Koyal Highness to give directions to Ireland. 
 his Majesh/s ministers, during the prorogation of Parlia- 
 ment, to inquire into the state of Ireland, and to lay be- 
 fore the House such information on the subject as v/ould 
 enable it, early in the next session, to apply some effec- 
 tual remedy to the evils under which that country now- 
 suffered." 
 
 In this year the south west part of Ireland was much I8I9. 
 
 disturbed by Ribboyimen. On Nov. 6, the high sheriff of Qjg„_°"* 
 
 the county of Limerick, at the request of 27 magistrates, 
 
 convened a meeting of the county, in order to devise 
 
 the best means of enforcing the due administration of 
 
 the laws. In the county of Galway the outrages were 
 
 still more general and alarming than in the county of 
 
 Limerick, so much so, that Mr. James Daly, member for ^sgo. ' 
 
 the county of Galway, " stated to the house, the dis- ^^iotion of 
 
 turbed state of that part of Ireland with which he was member for 
 
 connected. In the distiict adioinin(j Roscommon the Galway 
 
 . . . county. 
 
 magistrates had engaged, with the aid of 60 of the mill-
 
 52f 
 
 tary, to keep the peace in that district, but that x\as re- 
 fused them by the Government, After that refusal the 
 
 disaffection spread considerably Towards the middle of 
 
 November the whole county was organized, and encou- 
 raged by the inactixnty of the Government, they commenced 
 the attack of gentlemen's houses ; upwards of 70 were so 
 attacked. The Government then put 13 baronies of 
 the eastern part of the county of Galway under the 
 Peace Preservation Bill. In the month of November 60 
 men could not be spared, but in the February following 
 the Government sent 3,500, and the whole county was 
 overspread by them ; previously to which the rebels, 
 for so he might call them, had, with a force of 12 or 
 1500 men, regularly attacked and burned a village. 
 They had attacked the police barracks, and in one in- 
 stance 1500 of them maintained a regular battle with the 
 police for 5 hours. He had the authority of one of the 
 Lords Justices for saying, that the Insurrection Act, or 
 or some other strong measure, was become absolutely ne- 
 cessai'y for preserving the peace of the country. The 
 county was at present covered with troops, and yet out- 
 rages continued to be committed ; he entreated the House 
 to consider, whether when the long nights came on, mat- 
 ters isoould not he "worse P" 
 
 He concluded by moving, " that a select Committee 
 be appointed to examine into the progress and existence 
 of disturbances in Ireland, and ischether it be necessary to 
 grant to the Government of the country any additional 
 po'wer ? and to report thereon to the house." 
 
 Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald supported the motion. 
 
 Mr. Grant is reported to have replied, " that the felt 
 it liis duty, speaking the sentiments of the Lord Lieu-
 
 53 
 
 tenant and the Government of Ireland, that there w as nd 
 i^round whatever for the Insurrection Act. He felt bound 
 to oppose the motion, not merely because it was hi'oiigkt on 
 so late in the session, — not merely because he was hostile 
 to the supposition of the Honourable Gentleman, that 
 only what were called strong measures could be salutary, 
 but because the bill which the Honourable Gentleman re- 
 commended '■joas contrary to that principle on ischick, in his 
 opinion^ the Governmeiit of Ireland ought to he conchicted" 
 Mr. Grant next described the provisions of the Insun-ection 
 Act, and then proceeded to say that " the honourable 
 mover, in laying the grounds for his motion, had spoken 
 much of the disturbances in Ireland. He (Mr. Grant) "was 
 not informed to that effect. By the accounts "which he had re- 
 ceived, it appeared that Ireland, isoas in a state of great tran- 
 qiiilliti/. He was never disposed to disguise evils and dangers, 
 but he felt that it was his duty not to exaggerate them." 
 
 Sir John Newport rose " for the purpose of expressing 
 his approbation of the conduct of his Majesty's ministers 
 on this occasion, for their conduct was beyond panegyric : 
 — they had. shetvn the 2)eople of Ireland that they intended 
 to treat them as if they were 'worthy of the "whole benefits of 
 the Constitution." 
 
 The question was put, and (unhappily for Ireland) ne- 
 gatived without a division. 
 
 What have the people of Ireland shewn in return for 
 the amiable, but mistaken lenity of Mr. Grant ? 
 
 It is deeply to be lamented that the spirit of outrage, 1821-2. 
 which M^as at that time manifesting itself so openly in 
 the county of Galway, was not checked and subdued
 
 54 
 
 at its commencement ; and, by the re-enactment of tlie 
 Insurrection Act, prevented from extending itself to the 
 alarming and truly appalling extent it has since done in 
 the south of Ireland ; it was a moment when such a 
 vigorous interposition was peculiarly necessary, for fre- 
 quent experience, unhappily, has proved, that it is worse 
 than vain, it is destructive of social order to expect that 
 the ordinary dispensation of the laws of the land can put 
 down the savages who set all laws, human and divine, at 
 defiance; and who, even in Africa, would be considered 
 as without the pale of civil society, and would be hunted 
 down like beasts of prey. 
 
 Q^j .^ . It has been sedulously reported, and generally credited, 
 the present that the present violations of the law originated with the 
 tenantry of Lord Courtenay, in the county of Limerick, 
 
 ances. 
 
 in consequence of the arbitrary conduct of his agent, 
 Mr. Hoskins, who, subsequently to the peace of 1815 had 
 made some abatements in the rents of the tenantry, which 
 were afterwards discontinued. But many of the convicted 
 Ribbonmen were in good circumstances, and no man who 
 reflects on the number of years the peasantry of the south 
 of Ireland, and of Limerick and Tipperary in particular, 
 have been eagerly and unceasingly employed in plundering 
 arms and ammunition, can admit that the conduct of 
 Mr. Hoskins, be it what it may, could have demoralized 
 the whole south of Ireland, and have occasioned those 
 daring and si/stcmatic violations of the law, which have 
 outraged every humane and manly feeling. If the cause 
 was of so local a nature, how happens it that the effect has 
 been so generaly that at this moment eight tenths of the 
 peasantry of all Ireland are sworn Ribhonmen ? — How 
 happens it, also, that not a single Protestant has been 
 found amongst the convicted Ribbonmen ? — Because they 
 swear not to admit a Protestant or a Presbyterian amongst 
 them.
 
 55 
 
 The avowed objects of the Ribbonmen of the present 
 day have been the burning to death, or the assassination of 
 the most active Magistrates, and of every one who dared to 
 reside on interdicted land, that is, land which the preceding 
 tenants had either voluntarily given up, considering the 
 rent too high, or land from which they had been ejected 
 for non-payment of rent ; — of every hostile witness in the 
 courts of justice ; — of every one who paid, or who col- 
 lected tytlie ;* — or who paid beyond General Rock's ar- 
 bitrary maximum of rent. 
 
 Their secret and sivorn objects are, to obtain arms and 
 ainmunition for a general massacre of Protestants, and the 
 subversion of the present Government. I pledge my honour 
 for the truth of this assertion, for / have seen some of the 
 07'igi?ial oaths found o?i convicted Ribbonmen, 
 
 In the House of Commons, Feb. 7, 1822, the Marquis 
 of Londonderry stated, that " there was nothing short of 
 actual rebellion in the south and south-west of Ireland ; 
 and when he stated, that rebellion existed, he believed 
 that he stated every component of that state and order 
 of things which required the most vigorous and coercive 
 
 measures If it was not a rebellion against religion or 
 
 government, yet was it a rebellion against law — against 
 the enjoyment of property — against good order — against 
 all those principles which hold men in society together. 
 It was a rebellion against all constituted authorities, under 
 some nameless and mysterious power. It was a system of 
 menace and terror, of assassination and murder, to deter 
 every man in the nation from doing his duty, whether in 
 the council or in the field. — A combination to rob and 
 sweep awai/ the arms from the loyal stibject, to enable the 
 
 • I can name a truly wbrthy, eonstantly resident Clergyman, who has re- 
 ceived only 100/. during the two last years, instead of 1,600/. the amount 
 due to him fbrtythe.
 
 56 
 
 insurgent to oppose and defy the force of the laws. 
 Parliament would not act with either wisdom or justice, 
 if they hesitated to furnish Government with the proper 
 means of cmshing this monstrous coirfederacyr — I trust too* 
 that the Government will be furnished with the proper 
 means of 'preventing, or of crushing in the bud, all similar 
 confederacies. 
 
 " Mr. C Grant, could assure the House, that // iscas 
 only from a sincere opinion of its necessity, that he shoidd 
 vote for the enactment of the Insurrection Act." 
 
 The Habeas Corpus Bill was suspended in Ireland, and 
 the Insurrection Act, and the Gun Powder, Ammunition 
 and Importation of Arms Act were passed. 
 
 The spirit of insurrection soon extended itself from the 
 county of Limerick over great part of the county of 
 Cork ; and so rapidly and generally had it spread in the 
 latter county, that it was stated by Mr. Sergeant Joy, at 
 the Special Commission held at Cork on Feb. 20, 1822> 
 " that on the 25th of tiie preceding month near 2,000 
 insurgents made an attack in the neiohbourhood of 
 Macroom, while at the same hour, on the same day, 2,000 
 more of them assembled for a similar purpose near New- 
 market. They fired on the military under Lieut. Green, 
 whose fire they received in return, nor did they disperse 
 until they received a second volley from the King's troops, 
 and that the reserve under Captain Kaphook approached, 
 and then they fell in between two fires, whereby a number 
 of them were killed, and several were made prisoners. 
 
 On March 30, 1822, chief Justice Bushe, in his Ad- 
 dress to the Grand Jury of Kilkenny, observed, " My 
 experience of what recently passed in the county of Lirae_
 
 57 
 
 tick, while officially engaged tliere, enables me to say, 
 that the Newspapers present but a faint and feeble 
 PICTURE, indeed, of the atrocities which were committed 
 there. The peasantry had actually taken possession of the 
 county — the gentry were obliged to seek protection against 
 the most atrocious violence, by converting their own 
 houses into garrisons — society, no longer secure from the 
 encroachment of outrage, was completely disox'ganized — • 
 the daily repetition of crimes the most revolting ; plunder, 
 burnings, murder, the fi-equent infliction of torture, gave 
 a character of peculiar horror to the crimes of the in- 
 fatuated peasantry — andall^ in a word^ that is most disgrace- 
 ful to human nature., tsoas to be found, in their excesses. Let 
 me assure you, after a vast deal of experience. Gentlemen, that 
 CRIMINAL VIOLENCE LIKE THIS MUST BE 
 PUT DOWN IN THE FIRST INSTANCE, OR 
 NOT AT ALL."
 
 PART II. 
 
 A VIEW 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ACTUAL STATE OF IRELAND, 
 
 And of the events generati?ig, or connected with its 
 past disturbajicesy and 'present discontented and 
 demoralized situation. 
 
 Thus far have we walked in the footsteps of timey 
 and heard the voice of history. Events lead us to expe- 
 rience, experience to improvement; there remain then 
 for enquiry the present evil — the future remedy." 
 
 Before I attempt to describe the actual state of Ireland, 
 I shall lay before the reader the following apposite obser- 
 vation from the ' Preface to theTrial of John Magee, Esq. 
 for a libel on the Duke of Richmond's administration in 
 Ireland;' — for, the more I have reflected on the events 
 herein narrated, and on the habits and condition of the 
 Irish people of the present day, the more sti'ongly I have 
 been convinced of the truth of Mr. Magee's remark, 
 
 " The fact of an original and peculiar trait in the cha-
 
 60 
 
 racier of a people, of certain strong and national indivi- 
 dualities, however questioned, and with whatever inge- 
 nuity impugned, has always appeared to us to be traced 
 on principles as philosophic as they are obvious, and sim- 
 ple as they are irrefragable. Not to state the reasons for 
 this opinion, which reasons must be familiar to every phi- 
 losophical inquirer, we shall jonly insist upon the Jact, 
 Jiistoricallij demoiistr cited, that the character of the modern 
 Irish hears a 'prominent resemblance to that of their rC' 
 mote ancestors. It is unnecessary to marshal the parti- 
 culars. Those read in the more ancient history of Ire- 
 land, and conversant in modern Irish affairs, will, after 
 some consideration, agree to the justness of the remark. 
 — It is amazing, indeed, to contemplate hot^ little the hish 
 character has lost (alas ! Mr. M. should have said how 
 much it has lost, how little it has gained) in the revolu- 
 tions which have sv/ept with such disastrous violence over 
 Ireland." 
 
 In pursuing the proposed examination into the present 
 condition of Ireland, and the causes of its past dis- 
 turbances and present discontented and demoralized con- 
 dition ; it will be necessaiy, in order to put the reader in 
 full possession of all the localities of our peculiar situa- 
 tion ; to enter into a detail which I fear he will consider 
 prolix, and to treat of Absentees, — Resident Gentr}'^, — Ma- 
 gisti'ates, &c. — Clergy of the Established Church, — Catho- 
 lic Clergy, — and of the Peasantry of Ireland- 
 Absentees. " The nobility and affluent gentry," observes the able 
 author of the Sketch, &c. p. 29, " spend much, or all 
 their fortunes and time in England ; leaving their places 
 to be filled in the country by hired agents — in the city 
 by a plebeian aristocracy : — the former, solely engaged in 
 encreasing and collecting rents, can have little concilia-
 
 61 
 
 tory power with the people ; and the influence of the lat- 
 ter tends rather to encrease than diminish the political 
 danger.' 
 
 * A great evil. Not only because the country is drained 
 by remittances, but because she is widowed of her natural 
 'protectors ; the loss is not of money (only) but manners— 
 not of wealth (alone) but of civilization and peace.' 
 
 I am so strongly impressed with a conviction that the 
 absence of so many men of rank, property, respectability 
 and influence, has been productive of deep and incal- 
 culable injury to the morals, habits, situation, and po- 
 litical feelings of the lower orders of the Irish people, 
 and to the national as well as individual happiness and 
 prosperity ; that I do not think it possible for any legisla- 
 tive measures to restore and preserve tranquillity to the 
 country, and render it prosperous, so long as the people 
 shall continue to be deprived of the example and influ- 
 ence of the greater part of that order of society which 
 are so influential, (nay indispensible) in creating, encou- 
 raging, and preserving in them " that love of justice 
 and true perception of it, — that obedience to the laws, 
 that respect for authority, — to form that sobei'ly and or- 
 derly conduct — which were, and which are, in an emi- 
 nent degree, the peculiar characteristic of the people of 
 England." 
 
 For a detailed examination into the various ill conse- 
 quences to Ireland, social, moral, financial, and political, 
 arising from the number of her absentee proprietors, I 
 refer the reader to a pamphlet published by Rodwell and 
 Martin, London, 1820, entitled " The Absentee," &c. 
 In that essay it is estimated, that the money spent out of 
 Ireland bv absentees amounted to two millions sterlinff.
 
 62 
 
 Mr. Parker, in his " Plea for the Poor and Industrious," 
 is of opinion, that it amounts to near four millions. 
 
 Resident Unfortunately for themselves, as well as for their te- 
 eentry^'and ^^^^^^^^^'y* the resident as well as? the absentee proprietors of 
 magistrates, Ireland have too frequently lived heyojid, and almost in- 
 variably lived up to, the full amount of their rent roll, 
 even when their rentals were at the highest rate of war 
 prices ; which of necessity has obliged them to raise the 
 rent of the immediate occupant of the land beyond what 
 his profits have enabled him to pay : — the natural and ine- 
 vitable result has been, that both absentee and resident 
 landlords were divided from the people by the necessities 
 of an improvident expenditure, which made them greedy 
 for high rents, easily to he obtained in the competition of an 
 ove7'-crovoded population, but not paid without grudging 
 and bitterness of heart. The extravagance of the land- 
 lord has but one resource — high rents. The peasant had 
 but one means of living — the land. He must give what 
 is demanded, or starve ; and at best he did no more than 
 barely escape starving. His life was a struggle against 
 high rents, by secret combination and open violence. 
 That of the landlord was a struggle to be paid, and to 
 preserve his right of changing his tenantry when, and as 
 often as he pleased. In this conflict the landlord was not 
 always wrong, nor the peasant always right. The indul- 
 gent landlord was sometimes not better treated than the 
 harsh one, nor low rents better paid than high. The 
 habits of the people were depraved." Thoughts, &c. on 
 Education, p. 44-. 
 
 In consequence of improvident expenditure; — family 
 settlements, &c. proportioned to a rental rapidly and 
 greatly augmented by war prices ; — to expensive lawsuits- 
 peace, and the consequent fall of rents ; — and other causes,
 
 63 
 
 many of our resident proprietors have become emba*« 
 rassed in their circumstances, and could not, sufficiently 
 early, make those abatements in rent, or afford that timely 
 assistance to their impoverished tenantry, which justice 
 and humanity, and even self-interest, require. Some of 
 them also, not unfrequently, have set their tenantry and 
 inferiors a bad example, in their endeavours to evade 
 the payment of their just debts, and in infringing the 
 laws, or opposing the execution of them ; and what is still 
 worse, have too often made the peasantry their instru- 
 ments in obstructing or punishing the officers of justice in 
 the discharge of their duty. 
 
 Grand Jury presentments, quarter sessions business, or 
 political, religious, or local differences, have also afforded 
 endless opportunities for magistrates to support their res- 
 pective tenants and dependants by bailing or defending 
 them, or taking an interest in their favour ; sometimes 
 on occasions, and to an extent, not strictly consonant to 
 the rigid principles of impartial justice. " Your honor 
 will not support me," said an indignant peasant to an up- 
 right Irish magistrate, who had taken some trouble to as- 
 certain the merits of the case, " because you say I am not 
 
 in the right." Oh ! I wish to J I lived under Mr. 
 
 for he supports his people be they right or be they 
 
 isorong." 
 
 Contested elections, and the formation or augmenta- 
 tion of an interest in the county, by the inconsiderate and 
 boundless increase of 40^. freeholders, have proved alike 
 injurious to the tranquillity and true interest of the landed 
 proprietor ajod his wretched freeholders. To the latter, 
 the power of voting has besB a mere Eoockery of the 
 elective franchise ; for, in the words of Judge Fletcher, in
 
 64 
 
 his memorable charge to the Grand Juiy of Wexford m 
 1814, " they are driven to the hustings, and there, col- 
 lected, like sheep in a pen ; they must poll for the great 
 undertaker, who has purchased them by his jobs, and 
 this is frequently done, with little regard to convenience,; 
 or duty, or real vahie of the alleged freehold."* 
 
 in his reflections on the past and present state of Ire- 
 land, the reader must never lose sight of the important 
 facts, that but a small proportion of the population are 
 of the Established Religion ; — that the Catholics, accord- 
 ing to the assertions of their leaders and advocates, form 
 five-sixths of that population ; — and that the latter pay 
 tythe to the clergy of the former. 
 
 Protestant In describing the Protestant Clergy, the author of 
 ^""KT- (( Thoughts, &c. on the Education of the Peasantry, page 
 24," says, " There is no where a more highly respect- 
 able and exemplary body of men than the Irish Pro- 
 testant Clergy. They are particularly useful in those 
 parts of Ireland where there are few resident gentry ; 
 they supply in some measure the place of these, and are 
 indeed more in the nature of country gentlemen, living 
 upon their tythes, as upon their estates, than of a Chris- 
 tian priesthood, busied in the peculiar duties of their va- 
 cation, in which, as far as regards a Protestant flock, they 
 may have little or no occupation.f Alms, it may be, are 
 distributed to the poor, and medicines given to the sick. 
 To this he generally adds the secular dignity and the bus- 
 
 » I recommend to the reader's perusal a short but admirable letter from 
 Lord Carberry to the editor of the Munster Farmer's Magazine, Oct. 20, 
 1818, on the population and employment of the poor of Ireland. 
 
 + It is evident that this description relates to the Protestant Clergy resi- 
 dent among a Catholic population.-
 
 63 
 
 tie of : ?i justice of t^e peace:-— and there bav-^ been 
 ui^tances where he. has accuniulated the, one would 
 think incongruoits honors, the splendid arrayment, the 
 scarlet and gold, and the glittering steel of a yeomanry 
 captain." 
 
 " We are far from denying his usefulness in all these 
 capacities ; some of them, too, have devolved upon him 
 almost of necessity. But we are obliged to contend for 
 the truth ; that they do injure and retard the advance- 
 ment and cultivation of Religion, and of Protestantism in 
 Ireland. Let it be supposed, that there is more light and 
 truth, more of the genuine unmixed spirit of the Gospel, 
 in the faith and forms of the Reformed Church ; by what 
 channel is it to reach the cottages of the peasantry ?" 
 
 " The Catholic Priest has about him all the signs of his Catholic 
 important vocation, and none other. Pie is seen to be 
 occupied wholly, and devoted exclusively to the minis- 
 trations of his office ; he has no other pursuit or employ- 
 ment. There is more of sympathy too between the order 
 and condition of the peasant and that of the Catholic 
 priest; the latter is more used to the humilities of life 
 than the Protestant clergyman. He is one of the people, 
 speaking their language, and intimately acquainted with 
 
 their manners and habits But taken as he is, almost 
 
 exclusively, from among the sons of the lower class of far- 
 mers, he is himself, perhaps, tainted with the vices of the 
 populace ; to a near contact with which he was exposed in 
 early life... Their habits do not shock his taste, not elevated 
 bythe spiritof the Gospel, nor refined by polite association; 
 and he is content to leave them in those vices' in which 
 he found them. He is satisfied if things are not glaringly 
 bad; he looks upon projects of improvement as generally 
 hopeless and chimerical ; the troublesome fooleries of vi- 
 
 K
 
 66 
 
 sionary men ; and he regards the barbarity of his flock as 
 too long established for change. He has besides an un- 
 defined idea, that improvement of any kind must tend to 
 endanger that pcwer over the people^ which he values as the 
 basis of family or personal aggrandizement. He adopts, 
 in all their extent, the prejudices of his church against 
 innovation, and does not scruple to oppose this dreaded 
 enemy with arms of a doubtful character — the dubious le- 
 gends of the saints, or the fabulous miracles of the dark 
 ages. But the Bible is the spectre the most appalling 
 in the eyes of this pastor ; he is for evermore in arms 
 against this mighty innovator ; he disputes every inch of 
 ground, and is no sooner dislodged from one position 
 than he takes up another, for which he contends with the 
 same spirit and devotedness. We have known men of 
 this class sustaining themselves by worse than doubtful 
 measures, assuming to perform miraculous cures, and 
 practising the grossest deceptions upon the poor and ig- 
 norant." 
 
 I fully coincide with the author of the above observa- 
 tions, when he next observes that " the Catholic church 
 counts amongst her members characters of the most ex- 
 alted piety, and of the purest disinterestedness, and 
 which do honor to human nature." 
 
 Peasantry In describing the peasantry of Ireland I must again 
 o re an . jj^^^.g recourse to the nervous language of the " Sketch, 
 &c." p. 30. 
 
 *' The cultivator of the land seldom holds from the in- 
 heritor ; between them stand a series of sub- landlords 
 and tenants, each receiving a profit from his lease, but 
 having no further interest or connexion with the soil ; the 
 last in the series must provide for the profits of all — he
 
 67 
 
 therefore parcels out, at rack-rents, the land to his mi- 
 serable tenants. Here is no yeomanry — (in the English 
 acceptation of the word) — no agricultural capitalist ; no 
 deeree between the landlord and labourer; the words 
 peasantry" and " poor" synonimously employed. 
 
 "h 
 (( 
 
 " They are generally of the Roman Catholic religion. Their reli- 
 bttt utterly and disgracefully ignorant — few among them^'*'"' 
 can read ; fewer write. The Irish language, a barbarous 
 jargon," (the admirers of it would call the writer a Goth, 
 for they deem it the most harmonious and expressive lan- 
 guage in the world) " is generally, and in some districts, 
 exclusively spoken : and with it are retained customs 
 and superstitions as barbarous. Popish legends and 
 pagan tradition are confounded and revered : for certain 
 holy wells and sacred places they have extraordinary res- 
 pect : thither crowd the sick for cure, and the sinful for 
 expiation ; and their priests, deluded or deluding, enjoin 
 these pilgrimages as penance, or applaud them, when 
 voluntary, a.s piety. The religion of such a people is not 
 to be confounded with one of the same name professed 
 by the enlightened nations of Europe. The University 
 of Paris has some tenets, in common, perhaps, with the 
 Irish papist, but does it believe that water restores the 
 cripple, enlightens the blind, or purifies the guilty ?" 
 
 " Their dress is mean and squalid, particularly of the Dress. 
 
 females oi personal cleanliness they have no care. The 
 
 children are generally half naked, Jiving without distinc- 
 tion of sexes, in dirt and mire, almost with the cattle. 
 Yet from this nakedness and filth they grow up to Uiat 
 strength and stature for which they are admirable !" 
 
 " Their dwellings are of primitive and easy construe- Cwellinga. 
 tion — the walls and floors of clav, the roof of wood or
 
 68 
 
 thatch witliin are two unequal divisions; in the smaller, 
 
 filthy and unfurnished, you will hardly suppose the whole 
 family to sleep ; in the larger, on a hearth without grate or 
 chimney, a scanty fire warms rather by its smoke than by its 
 blaze, and discolours whatever it warms. Glazed win- 
 dows there are none" (there is an aperture for one, which 
 is usually stopped up with straw, rags, &c.) " the open 
 door amply sufficing for light and air to those who are 
 careless of either. Furniture they neither have nor 
 want ; their food and its preparation are simple ; potatoes 
 (almost invariably) or oaten cakes (seldom), sour milk 
 (only occasionally) and salted fish (very rarely indeed). 
 In drink they are not so temperate : of all spirituous li- 
 quors they are immoderately fond, but most of whiskey, 
 the distilled extract of fermented corn. In many dis- 
 tricts, b}' an ingenious and simple process, they prepare 
 this liquor themselves, but clandestinely, and to the 
 great injury of national morals and revenue." 
 
 Illicit dis- Judge Fletcher told the Wexford jury that " the re- 
 tiUation, gi(]gj^(. gentry of the county generally wmked with both 
 their eyes at illicit distillation, and why? Because it 
 brought home to the door of their tenantry a market for 
 their corn, and consequently increased the rent of their 
 lands — besides, they were themselves consumers of these 
 liquors, and in every town and village there was an un- 
 licensed house (several) for retailing them. The con- 
 sumption of spirits produced such pernicious effects, that 
 at length the executive powers deemed it high time to put 
 an end to the system. The consequence was, that the 
 people, rendered ferocious by the use of those liquors, 
 and accustomed to lawless habits, resorted to force, re- 
 sisted the laws, opposed the military, and hence have re- 
 sulted riots, assaults and murders." 
 
 (( 
 
 In agricultural pursuits (Sketch, p. 32) they are
 
 69 
 
 neither active nor expert; hereditary indolence would 
 incline them to employ their lands in pasturage, and it 
 is often more easy to induce them to take arms for their 
 country, or against it, than to cultivate the earth, or 
 w^ait upon the seasons." 
 
 " The Irish peasant thinks not of independence ; — he 
 dreams not of property, unless in dreams of insurrection. 
 His wishes have no scope ; he is habituated to derive from 
 his land and his labour, only his daily potato : and we 
 know that competitors offer the whole value of the produce, 
 minus that daily potato — sometimes more than the whole 
 is promised, and nothing paid ; the tenant, for a few months, 
 appeases his hunger ; quarter-day approaches, he ab- 
 sconds ; and the absentee landlord in Dublin or London 
 exclaims at the knavery of an Irish tenant." 
 
 The landlords' resource is then in the Middlemen : now, Middlemen. 
 in the words of an intelligent, anonymous writer — " the 
 peasantry of Ireland have by landlords, middlemen, and 
 the letters of con-acres, been reduced to great distress ; 
 and every ten or twelve years they attempt an emancipation 
 from all control and all payments ; the landlords, their 
 middlemen and con- acre letters, become frightened — they 
 reduce their prices for the moment, and the population, 
 thinned a little by the executioner, the musket, and the 
 convict ship, returns to a species of armed peace. Both 
 parties, however, soon forget the wholesome lesson just 
 taught — one side is soon absurd enough to expect what 
 cs\X\not be paid, the other become hungry and desperate 
 (^npugh to promise what they cannot pay. — Indulgence 
 .is.taken by force on one side, and given with reluctance 
 on, the other; but payment must at last, if not enforced, 
 be sought, and again the bubble bursts,— rfire and sword 
 again cover the country."
 
 70 
 
 The demand for Irish linens, butter, beef, corn, &c. &c. 
 raises the price of the land from which they are derived — 
 a brisk export trade is carried on, — and the country is 
 pronounced to be improving and prosperous : — this might 
 be true if our people enjoyed a just proportion of those pro- 
 ducts of our soil, and that we merely exported the surplus 
 of them. But how can that country be considered im- 
 proving or prosperous, whose peasantry are in rags, and 
 fed on potatoes from the commencement to the end of the 
 year ; and rarelj', if ever, partake of any of those articles 
 for which they toil, and live, like the beasts of the field, to 
 produce from their little spot of ground at a rack-rent ? 
 
 " In what land shall we meet with such a combination 
 of unhappy circumstances tending to excite every bad 
 passion, and to impress every evil habit ? A land from 
 which the marks and the remembrances of its civil broils 
 have not yet passed away; — poor and oppressed with 
 burdens ; — drained by its absentees ; — without industry, 
 
 and swarming with a most improvident population 
 
 Their religion is the observance of a few idle ceremonies, 
 and terror of the priest. Their allegiance is terror of 
 the law." — Thoughts on Education, p. ]5. 
 
 " Domestic economy, agricultural improvement, the 
 love and knowledge of the laws, the detection and ex- 
 pulsion of superstition, the growth and influence of true 
 piety, who can expect them among a people, utterly dark 
 and blind, of four millions — the probable population — 
 (6,846,949 according to the census of 1821) one million 
 perhaps can write and read— of this million three-fourths 
 are Protestants and Prosestant Dissenters : there remains 
 a solid mass of dangerous and obstinate ig7iorance — not ail- 
 but chiefly Catholic."
 
 71 
 
 This, to many, may appear to be an illiberal and incor- 
 rect assertion on the part of the Author of * the Sketch, 
 &c.' but I fear that the following returns, for the accuracy 
 of which I can vouch, will, unhappily, confirm the truth 
 of them beyond controversy : — 
 
 In the month of October 1819, there were in the Adult 
 Female Penitentiary in Dublin, 56 prisoners ; 
 Of these there were Protestants 3 
 
 Catholics 53 
 
 —56 
 
 In the Penitentiary for Young Criminals there were 
 105 prisoners ; 
 
 Of these there were Protestants 9 
 
 Catholics 96 
 
 —105 
 
 In 1819, the convict ship, Bencoolen, sailed from the 
 
 Cove of Cork with 150 convicts for New South Wales; 
 
 Of these there were Protestants 4 
 
 Catholics 146 
 
 -ISO 
 
 In March 1820, the Hadlow, Captain Craigie, sailed 
 
 from the Cove of Cork also with 150 convicts ; 
 
 Of these there were Protestants 3 
 
 Catholics 147 
 
 150 
 
 In the eloquent language of Mr. Attorney General 
 Plunket, " what maj"^ be the Jbrm of the religion of the 
 several classes of the people, I care not to inquire. — If 
 the pririciples of Christianity prevail ; if the sense of obe- 
 dience to a sup-erne ruler of the "world; if the conviction of 
 the existence of a future state, in which rewards and punish-
 
 72 
 
 7yie7its'aredi'str{huted^'be'KepiaUiJi in Hie minds of the people 
 they^ will never become the' i7istrumenls for the commission of 
 abominable crimes: — But if these sentiments be extin- 
 guished, if they shall be taught to cast off all regard for 
 a future world, the ties which bind them to earth, as well 
 as to Heaven, are rent asunder." 
 
 The numerous quotations I have given convey so un- 
 favourable a character of the Irish peasantry, that I am 
 afraid they will be considered as the too highly coloured and 
 distorted misrepresentations of Protestant bigotry. I 
 shall therefore lay before the reader a description of 
 them from " A proposal for the advancement of Religious 
 Knowledge, and the Reformation of Morals, by a Roman 
 Catholic Clergyman" (Dublin 1820) p. 17—" The less 
 disorderlj^ of the peasantry are in the habit of loitering 
 during their leisure hours, in their cabins, or in the hedges 
 when the season permits ; but the greater number assemble 
 in one or other of the meanest and least respectable houses 
 in their neighbourhood, where the evening isgenerally spent 
 in playing cards, in indecent diversions, lewd songs, obscene 
 convei'sation, and the like irregularities. But if a tefltif-^-,* 
 or a dance, the favorite scenes of amusement, be within 
 reach, the youth of both sexes flock thither from a con- 
 siderable distance, where the greater part of the night is 
 spent in such sports and 2ixa\x'^Q.\nQ.w\s, as are shocking to 
 common decency^ utterly destructive of morality and 7'eligion, 
 and are better suited to a company of bacchanalians than 
 an assembly of Christians There is good reason for 
 
 • " Wake, ill Ireland, means night watching over a corpse, observed for 
 two; and sometimes three nights, which, by the custom of the cbuntry.-ia- 
 tervene between decease and interment."— What are we to think of the Re- 
 ligion of the Catholic peasantry from the account here given by a Catholic 
 Clergyman of their condust during their 7iight watchings over n corpse ,'"
 
 73 
 
 believing, tliat not only ordinarij luces, hut crimes of tTie 
 blackest die and loorst consequences^ originate in these aS' 
 setnblies." 
 
 ** Who will call this people civilized, or wonder that 
 they are turbulent?" Mr. Plowden, a Roman Catholic 
 conveyancer, in the ' Case Stated,' admits " that tlie 
 zealots for scditioji and anarch}) have found them ready ma- 
 terials to work on" 
 
 The highly gifted Attorney General of Ireland, the 
 Right Hon. W. C. Plunket, feelingly observed, that " It 
 is a melancholy and disheartening thing, that our wretched 
 peasantry can be deluded by such arts, and that they 
 should be thus imposed upon after such miserable exam- 
 ples. Forhalf a century attempts have been made upon 
 the infatuated people of this country. What has been 
 the consequence ? Disgrace to the perpetrators ; failure 
 of their plans ; ruin and death to themselves. Yet what 
 is the condition of the poor unliappy people of this coun- 
 try ? As soon as any disaffected mountebank appears, j^f'O- 
 claiming his laws a7id imaginary benefits, they become the 
 isoilling instruments of his schemes and their own destruction. 
 Is it possible that the}' can for a moment imagine, that a 
 great empire like this, armed with the law, protected by 
 an ariny, with a regular administration of justice — ai'e 
 they so infatuated as to imagine, all these will yield to a 
 few miscreants like those, under whom they have enlisted 
 themselves ?" 
 
 ' In speaking as I do, with indignation for those crimes, 
 
 L
 
 74 
 
 i feel compassion, from the very bottom of my lieart, for 
 the victims of them. Seeing the mischiefs which have 
 been spreading in the country by artifices of miscreants, 
 it does not surprise me at all, that many persons should 
 be of opinion, that measures more summary shotdd have been 
 adopted for the purpose of at once extinguishing these mis- 
 chiefs. I am satisfied that the opinion of such men was 
 dictated by a feeling of the truest regard for the interests 
 of their country ; of genuine compassion and mercy to- 
 wards the unfortunate delinquents themselves." 
 
 The truly amiable ex Chief Justice Dowries, on the trial 
 of the Threshers, above alluded to by Mr. Plunkett, ob- 
 served that, " the experience of every man must satisfy 
 him, that it is not difficult for artful and designing men to 
 hold out to a deluded populace flattering hopes of a 
 change of their situation, incapable of being realized, and " 
 often not desirable if they could; and under pretences, 
 seducing in their nature, to cover designs the most atro- 
 cious, and which are often concealed from those who by 
 their numbers are intended to be made the instruments of 
 effecting objects, 'which, if openly stated to them, they 'would 
 shrink from 'with horrar. Some are thus seduced, and many, 
 as their numbers increase, are compelled by terror, to enter 
 into associations and tumultuous assemblies, often under 
 the control of persons, of whom most of them were as 
 ignorant, as they are of the real views with which they act. 
 This deplorable mischief, the source of every thing that 
 is miserable, the law endeavours to jirevent or suppress by 
 strong provisions.'* 
 
 That many of the present as well as of the past dis- 
 turbances, misfortunes, and heart burnings of Ireland, 
 are justly to be attributed to the mischievous and fatal in-
 
 75 
 
 fluence of ambitious or unprincipled men, who, under the 
 mask of the greatest pubhc regard for others, seek only 
 aggrandizement, or rule, or licentiousness for them- 
 selves, will, I think, be admitted by every dispassionate 
 mind that has calmly and maturely reviewetl the events 
 narrated in these pages. If, liowever, the unprejudiced 
 reader should require further proof of the existence of 
 such injurious influence, it may be clearly traced by a 
 reference to the records of the most important public oc- 
 currences in Ireland during the last forty years. I con- 
 fine myself to the last forty years, because the various Retrospect, 
 contests between the native Irish and the English settlers, 
 narrated in the early part of this work, speak for them- 
 selves. With regard to the rebellion of 1 64- J, Mr. Par - 
 nell admits, ' that in James's reign the Catholic religion 
 had assumed a very decided influence on men's minds ; — 
 in Charles I.'s reign this continued to increase ; — in both 
 reiens it was adverse to the Government.' And that 
 " after this it would be idle to deny that Catholic higotnj 
 had a very large share in exciting and prolonging the rebel- 
 lion in Ireland.'" Hist. Apology, p. 121. The events which 
 produced, and those which followed the revolution of 1688, 
 require no elucidation. It will be sufficient to remind the 
 reader that, in 1729 the Catholic bishops of Ireland applied 
 for, and obtained, a bull from the pope, to raise money for 
 the sale of indulgences, to be speedily applied to restore 
 James III. to his right; and to recal to his recollection the 
 observations of Thos. Burke, titular Bishop of Ossory, on 
 the oath of allegiance in 1 759 ; and, that at this time the Le- 
 vellers and White Boijs commenced that secret, systematic, 
 terrific, and bloody course of mob legislation, whicli has 
 ever since continued to be the bane and disgrace of Ireland. 
 
 I shall therefore, as I have already observed, confine
 
 76 
 
 myself to the recorded transactions of the last 40 years, 
 for proofs that our discontented and demoralized state is, 
 in no inconsiderable degree, to be attributed to the credu- 
 lous and infatuated peasantry of this country having lent 
 a ready ear to every discontented or "disaffected mounte- 
 bank who has appeared," and having " become the v^^il- 
 ling instruments of his schemes, and their own destruc- 
 tion." 
 
 1779. The Vohinteers o^ 1779, from being the protectors of 
 their country, soon merged into political agitators ; and in 
 
 1783. 1783, as " National Guards," under the command of 
 Napper Tand}', Dowling, and Bacon the tailor, medi- 
 tated the subversion of the constitution. 
 
 The Defenders were aided by the Catholic Committee of 
 17S3. 1793, and Tone, the secretary of the latter, "was detected 
 in a conspiracy with the Rev. Mr. Jackson in the year 
 1 794, for bringing the French into Ireland ; but was per- 
 mitted, through the mistaken lenity of Government, to 
 transport himself" Musgrave, v. 1. p. 96. 
 
 The Secret Committee of the House of Lords, in 1797, 
 declared, " that the leaders and directors of the United 
 Irishmen^ are wow, and have been for some time past^ 
 anxiously engaged in uniting with them a class of men 
 who had formerly disturbed the peace of this country 
 bi/ acts of outrage^ robbery and murder, under the appel- 
 lation of Defenders'* 
 
 The reader may form an opinion of the spirit of com- 
 motion which their leaders endeavoured to excite among 
 the Catholic multitude, as early as January, i792, when 
 their warm and uniform friend. Sir Hercules Langrishe,
 
 77 
 
 said in the House of Commons, " That notwithstanding 
 my prepossessions in favour of the Roman Cathohcs, I 
 was checked for some time in my ardour to serve them, by 
 reading of late a multitude of publications and paragraphs 
 in the newspapers, and other papers circulated gratis, 
 with the utmost industry, purporting to convey the sen- 
 timents of the Catholics. What was their import? They 
 were exhortations to the people never to be satisfied at 
 any concession till the State itself was conceded ; they isoere 
 pr-ecautions against public tranquillity ; they "isoere in~ 
 vitations to disorder, and covenants of discontent ; they 
 •were ostejitations of strength, rather than solicitations Jb)^ 
 favours : rather appeals to the jwxvers of the people than 
 applications to the authority of the state : they involved the 
 relief of the Catholic laith the revolution of the Government : 
 and ivere dissertations for democracy, rather than arguments 
 for taleration.^^ 
 
 Mi\ Plowden, a Roman Catholic conveyancer, in a 
 book entitled " The Case stated," argues, " If any one 
 says or pretends to insinuate, that the modern Roman 
 Catholics, who are the objects of the late bounty of Par- 
 liament, differ in one iota from their predecessors, he is 
 either deceived himself, or he wishes to deceive others. 
 " SemjJer cadem" is more emphatically descriptive of our 
 religion than of our jurisprudence." 
 
 " After the passing of the bill of 1 793 for their relief, 
 which bill, be it remembered, gave them more than their 
 committee had asked in their idtimatum of 4th February, 
 1792, all was gratitude and joy. That bill gave them 
 the elective franchise, unqualified, which the year before 
 they had solicited under certain restrictions of their own 
 proposing ; and it made them eligible to every office in the 
 state, with the exception of those enumerated in the 33d 
 Geo. III. and of the privilege of sitting in Parliament.
 
 7S 
 
 Such were the important ' concessions' of 1793, which 
 their leaders at the time received with professions of the 
 greatest gratitude, and the most entire content. ' By this 
 act,' says their historian, Mr. Plowden, ' the present 
 state of the Catholics of Ireland is settled.'' What has fol- 
 lowed ? The country has never been settled from that day 
 to this." See a Refutation of the Statement of the Penal 
 Laws, page 3. 
 
 The following fact afFoi'ds the most convincing proof 
 that the j^^ople of Ireland, (though they are too prone to 
 enter into illegal associations for the redress of whatever 
 they consider a grievance, ) are not naturally disposed to 
 rebellion, and that they do not engage in it, unless ex- 
 cited and goaded on by factious and unprincipled men. 
 
 1796. " The plan of invasion which the French attempted at 
 
 Bantry was settled at an interview which took place in 
 Switzerland in the summer of 1796, between Lord Ed- 
 ward Fitzgerald, Mr. Arthur O'Connor, and General 
 Hoche." 
 
 " From the disaffection of the lower class of people 
 during the insurrection of the White Boys and Right Boys 
 in Munster, it was a matter of great astonishment that 
 they remained tranquil and. apparently loyal, while the 
 French hovered on the coast ; but the acknowledgment of 
 one of the Irish Directory before the secret committee of 
 the House of Lords fully accounts for it." 
 
 " He declared upon oath, that in the month of October 
 or November 1796, the French Repiddic announced by a 
 special messenger to the Irish Union, that the hostile ar- 
 mament was in a state of preparation ; but in a few days 
 after the departure of the messenger from Paris with this 
 intelligence, the Irish Directory received a letter from
 
 r>» 
 
 79 
 
 France, which was considered by them as authentic, stat 
 ing, that the projected descent was postponed till spring, 
 when England and Ireland would be invaded at the same 
 time." 
 
 This threw the Irish Directory off their guard : — in 
 consequence of which, no measures were taken to prepare 
 the people of Munster for the reception of the French /" 
 Musg. V. 1, p. 19'8. 
 
 If the reader will recalto his memory the names of the 1798. 
 leaders of the rebellion of 1798, he will at once agree with 
 me, that the people of Ireland did not enter into it without 
 being dull/ pirepared by ambitious and unprincipled men. It 
 is equally evident that the people were not sufficiently pre- 
 pared for the explosion of 1803, or it would not have 1803. 
 been short in its duration, — " contemptible in its actions," 
 — though it was " serious in its imsonndcd depth, and w«- 
 knoxvn extent." 
 
 In 1807 Mr. Grattan declai'ed, in the British House of i807. 
 Commons, that he was informed that " meetings of a trea^ 
 S07iable nature were held in Ireland" and that he was cer- 
 tain, " that there was a French party in Ireland." 
 
 Mr. Peele, on July 8, 1814, stated in the House of 1814, 
 Commons, that " he had read an oath, for which no less 
 than six convictions took place at the assizes of West- 
 raeath, the purport of which was to be true to Bonaparte. 
 He had hoped that peace would have overpowered and over- 
 come all such absurd specidations as adherence to the despot 
 of another country, but he had recently learned, that similar 
 combinations wei-e still formijig in Ireland."* Mr. Baring's 
 observations on this occasion appear to be harsh, but, 
 
 • Part of one of the Ribbonmen's oaths (of 1820) which I have seen, was 
 " To assist the French, or any other power, that is endeavouring to free us 
 from the tyrannical laws of Geo. III."
 
 80 
 
 unhappily, the records of our country prove, that the 
 censure he passes on Ireland is not without foundation. 
 He is reported to have said, " that the Right Hon. Gen- 
 tleman opposite must be a shallow politician if he could 
 have expected that the fall of Bonaparte would terminate 
 the disaffection which exists in Ireland. The names 
 which the disaffected at various times had given to thera- 
 sselve were of little importance ; but the truth was, the 
 ^oinilation of Ireland bore that enmity to our institutions^ 
 that they cared not iioith isohom they united against them ; — 
 and he believed if the Grand Turk were to raise his stand- 
 ard in Ireland, they would not hesitate to join him." 
 
 On July 13, 1814, Mr. Peele declared in the House 
 of Commons, " that among the many causes which had 
 contributed to keep alive the spirit of discontent and irri- 
 tation, and to foment disturbances in Ireland, was the ex- 
 aggerated statements which were constantly made to the 
 people of the grievances under which they were supposed 
 to labour." 
 
 The Leaders of the Catholics of Ireland cannot, I think, 
 reasonably object to my establishing the truth of Mr. 
 Peel's assertion, by quotations from the Preface to the 
 trial of their talented journalist, Mr. John Magee, and 
 from materials furnished by the records of their resolu- 
 tions, speeches, and conduct at their public meetings;* 
 
 • For detailed accounts of the proceedings of the Catholic leaders, I shall 
 refer the reader to The Dublin Evening Post ; — to the speeches of the Right 
 Hon. W. W. Pole in the Houseof Commons on the 8th March, 1811, and 
 the 3d Feb 1812; — to " Prudence true Patriotism," — to " A Refutation of 
 the Statement of the Penal Laws ;" — to " A Commentary on the Proceed- 
 ings of the Roman Catholics of Ireland during the reign of Geo. III.;" — 
 and to " A Brief Review of the Duke of Richmond's Administration as 
 Lord Lieutenantof Ireland, from April 1807 to August 1813."
 
 81 
 
 and I appeal to every unprejudiced person who will take 
 the trouble to read and reflect on the accounts of those 
 transactions, for the truth or fallacy of my statements, 
 the fairness or injustice of my conclusions. 
 
 At page 18 of the Preface of his Trial for a libel on 
 the Duke of Richmond, Mr. Magee, with great truth 
 and ability, observes — " It lias been already remarked, 
 that all political power was taken from the hands of the 
 Irish aristocracy (at the Union), their local authority was 
 diminished to that of mere lords of the manor, or justices 
 of the peace : their authority in the state was gone for 
 ever. But though these were destroyed, there was ano- 
 ther formidable POWER arising in the country, a 
 POWER which possessed a unity of principle — which 
 was corroborated by misfortunes — which was bound too-e- 
 ther teres atque rotundus, by the strongest of all ties, a com- 
 miniity of religious opinions. This power was the CA- 
 THOLIC POWER of Ireland. While a Parliament ex- 
 isted the people were divided, by various questions agitated 
 in the Senate : a reform in the Commons, a commutation 
 of tythes, even a Police Bill that could only affect the city 
 of Dublin, dissipated popular attention. Emancipation, 
 it is true, was always a great measure, but it was only one 
 of the great measui'es in agitation. The attention dif- 
 fused upon the circumference, now radiates^ forgive the 
 philosophy of the metaphor, to the centre. The Irish viind 
 has called, i^i its ^^o/zVic^Z scouts ; — it has now consolidated 
 all its forces to a single point It bears upon a single ob- 
 ject, and, let it always be rememheredy there is now, what- 
 ever there may be in intention, no hostile aristocracy^ in 
 Jact, to resist the impetus of public opiyiion, or to interjh'e 
 between the executive and the people." 
 
 This great truth the government of the Duke of Rich-
 
 82 
 
 niond did not perceive, or seeing it, did not estimate at its 
 proper value. In the mean time the Catholics assembled 
 in aggregate meetings, in counties, and in committees. They 
 petition — their petition is rejected. They proceed, to con- 
 solidate and organize their body ; they form a General Com- 
 mittee ; it is attacked by the Convention Act, and, after 
 tx<oo pinals, a doubtfid victory is obtained (by Government) 
 —an aggregate meeting is called — the very self same Com- 
 mittee is voted a Board, and in the opinion, we understand, 
 of all the Crown lawyers but one, the board is totally out 
 of the pale of the obnoxious act ! 
 
 " In short the public mind, is, at this moment, (181.S) m a 
 state of disquietude and discontent, such as have not been 
 experienced in Ireland since the passing of the Union" 
 
 How fully, though unintentionally, does this statement 
 corroborate the assertion in Mr. Pole's speech of 
 February 3, 1812, "That every possible effort, every 
 factious art was used to mislead the people of Ire- 
 land, and of England, by confounding what was called 
 the Catholic question, with the measures to which the 
 Lord Lieutenant has been compelled to resort to 
 maintain the public tranquillity. The Lord Lieutenant 
 thought that his duty consisted in maintaining the laws of 
 the land ; — in enforcing obedience to those latvs ; — and in 
 taking care that equal justice was admijiistercd to all classes 
 of his Majesty'' s subjects whom he was appointed to goverri ,- 
 and I can assure the House, that the Lord Lieutenant 
 and his advisers found they had quite enough to do i7i per- 
 forming those duties, without entering into abstract specu- 
 lations about altei'ing the constitution." 
 
 " At an Aggregate Meeting of Freemen and Free- 
 holders of Dublin, 18th Sept. 1810, at which a great 
 number of Catholic gentlemen were present, among 
 others Mr. O'Connell, who took an active part upon that
 
 83 
 
 occasion, as well as at the Meeting which I shall next allude 
 to, it was resolved, with acclamation, 
 
 ** That our excellent and amiable Vicero}', his Grace 
 the Duke of Richmond, lias, by the uniform conciliation 
 and iLHsdom of his conduct, merited the gratitude and 
 thanks of the Irish Nation." — Butj 
 
 " At a very numerous Aggregate Meeting of the Ca- 
 tholics of Ireland, on the 26th Dec. 1811, after its being 
 resolved that their General Committee had been forcibly 
 and illegally obstructed and outraged, by the orders of his 
 Grace the Duke of Richmond, it was resolved, 
 
 " That, in the measures pursued by the administration 
 oi lvQ\ax\d, Jbr some years, we have observed with regret 
 and indignation, a spirit of progressive intemperance and 
 exasperating intolerance, arising from the impolicy of those 
 rulers, as well as from their ignorance of the country they 
 have undertaken to govern." — Mr. Pole, Feb. 3, 1812, p. 60. 
 
 " They represent themselves as forming five-sixths of 
 the population of Ireland. The number of persons of 
 that religion qualified to sit in Parliament, from learning, 
 talents, and property, are estimated at 30,000 ! and their 
 Clergy, who it was stated ought to be provided for by 
 the State, without any condition or limitation, amounted 
 to 2,000." 
 
 " The Catholic Convention stated themselves to be the 
 representatives of four millions of Roman Catholics, — 
 who occupy the most valuable positions, whether for 
 commercial, or for military purjwses ; the boldest coasts, 
 most navigable rivers, and -most tenable passes-, the most, 
 fertile districts, the richest supplies of forage, the readiest 
 means of attack or defence." — Ibid. p. 21.
 
 84 
 
 *' During one of the violent debates which took place in 
 the Committee, after some language of a peculiarly in- 
 flammatory and seditious nature had been used, one of the 
 members called out to a person who was taking notes, and 
 said, ' we are going too far, you had better not take that 
 down.' The note taker replied, ' I thought so myself, and 
 had already shut my book.' — Ibid. p. 16. 
 
 It is not therefore to be wondered at that Government, 
 and the Protestant body at large, were at length alarmed ; 
 for Lord Ffrench himself had, in consequence of the 
 violence of their proceedings, seceded from the Com- 
 mittee, and had used the emphatic expression, ' Ireland 
 is sick of this business ; do you mean to erect yourselves 
 into a 'perpetual Parliament r" Lord Fingal had also 
 withdrawn himself from them,* and it was the remnant, 
 whose violence had disgusted these noblemen, and the 
 moderate part of the Catholic body, that issued their 
 ' Circular Letter' for the Election of Delegates from the 
 several Pi'ovinces, Counties, &c. &c. for an assemblage of 
 Catholic Prelates, Peers, Peers' eldest sons. Baronets, &c. 
 &c. in order that with a Catholic Parliament of upwards of 
 4-70 persons, under the name of Delegates, they might 
 more stoutly brave and intimidate Government, and em- 
 barass its measures. It was to this Committee, and to the 
 Delegates, that the Catholics of Ireland were told to look 
 for a redress of their grievances, for that it was vain to 
 expect it from an arbitrary, bigotted, besotted, ignorant, 
 and intolerant Government; and that by confidence in 
 them, and cooperation amongst themselves, " by a long 
 
 * The Reader need scarcely be reminded that the Lords Fingal and Ken- 
 niarc, and sixty Roman Catholic Gentlemen, disgusted and alarmed at tie 
 intemperate proceedings, of the Catholic Committee, had seceded from that 
 body in 179'2i - .
 
 \ 
 
 85 
 
 pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together, Ireland might 
 again become a kingdom !" 
 
 " Will any man tell me," observed Mr. Pole, " that 
 an assembly constituted like the one which I have de- 
 scribed, without a Crown to dissolve, without a Speaker to 
 restrain it, could sit in the city of Dublin without en- 
 dangering the public tranquillity ?" 
 
 " If gentlemen will take the trouble of reading the 
 debates of the Committee, they will find that separation 
 was distinctly and openly recommended, and that every 
 argument, every topic of declamation that ingenuity could 
 suggest, was made use of to throw the two countries into 
 confusion, and to set the people of Ireland against those 
 of England."— Mr. Pole, p. 49, Feb. 3, 1812. 
 
 Ml'. Ensor, in his " No Veto : Restoration of violated 
 Rights," (Dublin 1815) p. 16, informed the Catholic 
 people that " whenever the Faith of man is opposed, the 
 simple observance assumes a new character, it is a divine 
 call, and to resist is a sacred achievement." In page 17, 
 he says, that Talleyrand attributes the profound tranquil- 
 lity which reigned in America, to the equality with which 
 all sects are treated ; — and that France has since acted on 
 this principle. " This alone," he observes, " is an equivalent 
 for the ischole transient misery of the French Revolution. — 
 Why cannot England attain the same felicity ? or must 
 equity be attained by her also through the means of geJieral 
 commotion ? And it does seem that great and valuable 
 reforms, in consequence of the pertinacity and selfishness 
 of those who riot in the oppression of their fellonsj-citizem, 
 can only be effected amidst throes and agonies." 
 
 Again,— "Whatever Ireland has obtained from Eng
 
 se 
 
 land has been wrung from her in her wars and weakness. 
 Yet still 1 hope that England must perceive, from the 
 danger she has just escaped, the necessity of conciliating 
 Ireland, and the Jatal consequences that must ensue from 
 another crisis^ should Ireland not be secured by the es- 
 tablishment of equitable measures What would Eiig" 
 
 land be with Ireland opposed to her ? And Ireland, if forced 
 to resistance, would find more friends than the insurgent 
 provinces of America." — p. 40. 
 
 The Apologist for the Catholics, Mr. Paruell, (p. 143) 
 exclaims, " O hearts of barbarians, of Zealots, of Pro- 
 testants ! the flames which made Bonner accursed ; the 
 hideous night of St. Bartholomew, are not so great a dis- 
 grace to the character of man, as your cold contriving 
 bigotry. 
 
 " They at least had the excuse, the varnish of religious 
 feeling, they sprung not from selfishness, but from a visi- 
 tation of fanaticism, as inscrutible as physical insanity. 
 These men merely made a mistake 1 They worshipped a 
 Demon, and thought him God ! ! " 
 
 I shall spare the reader the pain of reading any quota- 
 tions of the innumerable passages in Mr. Ensor's work, in 
 which he speaks of our present gracious Sovereign Geo. 
 IV. (then Prince Regent) in the most offensive language. — 
 He who doubts my declaration, that they are not fit for 
 the public eye, may refer to the work itself. 
 
 If any thing could have opened the eyes of the truly 
 loyal, respectable, and religious part (and that part is a 
 considerable one,) of the Catholic community of Ireland, 
 to the true motives and designs of their discontented or 
 ambitious leaders, it would have been the conduct of these 
 factious men on tlie receipt of Cardinal Quarantotti's
 
 87 
 
 Rescript, by which the Society of Propaganda sanc- 
 tioned the Catholic Relief Bill: it proved that there 
 is no art too low for their adoption, no character too 
 sacred for their calumny; even the head of that religion, 
 about which they profess so much zeal, and feel so little 
 real interest, because he would not lend the sanction of his 
 name to their vile purposes, because he would not become 
 a party in making the sacred riame of i-eligion a mask far 
 ■political intrigue ; even that Pope himself they now find 
 it convenient to defame, they now find it convenient to 
 represent him as ready to yield to England the integrity 
 and privileges of that Church, for which he encountered 
 captivity, privation, and braved even death itself, sooner 
 than yield to France." — (Prudence true Patriotism, p. 11.) 
 
 But I must quote from their own works, — or I shall be 
 accused of misrepresentation : Mr. Ensor, p. 30, saj's, 
 " I do not accuse Cardinal Quarantotti of treachery to 
 his religion, but it is clear he obtruded his advice^ and it is 
 equally clear, that he knew no more of Ireland than Mr. 
 Peel, or Sir J. Cox Hippesley : this aged man was imposed 
 upon^ and I imagine secret service money ministei-ed to others 
 effected his delusion. The people of Ireland deserved the 
 entire indignation of the Government; for never did 
 any people express so rapidly their ahhoi-rence of that in- 
 siduous proposal xvhich came from Rome, but ix^as fabricated in 
 London. The Catholic Clergy have declared, by their 
 actions^ that they feel there is a duty paramount to their 
 Church discipliJie." 
 
 Another instance of the unauthorized interference of 
 Catholic Laymen in religious matters, is evinced in the 
 following letter from the celebrated Mr. O'Connell to Mr. 
 E. Hay, the Secretary to the Catholics of Ireland, which 
 recently appeared in the Public Journals. Are not the 
 Pope, the Propaganda, and their Secretary, Cardinal
 
 88 
 
 Quarantotti, and the highly respectable Catholic Bishops 
 of Ireland, competent to conclude on the spiritual ar- 
 rangements arising out of the Catholic question, without 
 the sanction of Mr. Ensor and Mr. O'Connell ? 
 
 ^^ LimericJc^ July,, 27, 1817. 
 " My Dear Friend, 
 " I perceive ' the pliant Trojan^ * has got Dr. Murray's 
 support for the Veto. Their publication of their letter to 
 you was intended to intimidate other Bishops from that 
 zealous opposition to the Veto, which the people look for, 
 and the times require. The person I am most surprised 
 atisj/ow — Why did yon not instantly counteract the poison 
 by publishing all such replies as you received reprohatoty of 
 the Veto,, and favourable to Domestic Nomination. I pre- 
 sume you are waiting for more ; but as the war began at 
 the other side, you ought at once to have published every 
 publishable letter. 
 
 " I conjure you to let Dr. Coppinger and Dr. O'Shaugh- 
 nessy's letters see the day as soon as possible. Discretion 
 will injure, not serve us, on this point. 
 
 " I am, I own, greatly shocked at the part Dr. Murray 
 is taking, I had the highest opinion of him, and the 
 greatest respect for him. But I see he wishes, with Dr. 
 Troy's See, to inherit the patronage of the Catholic 
 Church of Ireland. Oh ! it is melancholy to think of his 
 falling off. He who compared the Vetoists to Judas. As 
 to Dr. Troy, better could not be expected from him. His 
 trajfic at the Castle is loiig notorious ! But the sneer at 
 the Board, and the suppressed anger of those Prelates 
 would be ludicrous, if the subject were not so important 
 and vital. Are they angry because we urge not the name 
 
 • Dr. Troy.
 
 89 
 
 hut the reality of Domestic Nomination ? Alas ! the fact 
 is, that is just the cause of their ill temper, and the source 
 of their attack upon us. 
 
 " You cannot conceive any thing more lively than the 
 abhorrence of these Vetoistical plans, amotigst the people at 
 large. I really think they will go near to desert all siich 
 Clergymen as do not now take an active part on the question. 
 The Methodists were never in so fair a way of making converts. 
 
 Publish, my dear Friend, publish The Ennis Aggregate 
 
 was the most numerous ever known. 
 
 *' Your's most sincerely, 
 
 " Daniel O'Connell." 
 
 " P. S. — Send me, by return of post, the Address of all 
 the Bishops." 
 
 « To Edward Hay, Esq." 
 
 The ' Ennis Aggregate,' herein alluded to, was one 
 of the innumerable Aggregate Meetings got up in every 
 considerable town in Ireland, at which the popular Ca- 
 tholic orators and leaders declaimed, in language every 
 way calculated to alienate the affections of the people 
 (who anxiously flocked to them) from the Government, 
 and to destroy their confidence in the laws. Amongst the 
 distinguished personages at these, and other public meet- 
 ings, were some individuals whom the King's clemency 
 had allowed to return to, and enjoy life and property in 
 their native land ; individuals, whom though neither gra- 
 titude nor shame could restrain from proving to the world 
 how unworthy they were of that clemency, would never- 
 theless have been prevented from obtruding, if not their 
 persons, at least their sentiments, in the manner they have 
 done, if the people of Ireland were not deprived (by the 
 abiience of so many loyal men of rank, property, educa- 
 
 N
 
 90 
 
 lion, and influence,) of their legitimate advisers, guardians, 
 and protectors, by which means they have become the 
 easy dupes of discontented, ambitious, or unprincipled 
 
 men. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell has of late favoured the Catholics of 
 Ireland with annual addresses. That of January 1, 1821, 
 commenced with, " After another year of unjust degrada- 
 tion and oppressio?i, I again address you The blood 
 
 runs cold and the heart withers, when we reflect on the 
 
 wanton prolongation of our sufferings To the sevo'est 
 
 of injuries is added the most cruel o( i?isults I do 
 
 contend that the Catholics deserve the palm, in the cheering 
 struggle which nations have made, and which, thank God, 
 
 the nations of the earth are noiso making for civil liberty 
 
 There is« restless spirit of liber ti/ abroad, which, if it will 
 submit to just, necessary, and temperate regulation, must 
 lead to good. Let us not enter into any quarrels as to the 
 particular mode of Reform, &c....Let our future purpose 
 be the abolition of that faction which has plunged these 
 countries in war — in debt — in distress — and involved 
 Ireland in all the miseries of the union. Let us endea- 
 vour to amalga7nate the Catholic, the Protestant, the Pres- 
 byterian, the Quaker, into the Irishman ; let us call upon 
 Irishmen of every description to combine in a noble strug- 
 gle for the natural and inhn'ent rights of our now isyr etched 
 country." I am far from supposing that it was premedi- 
 tated ; but this address bears a striking resemblance to 
 the addresses of the United Irishmen in 1798. 
 
 On Dec. 30, 1820, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Hamilton 
 Rowan and Lord Cloncurry, &c. were turned out of 
 the Sessions House at Kilmainham, for endeavouring 
 to introduce irrelevant topics into " A dutiful and 
 loyal address to his present Majesty," which was
 
 91 
 
 agreed to, and signed by the High fcilieriff, Nobility, 
 and the greater part of the Gentry and respectable Free- 
 holders of the county of Dublin. — On the 3d of Sep- 
 tember, 1821, the day of his Majesty's departure from 
 Ireland, Mr. O'Connell, on bended knee, presented a 
 crown of laurel to his Majesty, atDunleary: and at this 
 time it was talked of by a few of his Majesty's most 
 faithful subjects in their day-dreams, to present a Crown 
 of Emeralds to his Majest}^, and to build a Royal Palace 
 in Ireland, by subscription ! — And in January, 1822, Mr. 
 O'Connell commenced his annual address to the Catholics 
 of Ireland with the following truly loyal and concilia- 
 tory lines: 
 
 " Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not, 
 
 " Who would be {ree, themselves must strike the blow.'^ 
 
 After this, who can doubt that the absence of so many 
 of our nobility and gentry has been, and now is, of incal • 
 culable injury to the tranquillity, prosperity, and happi- 
 ness of the wretched and sadly deluded people of this 
 distracted country ? Who, that is conversant with Irii^h 
 affairs, but must admit the justice of the following severe 
 observations on the class of men who fill the place of our 
 aristocratic absentees in Irish society, and who have, un- 
 fortunately, obtained so fatal an influence ovei- the Catholic 
 people. 
 
 " Advocates for the liherti/ of the press — they erect 
 themselves into a Stai^-chamber of censorship, and call 
 every one corrupt apostates, or place-hunters, who differ 
 from themselves." 
 
 " They demand admittance into the constitution — while 
 they are perpetually calumniating it, eulogizing all the 
 institutions of our enemies, mourning our triumphs, and 
 exulting in our defeats."
 
 92 
 
 " Declaiming against the penal code — they enact a tyran- 
 nical penal code of opinion ; — stigmatizing seceders — they 
 themselves secede from good conduct or good sense ; 
 — asking for advocacy, they abandon every friendship ; 
 — professing patriotism, they distract their country ; — 
 and pretending religion, they do mischief in its holy name. 
 They are tyrants for liberty — bigots to liberality, — and in- 
 tolerant in the cause of toleratio77." — Prudence true Pa- 
 triotism, p. 24. 
 
 " Their plea should be, not of their force, nor of their 
 numbers, but of their moderation, liberality and hmocuous 
 tenets; if they prove the former, without the latter, they 
 prove against themselves." — A Sketch, &c. p. 52. 
 
 The bishop of Norwich, in speaking of the untoward 
 conduct of the Irish people, at a meeting in London on 
 the 25th March, 1822, for the education of the Irish 
 poor, is reported to have said, that " a just, an impartial, 
 and a conciliatory Government would make good, loyal, 
 and devoted subjects; but that an unjust, -partial, and 
 irritating Government would produce mcJcedness, disloy- 
 alty, and revolution.^'' 
 
 With all due submission to the Right Rev. prelate, I 
 would ask every unprejudiced reader of this work, 
 whether the most able, just, conciliatory, and best in- 
 tentioned administration that ever directed the affairs 
 of the United Empiie, could have foreseen, guarded 
 against, and overcome the untoward current, that has for 
 so long a period of time opposed (often in secret) the 
 restoration of tranquillity to this unhappy land ? — Men of 
 the highest rank, the most unsullied honor, the best abi- 
 lities, and purest intentions, have filled the important 
 stations of Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary for Ire-
 
 93 
 
 land. Amongst the Noblemen who have had the dis- 
 tinguished honor of representing their Sovereign in 
 this country, within the last few years, are to be enu- 
 merated Cornwallis, Hardwicke, Bedford, Richmond, 
 Whitworth, Talbot, and at present Wellesley; and, 
 amongst a host of talented Chief Secretaries, Pelham, 
 Castlereagh, x\bbot, AVickham, Nepean, Long, Elliott, 
 Wellington, Wellesley Pole, and Peel, &c. But al- 
 though their able, praise-worthy, and persevering 
 efforts to find out the true causes of Ireland's unhappy 
 condition, and to render her tranquil and prosperous, 
 have not been successful ; and discontent, outrage and 
 rebellion still continue to disgrace and distract our land, 
 would it not be the extreme of injustice to say, that their 
 measures were unjust, partial, and irritating ? What un- 
 prejudiced and reflecting mind, after the perusal of the 
 painful facts narrated in these pages in chronological 
 order, for a long series of years, can believe that the 
 crimes which at this moment pollute the south of Ire- 
 land ; — and the sanguinary, illegal oaths, which have 
 been, and are at this hour, administered in all parts of 
 Ireland ,• — and the unceasing efforts of the Catholic 
 peasantry of Ireland, for many years past, to possess 
 themselves of arms and ammunition, even at the price 
 of blood, and for the purpose of shedding blood ; — 
 that these have arisen from local and temporary 
 causes ? From tythes, rackrents, and middlemen ; and 
 that the ferocious confederates in guilt have no hostile in- 
 tention towards the Government, Laws, or Institutions of 
 the country ; no connection with religious or political feel- 
 ings. Yet all this has been said, and has been believed : 
 
 Time will discover, whether there are not dupes 
 
 as well as traitors in 1822, as well as in former times : — I 
 fear there will, for, according to the documents which I 
 have seen, the secret and sworn objects of the Ribbon-
 
 94 
 
 men of the present day ai-e, " to obtain arms and ammu- 
 nition, that they may free themselves from the Govern- 
 ment of Great Britain ;" — and " to spare neither person 
 or property of those Protestant heretics who are tramp- 
 ling the Cross of Christ under foot, and deny 
 our Blessed Redeemer."* — And I have no doubt that 
 these accursed intentions have arisen from, or have 
 been chiefly excited by, the extensive circulation of the 
 Prophecies of Pastorini amongst the peasantry of Ire- 
 land. This vfoxk was written by Mr. Walmsly, titular 
 Dean of Wells, — was republished by the College of May- 
 nooth, — and a Roman Catholic Priest was the editor of the 
 6th edition, lately published in Cork, in which was a 
 lonsf list of subscribers, and the name of the Roman Ca- 
 tholic Bishop of Cork at the head of it. In this book it 
 is asserted, that " the Protestants are the locusts which 
 ascended out of the bottomless pit — that the devil v/as, 
 and is their King — that their reign will end in the year 
 1825, and that all who will not embrace the religion of 
 the Church of Rome, before that period, will be de- 
 stroyed." — Ever}^ possible apology is made for the bloody 
 scenes of St. Bartholomew's day in France, and for 
 those of le^l in Ireland. — The work has had a more ex- 
 
 * I observed in a Note at page 24, that " prior to tlie Irisli Rebellion in 
 1798, anfl the Insurrection of 1803, the lower classes were sober beyond all 
 precedent: " — they are equally so at the present moment ; — and it is notorious 
 to every man in the empire, that the Irish Newspapers, for many months, have 
 narrated only a single instance of a battle at a fair or market between two 
 rustic hostile factions. I can now give a satisfactory reason for thisdepnrture 
 from " customs," which have become a " second nature" with the Irisli 
 peasantry. Within these few days a Magistrate, of the highest respectability, 
 has shewn nie some papers found on ihe persons of Ribbonmcn, amongst 
 which were, " liesolutions" (admiralile in tliemselvcs) " not to drink to in- 
 toxication ;" — and, " not to quarrel or fall out with a brother, on any account ; 
 " and in case thore should be any difference, that then and in such case the 
 " same to be settled bv two brothers."
 
 95 
 
 tensive circulation than any Roman Catholic production 
 has had for this last century. The predictions it contains 
 have been versified, and sung, and distributed in most 
 parts of Ireland. Siak an Varaga concludes with 
 
 The year twenty-three will relieve our agony ; 
 As St. 'John the Divine defines in his prophecy ; 
 The years four and five will chastise all heresy; 
 
 It is evidently to this work that the titular Bishop Tuohy 
 alludes, in his recent address to the Catholic Clergy of his 
 diocese (Lmierick). "It is," says he, "to be sincerely hoped, 
 that the examples already made will be sufficient to put an 
 end to the shedding of blood and outrage ; if not, the conse- 
 quences will be dreadful ; for as long as the poor misguided 
 people listen to the evil councils and inventions of wicked 
 men, their misery will continue. I have reason to know, 
 that even under the pretext of religion, the poor credulous 
 people are led astray by these wicked advisers, telling 
 them prophecies and wonderful events to happen in the 
 years 22, 23, and 24."
 
 PART irr. 
 
 SUGGESTIONS 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 RESTORATION" AND MAINTAIN ANCE OF TRANQUIL- 
 LITY; AND FOR PROMOTING THE PROSPERITY 
 AND HAPPINESS OF IRELAND. 
 
 ^VHO will call this people civilized, or wonder that 
 they are turbulent? Who confide in the empiric pro- 
 mising to cure so complicated a disease by a single spe- 
 cific ? It is but too plain that there is something to be la- 
 mented, and if possible changed, m the character of the 
 nation — much in its habits — more iii the accidental circum- 
 stances in which it languishes ,- — and it is also evident that 
 no individual remedy can reach and reform evils so he- 
 terogeneous. Party indeed is blind, and ignorance ad- 
 venturous, but when the state of Ireland is hereafter dis- 
 cussed in the Imperial Senate, we trust that few may be 
 found of the prejudiced, and none of the ignorant."-— 
 Sketch, p. 34. 
 
 As " Catholic e/nancijjatio?/" has long been alleged to Catholic 
 be the grand panacea for healing the public wounds, ter- ticJ^*""^** 
 minating our discontents, and making us united and 
 prosperous, I shall first advert to it ; and as such frequent 
 mention has been made of Catholics and their leaders in 
 this work, I shall confine myself as much as possible in 
 
 o
 
 98 
 
 my observations on the subject of Emancipation, as it is 
 familiarly called. 
 
 " The Catholics may now be divided into two classes, 
 the one consisting of the nobility, the educated who have 
 property, and in general, men of industrious and regular 
 habits ; the object of this party is legitimate. 
 
 The other, headed by the <lemagogues, who seek not 
 that emancipation should be granted, but that it should 
 be refused :" — these are the persons who have occasioned 
 the principal, if not all the difficulties, in defining and 
 settling what securities the Catholics can, and ought to 
 give, before the remaining disqualifications which they 
 labour under can be repealed, with safety to the Pro- 
 testant establishments in church and state. 
 
 As for the much talked oS. four millions of Catholics^ I 
 do not see that they are likely to be benefitted in the 
 manner Mr. Ensor conceives that they will be by the 
 " restoration of their violated rights," for emancipation 
 will neither confer shelter, friends, or raiment, nor im- 
 prove the mind or moral condition of the naked, ill-fed, 
 uneducated Catholic peasant; though I admit that it 
 will benefit him considerably, by depriving his pre- 
 tended friends, and leaders, of a pretext hitherto inex- 
 haustible, for inflaming his passions, misleading his 
 judgment, and inducing him to enter into unlawful as- 
 sociations, for the redress of his alleged wrongs and 
 gi'ievances. 
 
 . Mr. Pole observed in the House of Commons on the 
 3d Feb. 1812, that in his opinion "the Catholics have 
 now assumed a tone, and adopted a line of conduct, 
 which i-ender it impossible for Parliament to alter their
 
 99 
 
 condition, as long as they persist in the same course, and 
 maintain the same menacing attitude. I do not mean to 
 accuse the Catholic body itself; — my observations apply to 
 the Committee \ but the Committee being declared to be 
 the organ of the whole Catholic body, they are, of course, 
 implicated in ever}'^ act of that Committee." — Speech, p. 5. 
 
 By the Act of 1793, as was before observed, Mr. 
 Plowden said, the state of the Catholics of Ireland is 
 settled. That act gave them more than they petitioned 
 for — what has followed ? The country has never been 
 settled from that day to this. 
 
 " If (said one of the wisest and most prophetic States- 
 men which our times have produced, the great Lord Clare) 
 Parliament is to listen to the claims of the Popish subjects 
 of this country, to be admitted to political power on 
 the ground of Rights I desire to know where we are to 
 make a stand ? — Religion is the great bond of society, and 
 therefore, in every civilized country, there must be a Reli- 
 gion connected xvith the State, and maintained by it against 
 all attacks and- encroachnents — and therefore, I deny the 
 Right of any man who dissents from the Religion established 
 by the State, to demand, admission into the State, upon 
 which alone the Established Religion can rest for support. 
 Should Parliament once admit the claims of Irish Papists 
 to Political Power on the ground of Right, I desire to 
 know where we are to draw a line ? — If Papists have a right 
 to sit in Parliament, they have a Right to fill every office 
 in the State — they have a Right to pay tithes exclusively 
 to their own Clergy : they have a Right to restore the 
 antient pomp and splendour of their Religion : they have 
 a Right to be governed exclusively by the laws of their 
 own Church, they have a Right to seat their Bishops in the 
 House of Lords — they have u Right to seat a Popish
 
 loo 
 
 Prince on the Throne — they have a Right to subvert the 
 Established Government, and to make this a POPISH 
 COUNTRY : "iioJiich I have little doubt is their ULTI- 
 MATE OBJECT." 
 
 If, however, Parliament in its wisdom should hereafter 
 deem it just and expedient to repeal the remaining dis- 
 qualifications under which the Catholics labour, it will be 
 requisite to consider, under what restrictions can that 
 body be admitted to equal rights and privileges with those 
 persons who are of the Established Religion of the 
 country ? 
 
 " The Protestant, in granting political power, demands 
 some security to prevent the Catholic making use of that 
 power to the injury of his Religion ; while the Catholic, in 
 accepting it, requires that it should not be accompanied 
 with any restrictions or qualifications which would give 
 the Protestant a means of interfering with his ; the prin- 
 ciple is at both sides precisely the same ; it is one of mu- 
 tual non-interference. Were the Catholics situated as 
 Protestants are, they would demand security; were the 
 Protestants as the Catholics are, they would be jealous of 
 interference." 
 
 The British Government, parliament, and the public 
 at large, are already in possession of the sentiments of the 
 Roman Pontiff and the Society of Propaganda on the 
 provisions of the former intended Catholic Relief Bill, 
 and every dispassionate mind must be convinced, that it 
 is neither the wish or the intention of the Sovereign, or 
 Parliament, or of any liberal minded Protestant, to enact 
 any measures that can be proved to be injurious to the 
 religious scruples or interests of the Roman Catholics, or 
 calculated to subvert their religion; but on the contrary.
 
 101 
 
 that it must be their anxious desire to improve the poli- 
 tical condition of the upper classes of Catholics, and the 
 moral and personal condition of the lower classes, and 
 thereby remove every reasonable pretext for discontent 
 and complaint, and contribute to the general happiness 
 and prosperity of the empire at large. — I therefore trust, 
 that whatever further concessions Parliament in its wis- 
 dom may, at any future period, be pleased to make to 
 the Catholics, that they will be made subject to such restric- 
 tions as they shall conscientiously deem to be just, as well 
 as requisite (and none other I am convinced will they 
 impose) ; and that both Parliament and the Government of 
 the country will disregard all the idle, illiberal clamour that 
 may be made by a few factious Catholic laymen, in order 
 to excite the illiterate many into hostility to the proposed 
 measures (whenever any shall be in contemplation), and 
 to intimidate the Catholic Clergy and Bishops into reso- 
 lutions or opinions which, if left to themselves, they 
 Avould neither express or entertain. 
 
 After all, the act would be an act of qualification and 
 invitation, not of compulsion and penalty; and as it will 
 not be imperative on the Catholics to accept of political 
 power on ^hc terms on which it may be offered, I hope 
 their leaders, if they do not approve of those terms, will 
 not deem it necessary to publish manifestoes to the ' He- 
 reditary Bondsmen,' urging them to " strike the blow 
 that is to set them free."* 
 
 Although I have exceeded the limit I intended to con- 
 find myself to on the subject of Emancipation, yet it is 
 one of so much importance, and the following observa- 
 
 * Mr. O'Connellin a letter in the Evening Herald, of ^pril 27, 1821, 
 speaking of the •' Veto Bill" says, " I speak, advisedli/, when I say, that 
 a sanguinary insurrection uould have immediately folloived its enactment — 
 a wicked, a hopeless, but a bloody insurrection." The predicted insurrection 
 has followed; but Mr. O'Connell must now assign it to another cause.
 
 102 
 
 tions on the delicate question of the appohitment of Ca- 
 tholic Bishops, are of so frank and manly a nature, and 
 carry so much conviction with them, that I am convinced 
 the reader will approve of my laying them before him, 
 particularly as they were spoken by a Catholic gentleman 
 of high respectability, Mr. O'Connor of Mount Druid, 
 at a meeting of the Roman Catholics, Sept. 2, 1815. — 
 " I have been heretofore, myselfj an enemy to any inter- 
 ference of the Crown in the appointment of our Bishops, 
 because the head of our Church had, by a right of con- 
 quest, become the subject of a foreign power, hostile to 
 this empire, because he was a state prisoner in tlie castle 
 of Savona, where no direct communication could be had 
 with him, and without the danger of schism no such in- 
 terference could take place, 1 apprehended that a Pro- 
 testant Government, vested with any right of interference, 
 might inidermine the Catholic Religion. But, upon re- 
 consideration, and upon all the reflection I could bestow 
 on the subject, and I have bestowed on it not a little, 
 these imaginary dangers have vanished before me. The 
 Protestant Government of Canada, vested with this right 
 of interference, has not undermined the Catholic Reli- 
 gion there. The Protestant house of Brandenburgh, with 
 the same right, has not sapped the Catholic Religion in 
 Silesia ; and that religion has flourished in Russia under 
 the interference of the Greek house of Romanow. No, 
 Sir, the Government would not give itself the trouble of 
 proselytizing for the Pi'otestant Religion. You all re- 
 collect the outcry that was raised by the factious in the me- 
 tropolis against the establishment of Maynooth College. Your 
 JBishops,for acceding to it, were represented as having been 
 bribed by Governmefii — with having betrayed the trust reposed 
 in them. It was said that, in that establishment, under the 
 immediate control of the Lord Chancellor, the stream of ca- 
 tholicity would be corrupted, and that the missionaries it
 
 103 
 
 would send forth would poison the purity of our faith, and 
 inspire their flocks with contempt and hatred for the reli- 
 gion of their fathers. If you doubt my statement, you 
 have only to look into Mac Nevin's pieces of Irish His- 
 tory. Well, the college of Maynooth has existed now 
 one and twenty years, and the stream of Catholicity re- 
 mains unpolluted, and its missionaries, I will venture 
 to say, yield not, in sanctity of manners, purity of 
 faith, or pastoral atttention to those educated on the 
 continent." 
 
 I hope I shall be pardoned for expressing a wish, that 
 whenever a Catholic Relief Bill may be passed, the condi- 
 tion of the Catholic clergy will be bettered, and that they 
 will be rendered less burdensome to, or independent of, 
 their already too much impoverished people ; by which 
 means they would become more respectable and useful. 
 In order that the Catholic leaders may not persuade the 
 lower orders that such a measure, if it should ever be 
 thought practicable, would render their clergy too sub- 
 servient to Government, and thereby subvert their reli- 
 gion, I would beg leave to offer, as a mere suggestion, 
 that such a provision for the Catholic clergy might be 
 levied off each county at large (which would make the 
 individual contribution light) along with the other county 
 presentments, anel it could be paid to them by the county 
 treasurer : for I am afraid that the leaders would make the 
 people believe that the Catholic clergy could not receive a 
 Regium Donum, as the Presbyterian clergy do, without 
 sending a cai'te blanche to the Castle for their salary. 
 
 But I should demand somethins: from them in return 
 for thus advancing their respectability and independence ; 
 I should say to them " You profess to be ministers of
 
 104 
 
 liVht, not of darkness ; you should advance leartiing, you 
 shall not impede it. Your tenets shall not be invaded — 
 hvLt your Jlocks shall be instnicted — the ointment producing 
 blindness shall be used no longer. If you will not co- 
 operate in a generous system of national education, ex- 
 pect no favour from the nation ; you shall have none." — 
 Sketch p. 34. 
 
 Education a fo the Government, I should say, educate your 
 people ; — I care not by what systen 
 nor at what cost, if it be j)roductive. 
 
 of the pea- , _ 11., -p -^ \ 
 
 santrv. people ; — I care not by what system, it it be capacious, 
 
 " 1 would say, even to the advocates for proselytism — 
 * Do not proselytize.' Even to the zealots for Protest- 
 antism — ' Let the people continue Catholics ;' — for, ' it is 
 every where in our power to promote education — even 
 upon Catholic principles, if it cannot be otherwise, it is 
 better than no education at all. The mere education of 
 letters will do good, under proper direction ; it will break 
 the soil, and prepare it for further cultivation. But we 
 have known much more than this to have been done. 
 We have heard of one or two of the ministers of the esta- 
 blished church, who, not content with promoting such 
 plans of education as met the scruples of their Catholic 
 parishioners, thought it their duty also to care for their 
 spiritual welfare. Looking into the books of Catholic 
 divinity, they chose some of those tracts of sublime 
 piety with which they abound, had them printed at their 
 own expense, and extensively distributed." — Thoughts on 
 Education, p. 19. 
 
 I fully agree with the " Proposal, &c. by a Roman 
 Catholic clergyman," p. 28. — " that it would be extremely 
 beneficial to institute a Society (without religious distinc- 
 tion) for the promotion of religious knowledge and the
 
 105 
 
 reformation of morals; to establish an annual subscrip- 
 tion in every diocese under the direction and control of this 
 society ; — to appropriate this subscription to the printing 
 of the Holy Scriptures, and other approved religious 
 books ; to circulate these books, either gratis^ or at very 
 reduced prices, as it should seem expedient, and to take 
 proper steps to promote the reading of them." 
 
 I would also suggest, that it would be productive of in- 
 calculable advantage, particularly to the lower order of 
 Catholics, if the Pope v.ould authorize the Catholic liturgy 
 being given in the English language, v/hich I am of opi- 
 nion his Holiness would consent to, if the matter were 
 fairly stated by the proper authorities. Sir Thomas 
 Bond, in his " Pro Bono Publico," p. 18, ssys, " I 
 know that Dr. Carrol of Baltimore, and Dr. Bering- 
 ton of Birmingham, both of them Roman Catholic 
 bishops, have in their writings expressed a wish that 
 the liturgy of the church of Rome was in the com- 
 mon language of the people. Dr. Berington goes so 
 far as to say, that he is confident it will (at some future 
 period) be the case, and might even now, if the Bishops 
 would apply to the Court of Rome for that indulgence; 
 because it has granted the same indulgence to the Roman 
 Catholics of Hungary, and Transylvania." 
 
 I fully agree with Mr. Parker, that measures ought to 
 be taken to discourage or prevent those earlj and impro- 
 vident marriages among the Irish poor, which produce 
 suclv irretrievable misery to them:— so long as they 
 shall be content with potatoes, rags, and a pigstye, the 
 evil will continue to increase : — but it will cure of itself, 
 when our absentee landlords shall return, and excite in 
 the minds of the peasantry a laudable ambition for the 
 decencies and comforts of civilized society. — When this shall 
 
 p
 
 106 
 
 be effected, even if population should increase, emigration 
 will not be necessary, so long as we have millions of acres 
 uncultivated in Ireland, — as long as our fisheries are ne- 
 glected, — our hills and glens remain unplanted, — our 
 mines unexplored — and the linen manufacture so little 
 attended to in the south of Ireland. 
 
 Whenever I reflect on the situation of the Irish 40^. 
 freeholder, I am at a loss to conceive why the elective 
 franchise was ever conferred on a being so illiterate, de- 
 pendent, wretched, and utterly incapable of appreciating 
 its value, or discharging, properly, the duty of an elector. 
 In the eloquent language of the able and patriotic author 
 of the Sketch, " We have seen, in some counties, the ma- 
 jority of the constituents driven, like cattle, to the hustings. 
 We have seen them — unable even to speak English, at- 
 tempt to poll in Irish. We know that these miserable 
 creatures are weapons wielded by the gentry against each 
 other at elections, and hy the demagogues against the gentry 
 in rehellions. Is this to be borne?" — If however it shall be 
 deemed adviseable to " disfranchise the 40^. freeholders 
 altogether, lest numerous ignorance overwhelm educa- 
 tion and wealth," the act must not be a solitary one ; it 
 must form part of whatever general system of policy and 
 legislative enactments may be deemed best calculated to 
 promote the tranquillity of Ireland, and the welfare of the 
 empire at large. 
 
 Tythes. On the subject of tythes, " the pretence, and therefore 
 the cause of an hundred insurrections" in Ireland, I shall 
 be as brief as possible. I do not conceive tythe, abstractedly 
 considered, to be either oppressive in its nature, or in- 
 jurious in its consequences to the immediate occupier of 
 the ground : though I freely admit that there must be 
 serious vexations in the mode of collecting it, even if we
 
 lor 
 
 form our conclusion on the arguments of the supporters 
 of the system as it now stands. 
 
 I do not consider tythe as oppressive, because, as Adam 
 Smith justly observes, " Taxes upon the produce of the 
 land are, in reality, taxes upon the rent, and though they 
 may be originally advanced by the farmer, they are finally 
 paid by the landlord :" — and no man can doubt that the 
 landlord would be the only gainer by the abolition of 
 tythes. 
 
 But I am convinced that though not oppressive, tythes 
 are vexatious, from the instances which are brought for- 
 ward in the works in favour of tythes, of the increased 
 value of ground that is tythe free. The writer of an 
 article in one of the public papers, who signs himself 
 * a Layman of the county of Louth,' says, " I know from 
 good authority, that the increased rent demanded for land 
 exempted from tythe in this verj^ county, to have amounted 
 to 1/. per acre, when the clergyman would be glad to get 
 for the same land seven or eight shiiiings." 
 
 Mr. Pole, when speaking on Mr. ParneH's motion 
 on the subject of tythes, lUh June, 1810, observed, 
 " I asked an honorable friend of mine this morning, 
 a part of whose estate is tythe-free, what was the dif- 
 ference of the rent which he received for his land 
 that was tythe-free, and that which was not? He told 
 me he received 10^. an acre more for the land that was 
 tythe-free than he did for the other. I then asked him 
 what was the amount of the tythe on that part of his land 
 of equal quality, and contiguous to the other, which 
 was subject to it? He said about fourteen pence an 
 acre."
 
 108 
 
 " What, let me ask, is the benefit which Scotland de- 
 rives from thus limituig the incomes of her clergy? Her 
 rents are higher, in proportion to the value of the land, 
 than even in Ireland, where rack-rents are complained of 
 so much. I understand from very respectable authority, 
 that good arable land, though not favored by proximity 
 to towns, sets for £l. per acre, Scotch measure, that is 
 about £^. the Irish acre. Such is the effect, as to the 
 tenantry, of exemption from tythe." — An Inquiry whether 
 the Disturbances in Ireland have originated in Tythes, 
 p. 23.* 
 
 The conviction of my mind is, that the tythe-system 
 might be materially improved, to the mutual advantage 
 and satisfaction of both clergy and laity, if it were referred 
 to a select Committee of the House of Commons: — the 
 committee would, at least, give the subject the most ma- 
 ture consideration, and offer some valuable suff<res- 
 tions, even if the inquiry should not be productive 
 of Such immediate and extensively beneficial results as 
 some persons are sanguine enough to imagine it would 
 be ; — to such persons, and to the advocates for the abo- 
 lition of tythes, I should wish to make known the valuable 
 caution conveyed in the speech of the present Attorney 
 General of Ireland to the Grand Jury of Sligo, in 1 806, 
 on the trial of the Thresliers : — " They say they rise to 
 redress grievances (amongst which were tythes). But, 
 Gentlemen, there is a mode known to the constitution of 
 redressing grievances, and there is no law to prevent 
 men from stating them; there is a legal mode of claiming 
 relief This I will say, that the Constitution of the Church 
 
 * On the subject of Tytlies, see also Mr. Giattan's speech, ] 4th February, 
 1788. " Commutation of Tythe by an acreable charge, &c.," 181C.— " A 
 Letter from an Irish Dignitary to an English Clergyman, 182?."
 
 109 
 
 is intimately connected with the Constitution of the State ; 
 it is a part of the same fabric, which has been handed 
 down to us by our ancestors, and if there be any thing 
 imperfect in it, no reflecting man will approach it for the 
 purpose of alteration xdthout extreme caution ; he will be 
 careful in the attempt to remedy its imperfections, not to 
 affect the substance, or even the proportion, or beauty of 
 the ornaments." 
 
 After the most mature deliberation on all the cir- Insurrec 
 
 1-11 • • J ptionAct. 
 
 cumstances connected with the origni and progress ot 
 
 the innumerable illegal associations which have been 
 
 noticed in this work; — and on the habits and condition 
 
 of the peasantry of Ireland at the present day, it is with 
 
 extreme regret I feel myself called upon to express my 
 
 conviction, that, as the Insurrection Act is intended for 
 
 the 'prevention rather than the punishment of crime, it 
 
 would be of advantage to the community that it should 
 
 be enacted for seven years (as the arms, gunpowder and 
 
 ammunition act has been) — I say enacted, — not enforced — 
 
 for I am convinced that the outrages which now devastate 
 
 the south of Ireland would not have arisen to their present 
 
 height, if the Government of Ireland could have resorted, 
 
 as soon as was absolutely necessary, to the provisions of the 
 
 Insurrection Act; the only measure which has hithei'to 
 
 been found effectual for protecting the lives and property 
 
 of the loyal, peaceable, and well-disposed part of the 
 
 community from the atrocities of mob legislatures — noon 
 
 day assassins — and midnight murderers and incendiaries : 
 
 the ordinary forms of law have never yet been able to put 
 
 down the illegal associations and outrages of men whose 
 
 minds and habits are so brutalized as to despise all laws, 
 
 divine and human. 
 
 A general police will also be necessary for all Ireland, A general 
 I fear, for somefew years to come : — (whicii would save the
 
 110 
 
 expense of baronial constables, who are nearly useless in 
 many counties:)— a number of men, admirably calculated 
 for the purpose, might be selected and embodied out of our 
 naval and military pensioners, (who are spread over all 
 parts of Ireland) at a trifling additional allowance to the 
 amount of their daily pensions. A force purely military 
 can never eflect the services that such a body of men can 
 render. In Henry the Seventh's time Sir E. Poynings 
 " caused the Marchers to book their men, for whom they 
 should answer." In the reign of Henry the Eighth Sir 
 Henry Sidney required five of the best persons of every 
 sept to bring in all the idle j)ersons of their surname to be 
 justified by the law. — But it was in James's time that the 
 only effectual means were discovered, and put in force, 
 for checking and putting down rebellions in their com- 
 mencement ; for Sir John Davis, the invaluable Attorney 
 General of that monarch in Ireland, informs us (p. 20] ) 
 that " whereas, the greatest advantage that the Irish had 
 of us in all their rebellions, was our ignorance of their 
 counti'ies, their persons, and their actions; — since the 
 laiso and her ministers have had a passage among them, all 
 their places of fastness have been discovered and laid open ; 
 all their places cleared ; and notice taken of every person 
 that is able to do either good or hirt. It is known, not only 
 how they live, and what they do, but if is foreseen what they 
 purpose or intend to do J* 
 
 Severe, as I acknowledge these measures to be, I am 
 as strongly convinced of the justice, as I am of the 7ie- 
 cessity of them ; — and I believe them to be the only effec- 
 tual means for the speedy suppression, if not the pirevention, 
 of all such ferocious associations as those which now de- 
 solate the south of Ireland ; — and that in conjunction with 
 measures of a conciliatory tendency — the general diffu- 
 sion of education — and judicious and persevering efforts
 
 Ill 
 
 for bettering the condition of the peasantry ; — they would 
 so rapidly civilize and improve the lower orders, that in 
 a short time the coercive regulations might safely be re- 
 pealed. 
 
 But neither coercive nor conciliatory measures, — nor 
 unqualified emancipation of the Catholics, — -nor the abo- 
 lition of tythes, rents, or taxes ; — nor all these combined, 
 even if they were beneficial and practicable in their na- 
 ture, will restore this country to tranquillity, and render 
 her great, prosperous, and happy, so long as so consider- 
 able a proportion of the upper and educated classes 
 of society, the links between the Government and the 
 people, shall continue aliens to their native land ; — those 
 whose duty to God, to their country, and to their de- 
 pendants, it is, to protect the illiterate, bigotted and 
 wretched peasantry from the all-powerful but deceitful 
 excitement of their benighted and perverted minds, as 
 well as from the insidious designs of ambitious and un- 
 principled men ; — and to explain the laws of society and 
 of the land, and the advantages of order, civilization, 
 and obedience to those laws ; and to enforce their pre- 
 cepts by their own example, so as to induce the lower 
 orders to " learn and labour, and conduct themselves 
 aright in that state of life in which it hath pleased Divine 
 Providence to place them." But, while our absentee 
 proprietors have neglected their duty, the enemy has 
 been busy ; — and unwatched, or unchecked, he has 
 picked up the greater part of the seed that had fallen on 
 good ground, and in lieu thereof has sowed the tares of 
 discontent, sedition and anarchy amongst the illiterate, 
 wretched, and long neglected peasantry of Ireland. 
 
 Ought these things to continue so ? Every just and ge- 
 nerous; mind indignantly replies, " certainly not." But
 
 112 
 
 although this has long been admitted, and that it has also 
 been generally allowed, that an Absentee Tax is the only 
 measure likely to induce some of our innumerable absen- 
 tees to return to Ireland, or to render their absence less 
 injurious in its direct and remote consequences to the 
 peace and welfare of it ; still it has not, of late years, been 
 deemed an adviseable {or at least, not a practicable) 
 measure : it was, however, not only found ?iecessart/, 
 but practicable, in former times, and was carried into 
 execution with a sevtn-ity which shews that the evil 
 was considered to be of so serious a nature as not 
 only to affect the tranquillity and prosperity of the 
 countr}^, but to endanger the very existence of Bri- 
 tish power and influence in Ireland. Sir John Davis 
 tells us, p. 164, " That touching the absence of the 
 great lords, all writers do impute the decay and loss of 
 Leinster to the absence of the English lords, who married 
 the five daughters of Wm. Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. 
 These great lords having greater inheritances in their own 
 right in England than they had in Ireland by right of 
 their wives, (and yet each of the co-partners had an entire 
 county allotted for her property, as is before declared) 
 could not be drawn to make xXie'ir personal residence in this 
 kingdom, but managed their estates here by their senes- 
 chals and servants. The consequence was, that Richard 
 Statute of the Second found it necessary " to have a statute made 
 an-ainlt Ab- against absentees, commanding all such as had land in 
 sentees. Ireland to return and reside thereupon, upon pain to 
 forfeit tu'o third parts thereof unto the King until they 
 returned, or placed a sufficient number of men to defend 
 the same," n^'hich ordinance voas put in execution for many 
 years after, as appeareth by sundry seizures made there- 
 upon in the time of King Richard the Second, and the 
 4th, 5th, and 6th Henries. And afterwards, upon the same 
 reason of state, all the lands of the house of Norfolk, of 
 Shrewsbury, the Lord Berkley and others, who having
 
 113 
 
 lands in Ireland, kept their continual residence in England, 
 
 were entirely resumed by the Act of Absenters made in the Henry 8th. 
 
 28th of Henry 8th." 
 
 On the 15th of February of the present year, 1822, the 
 Marquess of Londonderry stated in the House of Com- 
 nions, that ** the vote for the extraordinary expenses 
 growing out of the disturbed state of Ireland, will be 
 j^350,000. for the current year." Now, I wish to know 
 whether the present disturbances would have arisen, — 
 or would have extended themselves to such an appalling 
 magnitude as to require such expensive measures for their 
 suppression, if our absentees had resided in Ireland, and 
 had discharged their several duties, political, magisterial, 
 moral, and religious ? And whether they have contributed, 
 or are likely to contribute, by direct or indirect taxation, 
 towards defraying this extra expense of .st'350,000. by 
 which their property is preserved from a desperate ban- 
 ditti, and their agents are enabled to receive and remit 
 those rents on which many of them live in affluence in 
 foreign countries ? — Certainly not. — I admit that their 
 rental is lessened by the poverty of their tenantry and the 
 spread of disturbance — but they receive it free from tax- 
 ation ; whereas the resident landed proprietors have not 
 only contributed towards the exigencies of the State by 
 the payment of heavy taxes, (rendered durably heavy in 
 consequence of the repeated augmentations of the rates, 
 owing to their unproductiveness, — arising from the non- 
 residence of that class best calculated to pay them) but 
 several of them have also risked, and lost, their lives 
 in their efforts to maintain the due administration of 
 the laws. Every just mind must admit that so partial and 
 unjust a system of taxation ought to be remedied. But 
 how is this to be effected, it will be asked ? By a measure 
 which will be easy in its operation, and just in its prin- 
 ciples, and that will be productive of important advan^
 
 114 
 
 tages in its political as well as its financial results ; and 
 will be doubly operative in its effects, by rendering re- 
 sidence in Ireland advantageous, and non-residence dis- 
 advantageous. Tlie measure I propose is to abolish the 
 assessed taxes in Ireland in toto — on windows, hearths, 
 carriages, servants, dogs, &c. &c. ; which, on an average 
 of the last four years, have produced only j£365,000. per 
 annum, (paid by the resident part of the community) and 
 in lieu thereof to have an equitable, and graduated, pro- 
 perty and income tax, suited to the actual state of society 
 in Ireland^ and such as shall not impede the future pros- 
 perity of the country ; — it ought, therefore, to be lightly 
 imposed on the income derived from trade, and agricul- 
 tural pursuits. I should imagine that the Commissioners 
 of excise and taxes, if the assessed taxes were abo- 
 lished, would be able to superintend the collection 
 and management of this tax: — the most intelligent and 
 meritorious of the present tax officers could be use- 
 fully employed, if the measure here proposed should 
 be carried into effect ; — and those whose services were 
 not in the first instance wanted, might be superannu- 
 ated, and afterwards employed on full pay, as occasion 
 required. 
 
 The advantages of the j^roposed measure would be, 
 that it is equitable in its nature and operation ; — that it 
 reaches the income derived from funded property, as 
 well as the income derived from this country, and spent 
 out of it by absentees {under which head I should con- 
 sider every Irish proprietor not resident in Ireland six 
 months in the year) ; — that each individual would know 
 the jnecise amount of the per centage he would have to 
 pay in direct taxation to the Crown, and could indulge 
 his taste, or convenience, in the number of his hearths, 
 windows, carriages, servants, &c. to any extent he pleased,
 
 11.5 
 
 and his house and offices, as in the olden time, would be his 
 castle, free from the intrusion and inquisitorial searching 
 of tax assessors. 
 
 As the Legislature has the power of increasing the rates 
 of the taxes according to the increase in the number of 
 hearths, windows, &c. — and as it also possesses the power 
 of determing the rate per cent, which property or income 
 shall pay according to its progressive increased amount, 
 (for instance 2 per cent, on £200. a year ; 3 per cent. 
 on ifiSOO. &c.) 1 maintain that it can also regulate, if it 
 shall be deemed just and adviseable, that the income or 
 property of non residents shall be subject to a greater per 
 centage than that of residents : — I sincerely hope that it 
 will be doubled on non-residents. 
 
 In the " Absentee" it is estimated that two millions, 
 and by Mr. Parker that four millions, per annum, are de- 
 rived from this country, and spent out of it by absentees ; 
 a tax of 10 per cent, in the lowest of these estimates would 
 produce .£200,000», therefore a very moderate per cent- 
 age on the property and income of the resident Irish 
 would produce considerably more than the difference be- 
 tween this sum and the amount derived from the assessed 
 taxes : — it will therefore become doubly the interest 
 of the absentee to reside in Ireland ; for b}' doing so he will 
 pay a less income tax, and be exempt from all the assessed 
 taxes he is subject to in England. I am humbly of o})inion 
 that this suggestion might also be acted on in Great Bri- 
 tain with advantage to the revenue and to the subject : — 
 and in the event of a future war rendering it necessary 
 that the rate per cent, should be increased, the amount 
 and effect of such increase can be calculated on, both by 
 the contributors and the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
 
 116 
 
 with a precision not to be attained by the present mode 
 of increasing the several rates of assessed taxes. 
 
 Encourage- From the observations which were made on the subject 
 censed* and of illicit distillation in Part II. of this work, the reader, no 
 suppression doubt, is fiilly impressed with a sense of the numerous ill 
 distillation, consequeuces to the revenue, and the morals of the people 
 of Ireland, occasioned by it. I am fully aware that the 
 suggestions I am about to offer are adventurous in their 
 Dature, but I shall give them, in the hope that my doing 
 so may excite more able heads to devise better regula- 
 tions. I would recommend either a considerable reduction 
 in the duty on whiskey, — or, that instead of having three 
 classes of gangers, with inspectors, &c. to keep constant but 
 ineffectual watch on the distiller, that a schedule should be 
 made out, fixing the precise amount of duty that should 
 be paid weekly, during a certain part of the year, by the 
 owner of a still of 50, 100, 200, 500 gallons, &c. on his 
 giving sufficient bond for the working a still of the licensed 
 content, and no other, and for the weekly payment of such 
 duty ; — the bond to be enforced, or license withheld, in the 
 event of non-payment of duty, until such duty shall be paid; 
 and penalty of bond enforced, and license for ever with- 
 drawn on proof of fraud having been committed, and to 
 be charged with the estimated extent thereof from the date 
 of license. The only check I would subject the distiller 
 to should be the frequent inspection of an excise officer 
 of the first class (at j)leasure), to see that a still of the 
 licensed contents, only, was made use of. 
 
 1 offer this measure as a mere suggestion for the 
 consideration of practical men, from a conviction that 
 the honest licensed distiller cannot, under the existing 
 excise regulations and high duty on whiskey, supply the 
 jnarket at such a price as will keep the llicit distiller
 
 nr 
 
 out of it ; and that if he should therefore be induced io 
 put the usual means for defrauding the revenue into 
 execution, the ofl&cers of the Crown, however vigilant, 
 cannot entirely prevent him from doing so ; — and instances 
 have occurred where needy or unprincipled gangers 
 have connived at frauds. But, under the proposed sys- 
 tem, he would be freed from many arbitrary and unsa- 
 tisfactory laws and regulations, and would work upon 
 the precise and easy conditions of using his licensed still, 
 and no other, and paying a certain stipulated sum to the 
 Crown weekly, which would leave to him every fair ad- 
 vantage he could derive from superior ability, or expe- 
 rience, in the manufacture of a spirit superior in quality, 
 and equal in quantity, — or greater in quantity and equal 
 in quality to what his professional rivals could produce 
 on the same terms. It will be said that the licensed 
 distiller would find this system a profitable one ; — be it so — 
 the Crown would not be a loser— for the number of 
 licensed distillers would increase, and illicit distillation 
 would decline in proportion ; for the licensed distillers, to 
 guard their interest or monopoly, would suggest to Go- 
 vernment measures for the suppression of illicit trade, 
 far more effectual in their consequences than the Govern- 
 ment will ever be able to discover, so long as the licensed 
 distiller has an interest in evading payment of the duty 
 on the surplus quantity of spirit he can produce from his 
 still beyond what is imposed by the law. If the distillers 
 should derive too much advantage from the weekly rate 
 of duty first struck, the rate could be augmented to its 
 just amount. 
 
 "Whilst treating on the fiscal regulations of Ireland A reduction 
 I would beg leave to suggest, that an abatement in the °„' ^^^^^^ll 
 rate of the duty on tobacco in Ireland would be pro- proposed, 
 ductive of the most beneficial results to the revenue,
 
 118 
 
 the Government, the tranquillity and morals of the 
 people of this country. Twenty years ago, when the duty 
 on this article was Is. the pound, 6h millions of pounds 
 weight paid duty per annum ; but since the duty 
 has been augmented to 45. per pound, very little more 
 than half of this quantity has paid duty; — the consequence 
 has been, that smuggling has increased to an alarming 
 extent: for, in the six years preceding 1818, the value 
 of all the articles seized by the officers of customs in Ire- 
 land averaged only ^10,000. per annum, but since that 
 year they have increased to j€30,000. ^54,000. j£107,000' 
 and I have been informed that no less than eight-tenths 
 of this produce of seizures was derived from tobacco ; 
 and that the expense of the Irish Preventive Water 
 Guard for the prevention of smuggling amounted to 
 ^86,000 last year. I am sure it will not be necessary to 
 say more in favor of a reduction of the duty on tobacco 
 or of any other measure, that by removing or lessening 
 the temptation to simiggle, shall induce the peasantry of 
 this country to desist from associating in hundreds, and 
 opposing by force of arms the endeavours of the officers 
 of the Revenue to prevent the illegal landing of goods sub- 
 ject to duty. 
 
 Want of ca- The waut of capital has greatly impeded the com- 
 pital 111 Ire- niercial, manufacturing, mining, and agricultural pros- 
 perity of Ireland ; and the failure of no less than ten pri- 
 vate banks within these few years, has plunged the country 
 into great distress, the more so as their excessive issue 
 of paper had previously created a material but artificial 
 advance in the price of land and of every other article ; 
 and the existing private banking establishments, in 
 consequence of their approaching liability to be called 
 upon to give specie for their notes, are obliged to limit 
 the issue of them within the bounds that their own interest 
 points out as beneficial, and are prevented from affording
 
 119 
 
 that extensive, just, and necessary assistance which the 
 country at large, and the agricultural interest in particu- 
 lar, in its present depressed state, stands so greatly in 
 need of. 
 
 I regret that the linen manufacture is not more gene- 
 rally attended to in the South of Ireland. A single 
 glance at the melancholy contrast between the state of the 
 South and of the North of Ireland, must present a crowd 
 of reflections to the mind of the reader. 
 
 Some of the observations and the measures recommended 
 in this work may appear to be severe, and others, per- 
 haps, visionary or impracticable ; but I can with truth as- 
 sure the reader, that they have been given to the public 
 free from any personal or party motive, with an anxious 
 wish for the restoration and preservation of tranquillity, — 
 for the improvement of the intellectual, moral, political, 
 and social condition of the i^eople of Ireland, — and the 
 advancement of the individual as well as national happi- 
 ness, honor, and prosperity. The attainment of these 
 desirable objects, and not the exaltation or triumph of 
 one party at the expense of another, or the subversion of 
 the Catholic religion, must also be the earnest wish of 
 our gracious Sovereign, of his Ministers, of Parliament, 
 and of every well educated and liberal minded man in the 
 empire. The monarch is the father of all his subjects, 
 and it must be the first object of his heart to see all his 
 people united, prosperous, and happy. We have too long 
 been wayward and disobedient, and I have had the painful 
 task of narrating the various instances of our untowardness, 
 but I have done it with a view that we might have a due 
 sense of the extent and enormity of them, and profit by 
 the warning they convey to us, " not to become the willing 
 instruments of the schemes of disaifected mountebanks
 
 120 
 
 and our own destruction," for they have brought only guilt, 
 punishment, ruin, unavailing regret, and innumerable 
 other ill consequences on those who have engaged in them. 
 I have endeavoured, to the best of the ability with which it 
 has pleased the Divine Author of our Being to bestow up- 
 on me, to point out such measures as, to my humble judg- 
 ment, appear best calculated to prevent a recurrence of dis- 
 turbance and illegal association, and to promote the welfare 
 and happiness of my countrymen : — it remains for superior 
 talents to decide upon the success or failure of my en- 
 deavours, and to improve upon my suggestions ; — and for 
 those persons who form the executive Government of the 
 British Empire to decide on, and to carry into effect, such 
 measures as promise to be practically beneficial ; with judg- 
 ment unbiassed by prejudice, and courage superior to 
 popular clamour. I have considered Ireland in the light 
 of a lonff neglected or ill cultivated farm, of a soil so 
 fruitful as to be capable of producing every thing the 
 wants of man can require, but overrun with weeds and 
 brambles ; and that if well weeded and fenced, would 
 return a generous, skilful, patient, and persevering cul- 
 tivator an hundred fold the amount of what he would have 
 the good sense to lay out upon it, with a liberal hand, 
 guided by a sound judgment. It is of the utmost 
 importance to create, and in time, and with the as- 
 sistance of our absentee proprietors, it would not be 
 difficult to create in the people of Ireland " that love of 
 justice and true perception of it, that obedience to the laws, 
 that respect for authority — which were, and which are, in 
 an eminent manner, the peculiar characteristics of the people 
 of England. They go to build up that high prosperity, 
 that comfort, security and abundance, which surround this 
 people, and which, excluding every strong temptation to 
 crime, leave the individual to collect round himself those 
 feelings of personal respect and national importance.^ which, 
 elevating the genernl tone of mind even of the lowest
 
 \2\ ^^ 000 564 027 'I 
 
 ranks of society, place them beyond the meanness and 
 the guilt of petty delinquencies." — Thoughts on Edu- 
 cation, p. 6. 
 
 When these desirable objects shall be attained, — with 
 moderate taxation, and the introduction and benefit of 
 British capital, enterprize, and perseverance,— suitable 
 education generally diffused amongst the people— the laws 
 of God and of our Country respected, and cheerfully 
 obeyed; — IRELAND will become great, flourishing, and 
 happy, beyond the expectations of her most sanguine 
 friends, but not beyond the ardent wish and fervent prayer 
 of the writer of these pages,— THE GLORY OF HER 
 SONS— THE PRIDE OF HER SOVEREIGN— 
 AND THE RIGHT ARM OF THE MATCHLESS 
 UNITED EMPIRE. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 R
 
 c